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That’s not “liberal economics”, that’s just “Capitalism in practice”.
Where is the difference?
So if your question is in good faith let’s break it down a little.
Capitalism is a economic system. It may have some liberal or conservative slant inherently, but in theory there isn’t anything implicit.
A liberal or conservative economic policy would be how you manage that economic system. Liberal economic policy should tend to favor rules and regulations to account for the flaws of unchecked capitalism. Conservative policy tends towards less regulation, relying on the market system to set prices for goods and services.
Personally, I’m liberal because the ultimate goal for any capitalist is a monopoly. Often in that situation, you get an unequal power dynamic that allows a company to stay ahead of competition or bully them out of the market, preventing the market from setting prices. Additionally liberal policy tries to regulate negative externalities, such as companies dumping chemicals in a river (such as when the Ohio river caught on fire leading to the creation of the EPA). Frankly, these are real problems inherent in capitalism that conservative policy doesn’t address because it makes the rich richer. It’s pretty disingenuous to argue that liberal policy is there to benefit the rich.
Anyway, that’s a super basic breakdown. None of that is say there isn’t corruption from the rich and greedy in politics. Frankly, money equating to political influence is crazy and has allowed the weathly to completely shape world policy. If you want change, look to rank choice voting systems or other ways to move more choice and power back to voters.
I appreciate you trying to answer a question in good faith, but you’re conflating ‘liberal’ with ‘vaguely left-leaning’, and none of what you’ve said makes any sense outside of current US political ‘discourse’ where ‘Liberal’ means ‘slightly left-wing’.
What you describe as liberal economics is closer to Keynsianism or Social Democracy.
In economics, the ‘Liberal’ school of thought is generally against regulation and interference in the market, seeing it as being ‘self-regulating’. In economic terms, Reagan and Thatcher were Liberals - hence them being associated with ‘Neoliberalism’.
The whole thing you said about Capitalism tending towards monopoly is actually a very Marxist/Socialist idea - Liberal economic theory tends to argue that monopolies form because of government and that they wouldn’t occur in a truly free market (although its more nuanced than that, there’s major disagreements over ‘Natural Monopolies’ etc. within the Liberal school). Source: look up any Liberal economist/thinker and their view on monopolies. E.g Friedman, J.S Mill.
Capitalism being an economic system doesn’t make it apolitical. ‘In theory’ Liberalism and Capitalism are very very closely intertwined, it’s not implicit, it’s absolutely explicit if you read any Liberal political or economic theory.
Economics is inherently political.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#Libe Sections 3 and 4 of this are a decent starting point.
Also the idea of slightly changing our voting systems as the way to drive change is quite hilarious. Sure, moving away from FPTP would probably help a bit, but it’s not like countries with other systems are doing fine. These issues are more fundamental. And historically, fundamental change has never occured through small technical adjustments to political systems.
I don’t get it. Billionaires do billionaires things, but this meme being made the same week as a liberal policy requiring fair taxes for the rich to cover social security for the next 75 years makes this poster 100% out of touch.
Which policy is that? Does it have a built in way to prevent accumlation of wealth? Maybe a death tax? Maybe some nationalizing of industry’s? No? Then it sounds like you are the one out of touch.
There’s 0 real economists who hold anything close to these views. What a stupid take. Before you downvote, I ask that you find a single source that contradicts my claim. Since all liberal economics is like that, it should be easy, right?
Sure, real economists don’t explicitly hold those views. But the kinds of metrics and models liberal economists are fond of using basically lead to that flowchart.
