i cited this in another thread, but this paragraph seems germaine here:
Quote:
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Having carefully established the long-running and generally beneficial effects of "big" government, Madrick turns to the intellectual claims of figures such as Milton Friedman, whose work was central to creating the new "small government is better government" consensus. In fact, Madrick writes, the Chicago economist "offered much ideology but little evidence" that big government undermined economic growth. Friedman claimed in the 1970s that the corrosive rate of inflation at the time was caused by rising public spending and the growth of the money supply. In reality, however, the government's share of GDP didn't rise during this time, and far larger budget deficits under later Republican presidents produced no noticeable increase in inflation. International comparisons likewise have shown that big government does not undermine a nation's ability to produce more efficiently. Citing the economist Peter Lindert, who spent years compiling his data on the effects of the welfare state on economic growth, Madrick writes that there is a stark "conflict between intuition and evidence" on this topic. As Lindert wryly observed, "It is well-known that higher taxes and transfers reduce productivity. Well-known—but unsupported by statistics and history."
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Government Beyond Obama? - The New York Review of Books
there are thousands of sources out there which could be pulled in here, but this one happens to be at hand.
fact is that
neoliberal ideology has never had history or data about the contemporary world to support it.
it has never been based on anything like an accurate assessment of reality.
never.
not even for a minute.
set it on fire. it's worthless. particularly now.