There has been a lot of talk over the past eight years about whether we are now in a period of "post-neoliberalism," with efforts to flesh out exactly what that means for economic policy. To some extent, it even seemed as though there was an alliance between those on the left and those on the right who had objections to "neoliberalism" (although there is no consensus on what this term means), and I've seen a number of left-right anti-neoliberal alliances involving American progressives on the left and "populists" on the right. One thing people on the left seem to think post-neoliberalism should mean is less reliance on markets. Maybe that's what post-neoliberalism proponents on the right believe as well, but it has been a little harder to follow their arguments.
With Trump's victory, I have been curious about what the anti-neoliberal left wing's take would be on the future of economic policy. In their view, are we still in post-neoliberalism, but just with the right wing populist version of it in effect? Did Trump's first election set the shift in motion, Biden's governing philosophy cement things, and now under Trump again post-neoliberalism is the present and future?
But is that really what the tech folks have in mind? Are they "libertarians" who want "unfettered markets"? Let me present an alternative theory of where U.S. economic policy may be headed.
There is clearly a tech crowd that has some influence with Trump at the moment, but what we are seeing from them is not full-fledged libertarianism. While we are likely to see some targeted deregulation in a few policy areas, another part of what they are looking for is more government spending on things they sell (space travel, defense tech, etc.), and this government spending is a form of industrial policy. Under this version of industrial policy, instead of picking winners based on ideas about overall the economic well-being of the country, private sector people who are trying to influence policymaking simply want to channel the industrial policy to ... well, themselves. (It might even be said that they are pushing for an almost "unfettered" industrial policy.)
Such a result should not be too surprising, and in fact this is one of the main reasons many of us have concerns about industrial policy. While there may be a handful of people who want to use industrial policy for what they see as benevolent central planning and are immune to lobbying, once the policy is in motion, it inevitably gets captured by interest groups. (Interestingly, Foroohar herself recognizes at times in her piece that the tech actors in question are seeking and getting lots of government money: "Trump’s band of techno-libertarian “volunteers” — as Musk rather disingenuously put it, given Tesla and SpaceX get more federal funding than NPR ..."; "As Trump builds his new administration, the gains have already been stupendous. Watch as Palantir takes over the military-industrial complex, ...")
With all this in mind, I'm not sure what is in store for "post-neoliberalism" going forward. The Biden administration certainly pushed its "anti-neoliberal" economic policy agenda pretty far, and then the Democrats fared poorly in the 2024 election. Will the Democrats go back to this same playbook next time they are in power? Or will they rethink what policies work politically? And if at least some of the post-neoliberal crowd on the left wants to disown the populist right wing version of post-neoliberalism, does anything remain of the alliance against neoliberalism? Perhaps now we are nearing the end of the debate over whether there was or is something called "neoliberalism" or "post-neoliberalism," and we can just focus the discussion on what degree of market-orientation we want the economy to have.
