Thanks to Aaron Gertler for inviting me to do this AMA.
My name is Jeremiah Johnson, and I'm one of the founders and directors of the Neoliberal Project. The Project is a organization dedicated to advancing liberalism with thousands of members and 70+ chapters around the world. You can find the quick version of what we believe here or here (happy to go into more detail). I help run the Project day to day, host the Neoliberal Podcast, and do basically anything/everything else including social media, political commentary, content creation, managing local chapters, etc.
Aaron was kind enough to invite me here because the EA and neoliberal online communities have a surprising amount of overlap. I've been personally involved in the EA movement in a number of ways. I created a series of charity drives on the neoliberal subreddit that have in total raised more than 1/3 of a million dollars for EA favorites like DeWorm The World and Against Malaria Foundation. I've interviewed EA-related guests on my podcast like Alvin Roth, (Nobel winning economist who created the algorithms for kidney swaps) Robert Wiblin (of 80000 hours), Rob Mather (CEO of Against Malaria), etc. I donate a portion of my salary to GiveWell recommended charities every year, and two years ago I donated a kidney to a stranger after some EA-aligned people convinced me that it was a good choice (I had a popular AMA on donating a kidney here, but happy to answer any questions here as well).
Ask Me Anything about:
- Purely EA topics like
- Kidney donation - either the policy side or my personal experiences going through the process
- Raising money for AMF, and why I like malaria bednets so much
- The intersection between the neoliberal community and the EA community
- Why I think politics is an underrated way to do good that the EA community sometimes overlooks
- The Neoliberal Project, neoliberalism, politics or political philosophy, etc.
- Or anything else that seems relevant or that you're curious about.
What your best argument for using the term neoliberal? I've read the exponents post about it:
"There is a trend in politics recently (and in fact since the beginning of time) for old political labels to be rediscovered, reused and redefined. One of these terms, and perhaps the most contentious one, is “Neoliberalism”. The reason for this is because the definition of the term, and the relationship between who identifies with it and who is identified by it, has shifted dramatically over its history."
While the post clearly explains what your movement of neoliberalism is trying to acheive, it doesn't clarify the name choice. It seems like to say: "politicals terms get reused, so we're going with neoliberal". This doesn't seem like a substantial analysis of the costs and benefits of using the name for your movement. Indeed, it's seems like there might be major reputational risks involved. In my personal experience being loosely affiliated with neoliberalism, it takes a lot of work to explain that: "No, I don't support Margaret Thatcher, Reagan, or union-busting. Sorry, no, we're reinventing it to mean this, that, and the other thing. Forget you previous bad connotations of neoliberalism" More remarkable is that while neoliberalism is attempting to push back against the current wave of leftism , it is truly only on a few issues, and agrees on a lot of the basics. If I had to list a few of these major differences, it would be that (regulated) markets, YIMBYism, and free trade are good. In the grand scheme of things, these are small (but important) differences.
However the nomenclature choice seems odd, given that the term neoliberalism is the ultimate insult in progressive circles, with an often nebulous definition, but an always evil connotation. I see a certain contrarian satisfaction in trying to reclaim the term and redefine it, but ultimately I do not see what you gain from using the term . However, it does seem clear to me that you make an immediate poor first impression on many of the folks you might be trying to persuade to become part of your movement.
Personally, I support London's Neoliberal chapter becoming the London New Liberals, and would welcome a broader shift towards New Liberalism or something similar. Of course, there are costs to switching the name now, but I think it's possible that the benefits would overcome the switching costs.
What's your best response to my argument? What am I missing?
I think it's important to realize that different names serve different purposes at different points in time.
If the initial subreddit had called itself the very sober sounding "/r/NewLiberal" from the beginning, I firmly believe that what we are doing right now would not exist. The subreddit would never have gotten the attention it got, and would never have grown as fast as it did. Reclaiming the term neoliberal was delightfully subversive and grabbed people's attention - people who loved it and people who hated it. Before the Neoliberal P... (read more)