Thoughts from a neoliberal

We're probably going to hear that word used a lot in the coming primaries, so I thought I'd at least throw some stakes down.

I am a neoliberal. On most economics questions I agree with people like Paul Krugman, Muhammad Yanus, Abijit Banerjee, and Hernando de Soto (the writer, not the explorer; I hate the explorer). I think the free trade systems we built over the 1990s and 2000s are responsible for the absolutely amazing collapses in global extreme poverty and global inequality we have seen over the past 30 years, along with the incredible reductions in child mortality, communicable diseases, and deaths by violence. I believe regulated market forces can achieve significant social equality goals (see the corporate boycott of North Carolina over its horrible bathroom bill). I believe rich countries need to embrace the globalized service economy, develop strong safety nets for our population, and broadly accept high immigration levels (democratic socialists love Scandinavia's safety nets; neoliberals love Scandinavia's light hand in direct market regulation -- it's a win win, if we can stop trying to strangle each other constantly).

Like it or not (and a lot of this board is "not" ), neoliberalism is one of the constituencies of the Democratic party, and has been since Jimmy Carter. There used to also be neoliberal Republicans but Trump seems to have driven them into hiding; at any rate any neoliberal who wants their policies enacted is only looking to our party.

Anyways: neoliberalism is one of the tools the party brings to bear on the problems we face. Candidates will choose it sometimes and eschew it other times. And the *resident currently infecting the White House is probably the most anti-neoliberal figure ever. I know I'm going to see a lot of people throw the word "neoliberal" around at any candidate they don't like, so I just wanted to throw out there: the "most neoliberal" declared candidate is Elizabeth Warren (why so many Bernie Sanders supporters adore her despite the fact that she is essentially the opposite of him philosophically is beyond me, but there we are), and obviously Corey Booker were he to declare might top her. But personally I'm defaulting to Harris right now until somebody else convinces me he or she is more likely to beat Trump.