In this diary, I laid out a brief argument: neoliberalism is a real term describing a real thing. The diary was a rejection of people who argue in the fashion of "well I don't use the word 'neoliberalism' because (insert excuse here)." Can you imagine people discussing "the way things are" without using words like "sociology" and without referencing the work of sociologists? It's on that level. So I laid out a short bibliography wherein interested readers can check out the history of neoliberalism.

Okay, now this is the point where I lay out how neoliberalism relates to the economy of the current day. You'll see, when you view the Richard Wolff video, that Richard Wolff makes a distinction between "monetary policy" and "fiscal policy." This is the distinction that maintains the neoliberal dogma. "Monetary policy" is now when the Fed "loans" money to corporations, as it has done since April of last year. "Fiscal policy" is when the government taxes and spends. The latter is more taxes to pay for things but fewer taxes to make the Republicans happy, and more spending on special interests to make them happy but less spending to "cut the deficit," the fetish of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

So "monetary policy" and "fiscal policy." You can see that the neoliberal politicians are going to attack "fiscal policy" because "fiscal policy" is un-neoliberal whenever it supports ordinary people instead of their markets. "Monetary policy," however, is not to be discussed because "monetary policy" (it even has a dogma named after it, monetarism) is sacrosanct because it's how the neoliberals reconcile a Keynesian economic structure, one set up during the term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with their own aims.

Let's examine, here, this idea of monetarism and why it makes monetary policy sacrosanct. The anonymous Wikipedia article has it right for now:

Monetarism is a school of thought in monetary economics that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. Monetarist theory asserts that variations in the money supply have major influences on national output in the short run and on price levels over longer periods. Monetarists assert that the objectives of monetary policy are best met by targeting the growth rate of the money supply rather than by engaging in discretionary monetary policy.

Monetarism today is mainly associated with the work of Milton Friedman, who was among the generation of economists to accept Keynesian economics and then criticise Keynes's theory of fighting economic downturns using fiscal policy (government spending).

Ah yes, Milton Friedman, core architect of neoliberalism. You can see, then, that the distinction between "monetary policy" and "fiscal policy" is something the neoliberals use to run what is a Keynesian government apparatus (the Fed, the spending agencies, the IRS and so on), but for the interests of rich people instead of what Keynes intended, which was that the capitalist economy should be managed by the government for the benefit of everyone.

In the Wolff video, you can see that, following Wolff's narrative, "monetary policy" and "fiscal policy" are now part of the same game, keeping capitalism on life support while enriching the already-rich: