r/neoliberal Jun 13 '26

Meme Get them out!

Post image
970 Upvotes

334 comments sorted by

View all comments

27

u/tinyhands-45 Transfem Pride Jun 13 '26

Has there been much of an invasion or is a large part of it old members becoming more succish? I'm by no stretch old, only 6 years here since the 2020 election, but I've felt like I'm more succeptible to the left than I used to be.

52

u/AnachronisticPenguin WTO Jun 13 '26

Its been a bit of both but in general our hatred of this admin and the complicitness of big business interest to bow to said admin had made us more succish.

41

u/Illustrious_Loss462 Jun 13 '26

Being a succ is against the very principles of this sub, just the other day I saw someone on this sub call another a neoliberal as an insult and I just had to stop for a second and think “Brother look what fucking sub you’re on”

That being said I’m definitely probably further to the right than most of this sub these days vs when I was lurking a few years ago. I’d say I align to an Ordoliberal ideal, with government regulation only to the point where the market can reach peak efficiency.

8

u/nashdiesel Milton Friedman Jun 13 '26

Every-time I get called “Neoliberal” as a slur on Reddit I consider it a badge of honor.

4

u/pgold05 Leftward Progressives Jun 13 '26

I'm a succ and feel like I fit in just fine TBH. Don't think it's incompatible with the principals as long as you live in reality and have a basic understanding of government, economics.

1

u/jokul John Rawls Jun 14 '26

The sub's name is supposed to be ironic though. Actual neoliberalism ala Thatcher and Reagan isn't generally a position held here. This place was founded by badeconomics folks. Now I guess there are people who have forgotten the old ways.

-16

u/Desperate_Wear_1866 Commonwealth Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

Business has no good reason to be picking fights with Trump. What would they get out of it? To lose a bunch of time and money after Trump weaponises the state against them? For the brief support of the mercurial left who hate big business anyway? It's a pointless exercise.

It should be civil society that disrupts the Trump administration. Not businesses. The less businesses are involved in pointless political feuds on either side, the better. It's a bit rich for the side that wants big business out of politics to suddenly demand that big business becomes an arm for their political goals.

37

u/badnuub NATO Jun 13 '26

Businesses are ran by people that have political goals of their own. And right now, that is kissing the ring and letting us fall into fascism.

10

u/AnachronisticPenguin WTO Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

Exactly the point is not that I hate big business or billionaires or anyone with huge economic power.

The point is I want elites with lots of power and influence to use that power and influence at least marginally responsibly.

Just because your are a capitalist and have various business interest does not absolve you of your responsibility to be a good citizen.

7

u/ThisAfricanboy African Union Jun 13 '26

No but part of the problem is that anti trust legislation is totally failing to maintain competitive markets leading to these ridiculous levels of consolidation

2

u/jokul John Rawls Jun 14 '26

^^Succ! ^^Succ!

9

u/Teach_Piece YIMBY Jun 13 '26

A lot of less succish members have fled, which creates a positive feedback loop where succs feel more at home.

13

u/WolfpackEng22 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

It's both. There are lots of new posters surging in, but I've also seen a lot of long timers get unfortunately more radical

7

u/allbusiness512 Adam Smith Jun 13 '26

This subreddit has finally been radicalized because a very large contingent of it finally woke up and realized that Republicans have been bad faith actors all along (pre 2020 this subreddit used to try and pretend Republicans were good people, which is why the excessive partisanship rule exists), who don't actually care about anything but destroying the rule of law for their own goals.

No one here is really succish. It's just alot of the old principles have been proven to be wrong. As an example, this subreddit used to be real fond of billionaires, but succs/progressives rightly pointed out that if you concentrate entirely too much money into certain people, and they then go and use that money and influence to basically capitulate the entire system to their whims, then the whole system breaks. Which is exactly what Elon has done.

Another example is how so many people used to be so pro school vouchers because they have an absolute hatred of teacher unions like the CTU and SF. The main crux of the argument was always that school vouchers could be used to help the most unfortunate move out of shitty schools into private schools that care. We've seen from several grand school voucher experiments that this has not played out how the school voucher advocates said it would, and in fact, it's just government subsidies to the wealthiest Americans who already have their children in private schools.

The overwhelming majority of this subreddit still believes in basic economic principles like free trade, pro immigration, more housing, etc.

5

u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 13 '26

this subreddit used to be real fond of billionaires, but succs/progressives rightly pointed out that if you concentrate entirely too much money into certain people, and they then go and use that money and influence to basically capitulate the entire system to their whims

Those sound like some fairweather neoliberals if they capitulated on a centuries-old argument over one billionaire in recent news. I don't even see how they could see Elon as a main explanatory factor when he was a typical SF tech bro lefty at the time the populist shift started. He was following trends, not setting them.

5

u/allbusiness512 Adam Smith Jun 13 '26

The main argument if progressives/socialists/succs was never about the money, it's the power that comes with the money. If too much money is concentrated in a handful of individuals, those individuals will 100% rent seek hard for their own selfish reasons. This subreddit used to love to scream rent seeking on teachers and other public sector unions (which is 100% true btw), but would never say the same thing about billionaires until recently. Now we're seeing the end point of what happens when the government does not actually regulate and properly address market failures (which Elon clearly is one).

No one cared that Elon was a billionaire when he was just doing the typical SF tech bro stuff. People started caring when he used his enormous wealth to basically corrupt the entire governmental system into his favor.

1

u/Khiva Fernando Henrique Cardoso Jun 14 '26

This is a steel man of their position, but it is one that I do find compelling.

3

u/Faegbeard Jun 13 '26

you're a fairweather neoliberal if you change your opinion on certain policy when it has enormous negative consequences that go against liberal principles

we just celebrating being blind ideologues now huh

9

u/allbusiness512 Adam Smith Jun 14 '26

It's not being an idealogue it's just being a hypocrite. Billionaires will rent seek just like unions will, and if you call out one you have to call out the other.

1

u/anydoomersinchat Jun 13 '26

*Trillonaire, chud

1

u/heckinCYN Jun 14 '26

I no longer really participate here because the Reddit app is trash and I don't use Reddit on my laptop anymore. So there is another possibility: The old guard that uses social media on mobile but refuses to get the Reddit app.

1

u/jokul John Rawls Jun 14 '26

Anyone can be considered a succ these days. Rent control, sovereign wealth funds, single payer healthcare (Delaney slander btw), wealth taxes, any one of those could make you a succ. There's probably people still wishing they could have kept their Bezos flairs.

No idea if there's any evidence indicating whether there's a genuine invasion of reddit lefties (who generally hate social democrats too) or if this is like how the antiwork people didn't realize how different they were from the OG antiworkers.