Interesting form of rhetoric.

1. Invent a blanket term for your opponent. 2. Ascribe extremism to their views (“they say free market, but they mean pro-business”) - tarring everyone with the same brush. 3. Arrogate moderate positions to yourself (“some free markets are OK”), thereby marginalising your opponent. 4. Argue that anyone who disagrees with your position is an <insert-invented-term->; cementing the dichotomy and the marginalisation of your opponent.

Yup. I stopped reading the article after I realised that it was simply an eloquent argument against a straw man.

I have yet to encounter anyone who actually calls themselves neoliberal. This term is used only by the political left, who prefer to argue with a political ideology they themselves invented.

Reagan and Thatcher were conservatives. Why is everyone trying to rebrand their ideology as something called "neoliberalism"? They were the arch enemies of what most people seem to call liberal, even in economic terms (social safety net, consumer and environmental protection, universal access to healthcare and education, etc). What is insufficient about the term "conservative"? What about their ideology close enough to liberal ideology to conflate the terms?

> Reagan and Thatcher were conservatives. Why is everyone trying to rebrand their ideology as something called "neoliberalism"?

Neoliberalism in its modern sense is a particular politico-economic viewpoint, a subset of what in modern America is political conservatism. (The term in its current sense is European in origin, where “liberal” has a different meaning, and although there is some overlap in applicability to the 1980s American term “neoliberalism”—both apply to much of the pro-capitalist faction of the Democratic Party that reached the peak of its power in the 1990s and remains dominant in the party but weakening—its a different term that is largely unrelated to the usual sense of “liberal” in the American political context.)

Is any part of the Democratic Party not pro-capitalist? (As in, “we should have a fundamentally capitalist economy, shaped by some regulation and redistribution to deal with negative externalities and alleviate hardship.”)

Maybe some people who believe in total collectivization vote Democratic as the lesser of two evils, but are they really unseating the capitalists?

> Is any part of the Democratic Party not pro-capitalist? (As in, “we should have a fundamentally capitalist economy, shaped by some regulation and redistribution to deal with negative externalities and alleviate hardship.”)

That particular binary sense is not the sense I was using; I was using it as a relative descriptor within the Party for favoring a relatively more-capitalist version of the modern mixed economy compared to other factions of the Democratic Party.

Neoliberalism is an economic policy rather than a political ideology. Both Dems and Repubs practice neoliberalism.

Trump, depending on mood, is not quite a neoliberalist given his view that other countries do not reciprocate our neoliberal economics.

It's his opposition to neoliberalism which causes consternation amongst the old right (Bushes). But enamors him amongst traditional unionists who see his policies as more favorable to American workers.

I think you have it backwards. It's the 'liberal ideology' as you put it that is conflating and rebranding the classic economic liberalism. I think it's fair to say Thatcher and Reagan were proponents of free markets and private ownership, which is at least a basic part of the reason they are considered some of the best examples of neoliberalism last century.

In politics liberal meaning “left-wing” is a US English thing

A lot of what is considered “left-wing” in the US is “liberal” (and somewhere on the political right) in the global sense, though, confusing things more.

So “Liberal Democrats” from the UK is a false cognate?

Liberal in this case refers to economic liberalism as in the "free" in free-market. This does cause confusion though given the modern meaning. For example, the Liberal party in Australia is conservative.

Microsoft would seem to be one counterexample.

What exactly constitutes "malevolence", in your view? The disadvantages of monopolies are inherent and extend far beyond mere price gouging. Your argument seems to be that if a monopolistic company doesn't innovate (at the same pace they would if they had stiff competition) then some nimble upstart will easily overtake them. But that's not how the world works. If the incumbent has all the patents and all the money, nimble upstarts can be combatted in all sorts of ways beyond "fair" competition - they can buy them (as Facebook does to all upstart social networks that gain a foothold), sue them unfairly and bleed them dry (as Creative did to Audigy), or use their market position to change the rules faster than a competitor can keep up (Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy).

Of course, if you won't accept any example of monopoly that involves unfair government privilege, you neglect the fact of regulatory capture - once a company gets to a certain size, it can often buy its way into an unfair advantage (this is the usual order of things, rather than government arbitrarily picking a company and then it becoming a monopoly).

Malevolence as would be described by the CONSUMER (low quality and/or high prices). Something like Comcast, a successful business whose customers typically hate it, and which is deeply entrenched as a 'utility' due to its foothold in local municipalities.

> If the incumbent has all the patents

Is that not a form of government licensing?

> sue them unfairly and bleed them dry (as Creative did to Audigy)

Is that not exploiting flaws in the governing system? Wouldn't the best solution be to fix the flaws, rather than create a workaround to attempt to fix abuses of more fundamental problems?

> you neglect the fact of regulatory capture - once a company gets to a certain size, it can often buy its way into an unfair advantage

I don't neglect that at all -- that is the problem to solve. Obviously, humans are not perfect so no government will ever be, but we should strive to solve more fundamental problems than to layer our legal system in thousands of pages of bandaids, which have done nothing to solve the Comcasts of the world.

Do you disagree?

> Malevolence as would be described by the CONSUMER (low quality and/or high prices)

So how does this not heavily make MS malevolent? MS has done very malevolent things specifically against the consumer. They set back browser technology many years. They write majorily closed source software. They autoinstalled windows 10 onto client hardware without permission and using dark patterns. Windows 8/10 may have some internal technical improvements over xp/7, but they forced in tons of anti-consumer changes like ads, telemetry, removed settings, removed features, undoing user preferences, etc. Just this week my device plays audio out the speakers and headphones when I plug in headphones. Ten years ago you would have said "lol android or Linux will be stable one day". No, it was windows 10. I can forgive early versions of software I didn't pay for when it's a little unstable. But late versions of software I pay for maybe once every four years?

In fact, I challenge you to name one monopoly that isn't malevolent. Bonus points if it's government ran (oh no!) and not intentionally underfunded by Republicans.

> They set back browser technology many years. > They write majorily closed source software. > using dark patterns

Sounds like you have some personal bones to pick with companies YOU dislike, and yet the average consumer/company does not say "I hate Microsoft Windows" when they buy a Windows desktop (or 1000) (like they might when the purchase Comcast, which is closer to a real monopoly). Even if it seems to you like there is a predominantly negative sentiment around Microsoft, realize that HN and techie circles are little bubbles that do not well describe the market as a whole.

Every malevolent monopoly needs to be sustained by government force, especially the worst monopolies of all -- governments. The funny part about the Microsoft example is that their biggest clients are governments, especially the US government.

> In fact, I challenge you to name one monopoly that isn't malevolent.

Read this entire thread -- there are plenty of examples. Google and Amazon are modern examples with great products. I actually like Windows 10 a lot as well, even though I had to make some tweaks and Microsoft isn't really a monopoly anymore.

> Bonus points if it's government ran (oh no!) and not intentionally underfunded by Republicans.

Careful not to let your personal ideology prevent you from learning new things (applies to everyone). But I'll give you some examples: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac :)

> Sounds like you have some personal bones to pick with companies YOU dislike

No evidence of this, I only used facts.

> Even if it seems to you like there is a predominantly negative sentiment around Microsoft, realize that HN and techie circles are little bubbles that do not well describe the market as a whole.

Not important, economic damage isn't measured in non-techies feelings.

> Careful not to let your personal ideology prevent you from learning new things

You first. :) :) :) :)

I have yet to hear how businesses with network effects, high barrier to entry, and control of rare resources don't inevitably become monopolies. Everything you're citing is just one form of those. Look at Facebook or Google, did government regs really help them become so huge?

Perhaps this will be interesting to you: http://www.aei.org/publication/charts-of-the-day-creative-de...

Dominant players get displaced all the time. Famous examples you've likely heard of include Kodak, Yahoo, and Sears.

As for Google and Facebook -- people like the products. Consumers are happy. The people on HN concerned about privacy and wasted time advocate tools which have little traction in the market - things like DuckDuckGo (great tool btw.) Why? Because consumers don't care. If FB started charging $100/month for account access tomorrow, you'd better believe they'd be out of business pretty fast (so they won't). How is that a malevolent monopoly? But eventually, even they will make enough mistakes and be overtaken by more innovative companies, as difficult as that may be to consider right now.

Standard Oil?

"Standard's actions and secret[14] transport deals helped its kerosene price to drop from 58 to 26 cents from 1865 to 1870. Competitors disliked the company's business practices, but consumers liked the lower prices." - Wikipedia

Not a malevolent monopoly in any sense. Once they had gained the dominant industry position, sure, they could have price gouged for a short time, but without government protection, my claim is that they would have lost their position. They knew that, so they didn't.