I had a post in the works on the debate over left-neoliberalism — a debate which is either long-overdue (my take) or “content-free gasbaggery,” depending on how you look at it — but Peter jumps ahead of me to make the crucial point: Policy and politics can’t be separated, yet left-neoliberalism is all about separating them.

Let me build on this with a couple observations. First, left-neoliberals have a habit of enthusiastically endorsing one policy after another guaranteed to increase inequality and insecurity and weaken the capacity for collective resistance — higher Medicare co-pays and deductibles, means-testing Social Security and adding on private investment accounts, “performance pay” in schools, etc. — and then wringing their hands about the rising inequality and insecurity that inevitably result.

Their enthusiasm for means-testing social insurance programs is especially perverse. Since only a miniscule fraction of Medicare and Social Security spending goes to recipients with truly high incomes, means-testing inherently must either directly attack the middle-income working class or function simply as a symbolic gesture with the sole purpose of undermining political support for the programs. I point to these examples because they’re gratuitous: they’re not politically good policies that unfortunately can’t pass; they’re politically bad policies that left-neoliberals actively endorse.