Neoliberal Looting of America

While the OP-ED by Professor Mehrsa Baradaran (“The Neoliberal Looting of America “)(A23,July 8) is erudite and factually accurate, her unfortunate choice of title is likely to mislead. It is true that Friedrich Hayek’s promotion of private investment in public markets as the better road to wealth and economic co-ordination than government spending programs was denominated “classical liberalism “. It is also true that private equity firms have embraced that philosophy and have carried it to an extreme that has created the concentration of wealth and power and the disparity of benefit in current society.
Indeed, Hayek, together with other economic thinkers, including Milton Friedman, popularized the term “neoliberalism “ to describe a philosophy committed to enhancing the rights of individuals while being wary of the dangers of unlimited democracy. Hayek believed that the market was a better regulator of monetary policy than centralized governmental planners.
However, it is unfortunate Prof. Baradaran has chosen to resurrect the term neoliberal in describing the societal problems and gross inequities fostered by private equity firms. While these firms may be following, and exceeding, the tenets of classical liberalism, they do not in the least espouse modern day liberalism as that designation is now commonly applied.
Unlike Hayek and his ilk, today’s liberals strongly favor government intervention to address the ills and to overcome the disparities of a society structured to reward only the very few.
So, by describing the private equity marauders as neoliberals as she damns them for present day economic woes, Prof. Baradaran misleads the casual reader to believe erroneously that liberalism as the term is currently used has dis-served the common folk and is responsible for the existing imbalance of wealth and wellbeing. That is not the case, as the article actually demonstrates.