This is an excellent article, and Donald Gutstein’s book looks like a must-read [“Author Donald Gutstein reveals extent of Stephen Harper revolution in new book”, October 2-9]. What I think is unfortunate when bringing these ideas up for debate in the public sphere is that the term neoliberal is vague and imprecise. People tune out of such debates because the terminology is confusing and cannot engage the reader.

The prefix neo simply means a renewed form of something. Terms like neofascist, neotraditional, or neosocialist are generally used in the same form that the prefix implies, so the public can be engaged when discussing those types of issues.

However, neoliberal implies a renewed form of liberalism, which really sounds like a good thing. I have gained a greater understanding (partly through this article) that I have misunderstood the term, as I’m sure many others have. What you’re talking about in this article is what I’ve known as neoconservatism—and when I look up the two terms online, they both have the same definition.

The people who came up with the term neoliberal and those who continue to use it—such as this paper and Gutstein—are doing a great disservice to the cause. How is the public supposed to relate to this concept and understand what’s going on if easy-to-intuit terminology is not being used? Even if neoliberal is the correct term technically, we cannot expect the public at large to understand the technicalities. It makes the concept appear too esoteric.

If you write an article about plane travel but you use the word train instead of plane, the reader will tune out. The best thing those fighting neoliberalism can do is to come up with a term that is easy to intuit and has an implied meaning that can be grasped at first sight.

> Pete Sutcliffe