That's what happens when you let the capitalist class run the show... on thing they care about are their profits. Building a prosperous society for all? That ain't their game.
Even if that's the case (I'm not sure it is), it doesn't make them the same thing.
It's not like there is a law of nature that says Social Liberalism can't make a comeback.
It's the evolution of a social system guided by the same set of rules. There is actually a very good reason why social liberalism can't make a comeback. The dynamic of liberalism that champions private ownership leads to capital accumulation in the hands of the small capital owning minority. As the system continues to function you hit a point where the oligarchs have disproportionate power in society leading to the transition into neoliberalism that we're living under now.
Social Liberalism came about as a response to Classical Liberalism creating the same oligarchic problem you just described.
If it happened once, it could happen again.
I don't know if it will, but its certainly possible.
Things don't just happen randomly, systems evolve according to the rules society agrees on. In order for things to change, an iconoclasm has to happen first. Then a new set of rules will be created, and that will no longer be liberalism because that's the ideology that will be cast aside in the process.
You keep saying Liberalism as if its only one thing. I've already mentioned three economic philosophies, each creating their own new set of rules. I'm honestly not sure we're talking about the same thing.
The context of discussion was whether the current stage of neoliberalism can revert back to some other form. And my point is that there is no path back within the liberal framework. A different economic philosophy that will succeed neoliberalism will not be based on the idea of private ownership.
40 years later: Ah fuck, America’s Billionaires Are Now Richer Than Half the Population Combined — a Lot Richer
I do this bit where whenever somebody calls China capitalist in a negative way, I ask if they're a Maoist, because that is the ultraleft, Maoist perspective, that China succumbed to right deviation and should've stayed the course with Mao's policies. But I've never gotten an actual answer from anyone and now it's started to evolve from being a bit to genuine curiosity. Like, if Deng's reforms were too far right that you denounce them as capitalist, then does that mean your ideal economic system is somewhere in between the policies of Mao and Deng?
What is that ideology you're all following to arrive at that conclusion?