Breaking The Gridlock: Connecting Neo-liberalism and Arthur Brooks' Plea for Collaboration

Neo-Liberalism is a political reasoning that returns back to the economic and political epitome of classical liberalism and pairs these ideas with practices of free trade, social control, and monetarism (McCullough, 2017). It makes reference to the political economic philosophy that de-emphasizes and maximizes the government’s involvement in the economy (Romkey, 2019). In this TED talk, “A conservative’s plea: Let’s work together.” speaker Arthur Brooks speaks about the different ideas for what us human beings can do in order to break a gridlock (TED, 2016). He begins his speech by talking about his background such as where he is from and what he does for a living. He later goes on to talk about the first time he saw poverty with his own eyes and wonders if it had gotten worse and better. Throughout this paper, it will be discussing the different ways Brooks TED talks connects to the different theories within neo-liberalism.

Milton Friedman was known as an American economist how was known for believing in the free market capitalism (Kagan, 2018). In a quote he states, “The issue is not how much inequality there is, but how much opportunity there is for the individual to get out of the bottom classes and into the top. If there is enough movement upward people will accept the efficiency of the markets. If you have the opportunity, there is a great deal of tolerance for inequality,” (Romkey, 2019). What he means by this is that poverty serves a major purpose in the capitalist system (Romkey, 2019). He believes that there are many obstacles that one has to face in order to get from the bottom classes to the top. There would have to be a lot of opportunities available for those people in the bottom classes to help get themselves on their feet and move on the scale. In the TED talk, Brooks talks about the two billion peoples that have been out of poverty since he was just a little kid. He goes on and lists a total of five reasons that made this happened which are globalization, free trade, property rights, rule of law, and entrepreneurship (Brooks, 2016). These five factors had helped those who were stuck in poverty, get back up on their feet and these factors gave them the opportunity that Friedman mentioned humans needed in order to go from the bottom classes to the top.

One of the strengths regarding neo-liberalism is its importance of freedom. Theorists of this theory believe that every single human individual should and deserve to have the freedom that is needed (Romkey, 2019). In this TED talk, Brooks goes on about the fact that due to the obsession with poverty, which is escorted by the economic freedom (Brooks, 2016). He mentions how we all need to come together and help people to give them the freedom they deserve and get them out of poverty. By getting each and every one of the two billion people out of poverty, this will help every single one of them to have a better life and up from the bottom classes.

Thus, Arthur Brooks teaches and gives advice on the different ways that every human being should do to help our peers around them. The different theories within the bigger theory, neo-liberalism, connects to the topics Brooks discusses about in his TED talk to help explain the different problems people around the world are going through. He ends his TED talk by giving advice on different activities that need to be done in order to get those in the bottom classes to the very top and give them the life that they deserve and the struggles away from them.