I think it's pretty peak neoliberalism to discover and double down on collecting rents and trading make believe financial instruments in air conditioned offices than do dirty work making commodity widgets. Peak neolibralism seems like optmizing for spreadsheet competitiveness longterm and we're rapidly finding out that is not the right kind of competitiveness.
And workers rights, minimum wage and immigration restrictions. This trifecta of anti-neoliberal policies destroyed manufacturing competitiveness. But the term "neoliberal" has become a slur which is defined as "subset of the status quo that I don't like", and it will endlessly shapeshift so that it can be blamed for whatever is being discussed.
> And workers rights, minimum wage and immigration restrictions. This trifecta of anti-neoliberal policies destroyed manufacturing competitiveness.
The thing is, 996 works in China because China is a dictatorship where workers have no rights and for a lot of them 996 is better than the utter poverty they came from.
But we? We cannot compete with 996, not if we don't devolve to outright slavery, to conditions of the 1800s.
Sure, we don't have to be competitive with China on manufacturing, but that is hardly the fault of neoliberalism, which was the subject of discussion. It's quite squarely the "fault" of anti-neoliberal policies like immigration restrictions and minimum wage. We could have had Chinese workers on Chinese wages on Western soil making widgets for Western firms, basically a neoliberal wet dream, but that was prevented by anti-neoliberal policies.
The west is mostly drunk on populism, nativism and boomer welfare. If it were the neoliberal hellscape you imagine, it'd at least be competitive.