RIP, neoliberalism. Its ghosts live on

Neoliberalism is over. Around the world, the populist left and right are rejecting it. As a political term, it’s a dead man walking, even as its market-based policies still shape major economies. This isn’t a eulogy for free enterprise, which Americans strongly support. It’s a eulogy for a word that has lost its meaning and stands in the way of a real debate about markets and the role of government.

In the Wall Street Journal, James Lloyd Dusenbury recently argued that our political vocabulary, including communism and capitalism, is obsolete. Neoliberalism belongs on the list, too.

Start with the obvious: no one agrees what it means. Even Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy doesn’t offer a single definition.

To its defenders, it’s the belief that markets work better than governments, which have a limited role in regulating capital and distributing wealth. To its detractors, it’s shorthand for whatever they dislike about global capitalism: billionaires, technocrats, Silicon Valley, immigration, even Pete Buttigieg.

In short, it’s a zombie word. 

Second, no one identifies with it. There are socialists, libertarians, progressives, and conservatives. Where are the neoliberals marching in the streets? Like neoconservatism, it’s a label used in academia, media, and think tanks, not........

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