In the 1930s, the German sociologist and economist, Alexander Rüstow, was in favour of the nationalisation of rail companies and utilities - what Prout would call 'socialisation'. The difference being that in 'socialisation' it is the social well-being of the people that matters and has priority. The nation is subsidiary, and so should 'nationalisation'.
A nation really arises as "a kind of sentiment" (Sarkar 1960). Though the sentiment revolves around various factors these factors (e.g. language, religion, etc) are of themselves insignificant as it is the sentiment itself that forms a nation. That sentiment comes from people.
Similarly, in considering what sort of key industries should be run on a governmental business enterprise basis (be it local, bio-regional, provincial, state or national), or more correctly on trust for the people generally, we have to turn to how important the resource utilized by that industry is to the social well-being of all people in the relevant region or political unit. But let's not quibble with the difference between 'nationalisation' and 'socialisation' right now. Let's look more closely at what Rüstow espoused.
Rüstow supported active social and economic policies, including industrial policies, that eased the social impact of economic upheaval. For example, he wanted to reduce inequality through high inheritance taxes. He proposed higher taxes on large companies. “The economy is there for people”, Rüstow insisted. Now what is most relevant is that he called this 'neoliberalism'. His thoughts also influenced the founding of the now European Union.
But neoliberalism has become a kind of swear word today. Why because it has taken on a different meaning. However, in a way it has no meaning, as hardly anyone identifies as a neoliberal in practice. Hardly anyone self-identifies in this way. If neoliberalism is hardly ever defined in any meaningful sense, then it can mean anything you wish to disagree with. That is the problem with using the term. Practically, what this means is that people who do use the term, do not do so from sound theoretical knowledge, let alone practical insight, but often from some desire to defame political opponents. Then what that means is that the neoliberal label has simply become part of political rhetoric. In short, an almost meaningless symbol or insult, just for the sake of it.
Looking back though, when the neoliberalism term was invented, well over 50 years ago, it was quite the opposite of what many think of it today. It had sound theoretical foundations. The shallowness with which we use neoliberalism today in a pejorative way corresponds inversely with the depth of thought by its original users. Of course, the original ‘neoliberals’ have little in common with those who are nowadays called ‘neoliberal’.
Because of the vagueness with which the term is used today, can anyone really understand what it means when used in conversation? Perhaps they don't want to because it is enough to just fire off these kinds of political shots in order to try to beat down political opponents. But it is like a bullet that has no momentum because it just evaporates into meaningless gibberish. This is because of lack of theoretical foundation in the way it is used today.
Whereas, the original neoliberalism was built on social and economic theory of some depth. Even though not to the depth of what is available today in economic and social thought - still however its proponents did not seek to lose sight of the need for strong theoretical, and practical, foundations. Neoliberalism was precisely ‘new’ in that it embraced social, economic and political rights. For example, it recognized worker's rights, social welfare protection, public health, education, and other welfare provisions, all of which were considered progressive in Rüstow's time and would actually be helpful to the development of market economies for the betterment of society overall.
This is quite different to the way people now use the term. But it probably matters little how they use it now because it lacks definition, because (as mentioned) hardly anyone self-identifies in that way, and because essentially it has hardly any practical value. It does not make sense to use a term that has little meaning or whose supposed meaning has little consensus or foundations.
It is a bizarre twist of fate that the term ‘neoliberalism’ was re-inverted in Latin America in the post-Chile coup era (around 1972) to identify it with something (the exact 'something' is rather unknown) that is the opposite of its origins in the 1930s. Instead of enhanced social protection and placing boundaries on markets, it came to mean virtually the opposite – a reversion (in theory at least) to 19th century free market liberalism. Plus, its users even removed the 19th century commitment to political liberalism and the freedom of political thought. This is still vague though, but the whole term neoliberalism and what it attempts to capture is vague.
As it is used today, the term neoliberalism does not pin-point a well-worked ideology. It is usually used against proposals that are seen to promote individualism that is far in excess of promoting collectivism. Of course that is a fair point - such proposals are worthy of criticism as they promote imbalances, and imbalanced relationships, in society. But while using the term against economic and social proposals, its users ('anti-neoliberalists') also promote causes or economic cases that are frankly utopian or a grab-bag of policy ideas that also lack a nexus between what is capable of being done from point A compared to what is actually possible at point B.
The link between the two, that is movement from point A to point B always has to be progressive - that means going forward or onward successively from one point to the next step by step in a rational way; and what is 'rational', well it is at least promoting equity and at least giving opportunities to properly utilize things, be they physical resources, supramundane or mental resources, or the more abstract spiritual or casual resources. What is the speed of those steps, depends on whether the forces at play are natural, evolutionary or revolutionary forces. If ordinary or natural movement is expedited or accelerated by pressure or application of various forces it becomes evolutionary movement. If further accelerated by tremendous application of forces it becomes revolutionary movement. The destruction of an entrenched hegemony prevalent in a particular age will certainly be the result of tremendous revolutionary forces.
Much like any organism, including a human child, exploring its new body and reaching out with newfound talents to discover what's possible, what's practical, and what to do or not to do, and the conduct involved for either, so also is the path of progressive proposals. The child does not want to cause any harm and just wants a fair playing field (equity) and the child also wants to fulfil its capacity and use appropriately what is around it - be it the physical, mental or spiritual environment. This is not necessarily an easy task and inevitably involves clash and cohesion, or the process of thesis and then an antithesis formed against the thesis to create a synthesis, which in turn becomes the next thesis, and so on. And yes, it is always necessary to adjust.
The task of thinking about positive alternatives is urgent, and efforts in this direction must be practical and its theoretical foundations must be strong. Mere rhetoric like in neo-liberalism is not really an anti-thesis - it must be more than that. It must actually be a practical challenge against the prevailing thesis. However, it must also be inspiring. So many ideas will develop in the mix, but it is the progressive ones that will surely prevail.
References:
Chu, B (2018), The European Union is not a 'neoliberal conspiracy' – and it’s disturbing that some in the Labour Party apparently believe this nonsense, 13 May 2018, Independent,
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/european-union-neoliberal-conspiracy-labour-party-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-a8349316.html
Hartwich, OM (2009), Neoliberalism : the genesis of a political swearword, CIS occasional papers; 114,
https://www.cis.org.au/app/uploads/2015/07/op114.pdf
Sarkar, PR (1960), To the Patriots, 1 January 1960, Jamalpur.
Talbot, C (2016), The Myth of Neoliberalism, 31 August 2016,
https://colinrtalbot.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/the-myth-of-neoliberalism/