What if neoliberalism and socialism are both flawed ideologies? The neoliberal critique of marxism is pretty solid. Hayek and Mises did a good job of demonstrating that central planning is problematic, yet Marx's critique of capitalism is also solid.
In the debates between capitalism and socialism—between neoliberalism and marxism—both sides have succeeded in demonstrating that the position of their opponents is problematic and that the system their opponents advocate is highly undesirable.
What this dialectic demonstrates is that these two systems—capitalism and socialism—are both undesirable. This suggests that perhaps there is some "third way" alternative between capitalism and socialism. Perhaps neoliberalism and socialism aren't the only options available.
Of course, there are other alternatives outside of this false dichotomy of capitalism/socialism or neoliberalism/marxism. There are, of course, several "third way" approaches, like distributism, georgism, social democracy, and the "small is beautiful" movement.
These "3rd way" approaches are all distinct from one another, but they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. It is possible to be both a distributist and a georgist. It is also possible to be a distributist and/or georgist and a social democrat.
Distributism rejects capitalism (private-ownership of industry by the few with wage labor for the majority) and socialism (government-ownership of industry) in favor of widespread distribution of private ownership, such that most people will own some productive property.
Georgism holds people are entitled to the product of their own labor, so income tax should be abolished and all taxes ought to be levied against "unearned income" or income that comes from nonproductive sources, like land speculation. Thus, georgists propose a land value tax.
This land value tax would function as an analog for communal ownership of land. This approach, therefore, is not quite socialist because it does not have government-owned industry as the norm, but it also isn't quite capitalism because it doesn't have privately-owned of land.
The American Founding Father Thomas Paine had a geo-distributist approach, mixing georgism and distributism. (Of course, these terms "georgism" and "distributism" were not coined until after his time, so geo-distributism is an anachronistic way of describing his views.)
In "Agrarian Justice," Paine suggests that all land & natural resources naturally belong to everyone and that the government ought to collect a ground-rent (AKA "land value tax") on all land & distribute the revenue as a citizens' dividend to the whole populace.
Under Thomas Paine's geo-distributist system, every individual citizen has a share of ownership of all land/natural resources within the nation's territory. The society, rather than the gov't, would own the land & each individual would get a share of the revenue from the rent.
Social democracy, though rooted in marxism became conservative, rejecting violent revolution in favor of gradual reform via democratic means. Social democrats embraced republicanism.
Social democrats sought to raise the working class by imposing reasonable regulations. The imposed workplace safety rules and provided everyone with healthcare benefits and reasonable pay. They didn't seek to abolish markets and private ownership, but made them tolerable.
If we combine social democracy with geo-distributism, we lay the foundation for something much more libertarian. Since everyone receives a universal basic income as a dividend from land value tax, we do not need minimum wage, means-tested welfare, corporate tax, and income tax.
Geo-distributism allows us to have a much more libertarian form of social democracy. On the one hand, the market is more free. On the other, individuals are freed from wage-slavery and exploitation. The best of both worlds!
Basic income itself can also be seen as a 3rd way. An economic system with a universal basic income is arguably neither capitalist nor socialist. Wage-slavery is abolished, so it ain't capitalist, but there's no public ownership, so it's not socialism.
