Now that we need them, they are not here! This refers to the local members of the neoliberal economic school. For thirty years, they have advocated for a free market. They have promoted minimal state intervention in the economy. The state should only set the rules of the game, and the market competition should produce winners. Their favorite stance was that the state should not choose winners, i.e., select economic sectors to particularly promote or protect from foreign competition. A commitment to globalization was present in every text and public appearance.
And then Donald Trump returned to the White House. In two months, he made dozens of decisions contrary to neoliberal beliefs. With protectionist tariffs, he has gone against globalization. With the most crude interventionist measures, he has begun to defend the domestic market. He has decided to choose winners. With special tariffs on steel and aluminum, he is trying to turn the local struggling ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy into economic sectors that will return to their former glorious paths. He also chooses shipbuilding as a winner. He will support it with all available means. Instead of non-interference in supply and demand, the American president showcases Tesla, the car of his chief advisor Elon Musk, on the White House lawn. Meanwhile, he threatens Europe because European buyers are purchasing too few American cars.
They wouldn’t want to offend anyone
It would be possible to list more examples, but these are sufficient to assert that Donald Trump has trampled the foundations of Milton Friedman’s neoliberal concept in two months. A local chronicler would expect that the otherwise vocal economic neoliberals would react to such desecration. That they would condemn Trump’s moves. But, lo and behold, from a hundred voices – not a sound can be heard. I apologize if I overlooked some brave neoliberal statement with a clear position, but the silence generally resonates.
On one portal where one would expect criticism of Trump’s crude state interventionism, out of fifteen visible headlines, none mention the word ‘Trump’. In some analyses by declared neoliberals, suddenly, instead of the usual clear positions for something and against something, there is a neutral listing. All cautiously, down the middle of the road. ‘They wouldn’t want to offend anyone,’ the Zagorci would say.
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It is hard to explain this silence. Well, it is possible that due to a combination of circumstances, it just so happened that long-time missionaries of the free market (which has never existed) suddenly changed their beliefs. They have accepted the reality that has long stated that only a free market and smart state intervention, if well-coordinated, are the secret of successful nations.
Or perhaps they read the news about that French scientist who was denied entry to the U.S. simply because airport officials found notes on his phone criticizing Donald Trump’s moves. Given that study trips to the U.S. are pleasant and beneficial for many, caution is understandable. Some of the former combative and exclusive promoters of the idea of a free market might explain their silence with the sentence: ‘When facts change, I change my mind.’ The unfortunate thing is that this sentence is attributed to John Maynard Keynes, the father of the school of state interventionism, against whose ideas neoliberals have fought for decades. Until, what a misfortune, Keynes’s teaching was taken over by the powerful Donald Trump.
The trench remains empty
Although local neoliberals often claimed that they actually had no influence on the economic policies of Croatian governments, this is far from accurate. In one thing, they have certainly succeeded. By declaring any state planning as a harmful legacy of socialism and ignoring that most successful countries have institutions that contemplate the future and propose plans with goals, they have prompted the abolition of even a benign office for strategic thinking. Therefore, today, Andrej Plenković’s government lacks an institution (agency, bureau, think tank…) that could strategically develop possible scenarios and plans in these complex times.
In the hope that economic neoliberal economists and hobbyists (those who are not economists but ‘can take a look’) will eventually gain the courage to promote their old values, especially now that the pendulum has swung too far towards crude, violent state interventionism, the public awaits their value judgments. If the silence continues, there is no other option but for the former members of the school of sound reasoning, who have advocated for years for a balance between the market and state intervention, to declare themselves neoliberals as volunteers and jump into the suddenly emptied trench of fighters for the protection of the market and globalization.
