This is one of the best critiques on neo-liberalism as an extreme ideology that I have read. It is long but well worth the investment in your time. On a personal note, I have long been offended by the neo-liberal hijacking of F.A. Hayek’s ideas, especially those on the relationship of central planning to the limits of information, which fit my empirical studies of the Pentagon's decision-making pathologies like a hand fits a glove. Yet, Pentagon spending is a subject that most neo-liberals, like Congressman Paul Ryan, refuse to countenance. Neo-liberals, led by Milton Freedman, have twisted Hayek’s ideas into an uber capitalist, free-market, quasi-religious dogma. Lehmann’s essay is an admirable evisceration of that extremism.
Chuck Spinney
Neoliberalism, the Revolution in Reverse
Chris Lehmann
The Baffler, No. 24, 2014
The neoliberal flight from public responsibility is actually a curiously instructive tale of strikingly other-than-intended consequences.