What, concretely, do you think The Neoliberal Project has accomplished in its existence so far? The 1⁄3 million and 70+ chapters are cool, but have you seen any traction on policies you care about due to your influence?
This is a complex thing to measure, because the largest thing we’re trying to do is to create an ideological movement that captures a lot of people in the long run. I admire the DSA a lot and think they’re very much an example of the impact I’d like to have (but obviously with what I think are preferable political views). I think they have had enormous impact on current US politics.
But if you had asked 10 years ago ‘What has the DSA accomplished?’, it’d be a tough question to answer. They had a handful of local politicians, but nobody really notable nationally was an out-and-proud DSA member until Bernie Sanders exploded in popularity. It’d be hard to describe them as having a huge impact on US politics at that time, but since the Sanders Moment they’ve had a massive impact, both in shifting the overton window of the Democratic Party in a lot of ways and in having very high profile members of Congress. I think a longrun path to success for us likely looks similar, in that we have to build the foundation of what we’re working on for years and then hopefully at the correct moment we’ll be able to leverage it in a huge way to change politics.
More concretely! I think we’ve successfully made ‘advocate for sensible monetary policy’ the socially accepted elite position. It’s been a signature issue for us for as long as we’ve existed, and and area few people used to care about. Now both center-right and center-left (and even portions of the further right/left) now advocate for how important Bernanke, Yellen and Powell have been and how important it is to keep them independent and free of partisan politics. Goldbugs are now simply laughed off, and when someone like Elizabeth Warren goes after Jay Powell, the majority of the center-left is jumping to dunk on Warren and defend Powell (who is a fantastic Fed chair and should be reappointed).
That’s one where I think I can really pinpoint us as key actors, because it’s a niche issue and we were so early on it and so loud about it. A lot of other issues it’s very difficult to measure impact—when someone votes the way you want, was it truly because of you? Who knows? I can also say that a lot of talking with officials is talking them out of dumb ideas, and that’s influence that never sees the light of day. There’s another part of this that will be frustrating as an answer—there are high level politicians who have directly told us that they love what we’re doing and basically agree with us/identify with us, but prefer to keep it silent because they avoid ideological labels. I know that sucks as answer, but it’s the truth.
One other concrete thing—we have a small number of members who are elected, almost all at very local levels on local city commissions and things like that. I think it’s fair to count whatever they do as direct influence.
What, concretely, do you think The Neoliberal Project has accomplished in its existence so far? The 1⁄3 million and 70+ chapters are cool, but have you seen any traction on policies you care about due to your influence?
This is a complex thing to measure, because the largest thing we’re trying to do is to create an ideological movement that captures a lot of people in the long run. I admire the DSA a lot and think they’re very much an example of the impact I’d like to have (but obviously with what I think are preferable political views). I think they have had enormous impact on current US politics.
But if you had asked 10 years ago ‘What has the DSA accomplished?’, it’d be a tough question to answer. They had a handful of local politicians, but nobody really notable nationally was an out-and-proud DSA member until Bernie Sanders exploded in popularity. It’d be hard to describe them as having a huge impact on US politics at that time, but since the Sanders Moment they’ve had a massive impact, both in shifting the overton window of the Democratic Party in a lot of ways and in having very high profile members of Congress. I think a longrun path to success for us likely looks similar, in that we have to build the foundation of what we’re working on for years and then hopefully at the correct moment we’ll be able to leverage it in a huge way to change politics.
More concretely! I think we’ve successfully made ‘advocate for sensible monetary policy’ the socially accepted elite position. It’s been a signature issue for us for as long as we’ve existed, and and area few people used to care about. Now both center-right and center-left (and even portions of the further right/left) now advocate for how important Bernanke, Yellen and Powell have been and how important it is to keep them independent and free of partisan politics. Goldbugs are now simply laughed off, and when someone like Elizabeth Warren goes after Jay Powell, the majority of the center-left is jumping to dunk on Warren and defend Powell (who is a fantastic Fed chair and should be reappointed).
That’s one where I think I can really pinpoint us as key actors, because it’s a niche issue and we were so early on it and so loud about it. A lot of other issues it’s very difficult to measure impact—when someone votes the way you want, was it truly because of you? Who knows? I can also say that a lot of talking with officials is talking them out of dumb ideas, and that’s influence that never sees the light of day. There’s another part of this that will be frustrating as an answer—there are high level politicians who have directly told us that they love what we’re doing and basically agree with us/identify with us, but prefer to keep it silent because they avoid ideological labels. I know that sucks as answer, but it’s the truth.
One other concrete thing—we have a small number of members who are elected, almost all at very local levels on local city commissions and things like that. I think it’s fair to count whatever they do as direct influence.