I’m not massively familiar with neoliberalism or your project but I’m struggling to understand where the specific recommendations/positions come from. To what degree are they derived from a set of clear principles or a philosophy as opposed to being the concensus of leaders in the inside of the movement or some other method?
I feel like EAs are generally strongly ‘bought in’ on there being a moral obligation to help other people if you can do so easily and it’s important to use evidence and reason when working out how to do good but beyond that I see most EA cause areas more like things that some EAs are interested in, I don’t think most EAs are strongly compelled by all mainstream cause areas. Would you say that neoliberals are generally strongly bought in at the policy level (e.g. we believe in a carbon tax) or a more fundamental level and do you think that you need to support all of those policies outlined in the first what we believe link to be a neoliberal?
There’s definitely a set of principles that underpins our policy beliefs. A lot of this goes all the way back to classical liberalism—to be a neoliberal means first and foremost that you are a liberal and are grounded in liberal political philosophy. This means we hold the core liberal values of equality before the law, democratic governance, a market economy, freedoms of press/religion/speech/assembly/etc.
Modern neoliberals take that liberalism and add and emphasize a few things. Neoliberals are internationalist and globalist, which leads to our support for free trade, free immigration, international institutions, etc. We are social liberals who fight against racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry. We are capitalists who believe in using a relatively free-market economy to make a richer world, but paired with a welfare state to alleviate poverty and suffering. And we have an emphasis on evidence-based policy. All of those are relatively base-level beliefs that inform the policies we support.
I’m not massively familiar with neoliberalism or your project but I’m struggling to understand where the specific recommendations/positions come from. To what degree are they derived from a set of clear principles or a philosophy as opposed to being the concensus of leaders in the inside of the movement or some other method?
I feel like EAs are generally strongly ‘bought in’ on there being a moral obligation to help other people if you can do so easily and it’s important to use evidence and reason when working out how to do good but beyond that I see most EA cause areas more like things that some EAs are interested in, I don’t think most EAs are strongly compelled by all mainstream cause areas. Would you say that neoliberals are generally strongly bought in at the policy level (e.g. we believe in a carbon tax) or a more fundamental level and do you think that you need to support all of those policies outlined in the first what we believe link to be a neoliberal?
There’s definitely a set of principles that underpins our policy beliefs. A lot of this goes all the way back to classical liberalism—to be a neoliberal means first and foremost that you are a liberal and are grounded in liberal political philosophy. This means we hold the core liberal values of equality before the law, democratic governance, a market economy, freedoms of press/religion/speech/assembly/etc.
Modern neoliberals take that liberalism and add and emphasize a few things. Neoliberals are internationalist and globalist, which leads to our support for free trade, free immigration, international institutions, etc. We are social liberals who fight against racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry. We are capitalists who believe in using a relatively free-market economy to make a richer world, but paired with a welfare state to alleviate poverty and suffering. And we have an emphasis on evidence-based policy. All of those are relatively base-level beliefs that inform the policies we support.