A Brief History of Neoliberalism

by David Harvey

Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.

Genres: Politics, History, Economics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology, Theory

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 12, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

David Harvey (born 1935) is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). A leading social theorist of international standing, he graduated from University of Cambridge with a PhD in Geography in 1961.

He is the world's most cited academic geographer (according to Andrew Bodman, see Transactions of the IBG, 1991,1992), and the author of many books and essays that have been prominent in the development of modern geography as a discipline.

His work has contributed greatly to broad social and political debate, most recently he has been credited with helping to bring back social class and Marxist methods as serious methodological tools in the critique of global capitalism, particularly in its neoliberal form.

Reviews

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 3 out of 5]

The primary Western Leftist intro on how capitalist power was reconstituted following the 1960-70’s crises…

The Essentials:
--(2022 Update): As you can see from the amount of reviews for a critical nonfiction on “Neoliberalism”, this book is the go-to Western Leftist academic critique, whereas Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is for the general public.
--While Harvey piles on a litany of structural issues and events, the central thesis is clear: following the 1960-70's crises in global capitalism, Neoliberalism was a response to rebuild capitalist class power. This claim is supported by listing actions/consequences in numerous global case studies (“unequal geographies”) of workers' power/organization smashed, public services dismantled (shift from welfare state redistribution to the “Neoliberal State” of debt enforcement), private power restored via privatization/Financialization/“accumulation by dispossession”, and new capitalist class formations.
--In conjunction with real-world material conditions are the contradictions in ideas, i.e, mainstream economic theory/propaganda of Neoliberalism/market fundamentalism/corporate globalization (with useful reference to Karl Polanyi’s positive vs. negative freedoms unleashed by the market).
--Discontent is easy to misdirect given Neoliberalism's abstract global reach, where capital (esp. finance) freely floods into certain regions forming speculative bubbles/gentrification while fleeing other regions (capital flight) leaving behind rust belts and opioid crises. All of this is conveniently hidden from the public (even for expects, financial instruments are purposefully complex to hide systemic risk). The public only see surface changes like immigration/government spending and are well-conditioned to assume "supply and demand"/household budgeting Economics 101. See: And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
...Given global Neoliberalism's successes dismantling (national) organized labour/leftist movements/class consciousness, this leaves reactionary movements open to use misleading rhetoric against the "globalist" status quo while actually preserving the structures and scapegoating visible minorities (foreshadowing today's global Trumpism).


The Missing/Questionable:

1) The Geopolitical context of “Neoliberalism”:
--One risk with focusing on national case studies is losing the historical (esp. geopolitical) context, causing the concept to lose its form and relevance. To better situate Neoliberalism, consider:
--The preceding period is the rise and fall of US’s post-WWII global plan, Bretton Woods, the “Golden Age of Capitalism” (end of WWII to end of 1960's). Prior to this was the global capitalist crisis of the Great Depression (following an escalating series of crashes that plagued the boom/bust history of capitalism). This latest-and-greatest crash in scope was endless, as capitalists foresaw no future profits and thus refused to revive production; the capitalist exception was fascism, which temporarily revived private enterprise with militarism and beat down leftist alternatives (i.e. workers’ control, socialism).
--However, the Great Depression was only truly alleviated by the creative destruction of WWII, the greatest war in human history which destroyed stagnant capital and re-invented new markets for the mass production of destruction, resulting in the US Military Industrial Complex.
--Post WWII, Bretton Woods global trade/financial regulation was built with the new US empire (which was the WWII global creditor and arms dealer for the rest-of-the-world’s destruction) in the center as the key trade/monetary-gold surplus country. With the end of WWII, the US Military Industrial Complex’s advances in mass production required external markets to soak up its products, or else capitalism would spiral down another depression (oh, the irrationality)!
--While this “enlightened” Bretton Woods plan (paired with domestic “Keynesian” welfare state redistribution; we should note that the rise of the USSR was a major pressure in Western capitalists relenting to the welfare state compromise) did shift war production to mass consumerism for allied countries, this global plan unravelled due to US military spending in genocidal bombings of Korea and Vietnam depleting the US's gold reserves, leading to the 1971 Nixon Shock severing the exchange between the US dollar and gold: see Hudson's 1972 classic Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance.
-interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paUgY...
-lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h45Bo...
-Varoufakis' more accessible version: The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
--Both Hudson and Varoufakis provide more context to the 1960-70's capitalist crises, and how US’s solution of replacing Bretton Woods’ global regulation in order to preserve US hegemony required unleashing Wall Street (thus, the “financialization” of “Neoliberalism”) as the new regime controlling global monetary flows and preserving the US dollar as the global reserve currency. This geopolitical context is less in focus when Harvey dives into national case studies.
...At least Harvey recognizes that Klein’s popular presentation of “Disaster Capitalism” Neoliberalism focuses on the Neoliberal ideology (i.e. Milton Friedman market fundamentalism), thus taking a more idealist approach lacking the materialist grounding of why such ideologies would take hold in the 1960-70’s crises and not before.
--Vijay Prashad, Utsa and Prabhat Patnaik take the next step in geopolitical context by re-focusing the challenge of Global South decolonization/Third World industrialization on Bretton Woods, symbolized by the proposal of the NIEO (New International Economic Order) challenging the imperialism of global capitalist trade, i.e. cheaply-priced raw materials extracted by foreign multinational corporations (one side of “free trade”) as the inputs of global capitalism while advanced technologies are restricted by intellectual property (the other side, not so “free”), and the need for Global South protectionism (symbolized by the OPEC cartel, which triggered the major events of 1970’s capitalist crises, i.e. the oil shocks). See:
-History/geopolitics of the Global South challenge (The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World) and the Neoliberal reaction, thus critiquing the scope of Harvey’s Neoliberal origin story (New York City budget crisis 1974-75): The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South
-accessible update: Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism
-Dive into big picture economics: Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
-(more accessible) The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
-The Veins of the South Are Still Open: Debates Around the Imperialism of Our Time

2) On China:
--The book’s most-extensive case study, the chapter “Neoliberalism with Chinese Distinctions”, unintentionally reveals the challenges with characterizing the contradictions of the Dengist reforms and China in geopolitics. The reforms have no doubt embedded China into the production processes of global capitalism, and such rapid industrialization has brought about troubling aspects of inequality, exploitation, displacements, class formations, and pollution.
--However, when and where has long-term planning for economic development (from campaigns for poverty alleviation/literacy/public health to building public infrastructure to alternatives to imperialist trade/intellectual monopolies with technological transfers) been key features of Neoliberalism? Also, the Dengist reforms/aftermath should not be taken in isolation, but contextualized with the tumultuous history of modern China (Century of Humiliation, second most deaths in WWII, pre-Communist revolution life expectancy around 30-35 years old, massive social reforms/experiments amidst US embargo, etc.).
--If we move beyond economizing the world as isolated nations and consider geopolitics (including violence): while Harvey mentions some of the overt militaristic violence coinciding with Neoliberalism (Pinochet in Chile, Bush Jr. invasion of Iraq), the geopolitics of the US military industrial complex somehow still seems like an “externality”. Is this adequate, when US military threats/spending is so integral to enforcing the global “Washington Consensus” behind Neoliberalism, i.e. IMF/World Bank/US Treasury/WTO? It turns out Harvey has a messy take on “imperialism” and an ongoing debate with the Patnaiks/Prashad, unpacked in: A Theory of Imperialism
--We can now return to China's own geopolitical struggles as a post-colonial nation with a gigantic rural population ravaged by colonialism; during China’s Century of Humiliation semi-colonization, the result of losing the Opium Wars was Britain flooding opium grown in colonial India to a deregulated China (free trade!). Imperialist violence, not “free market” competition, was how Britain finally resolved its trade imbalance with Asia, as without colonialism Britain had little to offer to the superior markets of China/India other than silver/gold looted from the Americas (wait, that is colonialism as well...). Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
--Upon independence, China would fight for the other side of the US’s genocidal bombings in Korea, which meant a US trade embargo from 1950 to 1972; this coincides with the Bretton Woods “Golden Age of Capitalism” period. Meanwhile, the US empire’s plan for the post-colonial Global South was to monopolize world food supply via the World Bank, by enforcing the Global South to export cash crops (for World Bank loans etc.) while becoming dependent on the US's heavily industrialized/subsidized/patent-protected corporate agriculture for staple crops (see the World Bank chapters in Hudson’s “Super Imperialism”). This is only the better-hidden “economic” side, although the details of the militaristic side are easily forgotten as well:
-Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
-The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
-The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump
-Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II
--Simply put, China’s 20th century conditions are unimaginable by Western standards; luckily, there is a strong comparison to be made with the other Asian giant, who conveniently took a capitalist path for colonial independence: India: unpacked at the end of this review: Capitalism: A Ghost Story
--Given Harvey's avoidance of using “imperialism” in terms of economic theory (preferring “shifting hegemonies”/“uneven geographical development”), he does stay consistent with only one mention of “the revival of certain strains of imperialism” regarding China. Is “imperialism” just an economized description of asymmetrical economic productivity, which is such a basic condition that can be diluted to even regional levels (city vs. rural, California vs. Nevada, etc.)? For deeper theory, see the Patnaiks references above.
...Early 20th century critics of imperialism (Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Luxemburg), etc. recognized the militaristic expansionism of imperialist rivalries, in particular Du Bois' “The African Roots of War” on how WWI's origins stem from the imperialist “Scramble for Africa”; see this review Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil ...Harvey actually tries to use the militarism definition in The New Imperialism (War on Terror), but it seems like a rather shallow effort to describe the US Military Industrial Complex as “new”. Compare this with Drums of War, Drums of Development: The Formation of a Pacific Ruling Class and Industrial Transformation in East and Southeast Asia, 1945-1980...
-Varoufakis’ response to an American's concern about China colonizing Africa: https://youtu.be/03l3Ra4bL_A
-Prashad’s Marxist analysis of China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-m-D...

3) Writing style (or lack thereof):
--It’s nonfiction, so content matters most, right? But consider the spirit of Marx’s “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”. This topic deserves the greatest reach into public discourse and consciousness and must not be siloed in academic obscurity, and while this book has reached a relatively impressive readership it still lacks the writing craft of Klein, let alone Varoufakis, Graeber, etc. While Harvey’s prose is clear enough (compared to the inferno of ivory tower social science meditations), I still cannot fathom how he made topics of class war, financial crisis, the global division of labor, and the fate of nations rather dry and spiritless. Sure, this was not intended to be a Marx/Engels pamphlet stirring up the working class, and not everyone can conjure up nonfiction epics like Varoufakis, but even chalkboard-eraser Chomsky still injects some sarcasm into his political nonfiction. Heck, I prefer Harvey talking than his writings, especially his Marx's Capital companion lectures! A Companion to Marx's Capital
-https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS...

4) What came after?:
--Since this book was published in 2007, everything from the 2008 Financial Crisis, Obama’s Neoliberal-with-a-progressive-face response, and the global Trumpism backlash are not included.
--We can turn again to Prashad, whom I find a much more dynamic presenter of big-picture syntheses (today's Michael Parenti?); there is a clarity in Prashad's depictions of capital's freedom of movement while labor is restrained by borders, global unemployment and reactionary scapegoating, etc.
-https://youtu.be/z11ohWnuwa0
-https://youtu.be/HXhogt3Zq9c

[Maru Kun · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...There is no such thing as society, only individuals..."

"...greed, for lack of a better word, is good..."

Margret Thatcher and Gordon Gekko together summed up the essence of neo-liberalism in two quotes. This book is an excellent summary of the history and damage done by the impoverished ideology of these two neo-liberal icons.

Harvey's "Brief History of Neoliberalism" reads like a true-life detective story investigating the mugging of the world economy in autumn 2008. What's unusual about Harvey's detective work is that the victims were identified, the weapon discovered and the crooks fingered before the crime was even uncovered.

The battered body of the economy was found alive but barely breathing in an alley in Lower Manhattan on 15th September 2008, three years after the book was published and the day that Lehman Brothers filed for the largest bankruptcy in US history. That was the same day 99% of the population began to understand their wallets had been emptied by billionaire thieves carrying a neoliberal cosh who had left them with nothing but the small change in their pockets.

Neoliberalism is:

"…a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve the institutional framework appropriate to such practices…"

In case you're wondering, Neo-conservatism is Neoliberalism plus God and guns.

It all sounds innocent enough, which is one reason for the success of neoliberal dogma. But as with most public discourse these days, the mischief is in what is left unsaid by words designed to conceal rather than to reveal. The "..institutional framework…" created by the state is the use of its monopoly on violence to preserve private property rights. The state encourages its citizens to be used as the tools of private enterprise and cares nothing for them as individuals and members of society.

Neoliberalism's main success has been to enrich the few at the cost of the many. The evidence is everywhere and irrefutable: unprecedented growth in inequality and stagnation or falls in real wages for ninety percent of the population while those already rich watch their wealth grow from tax cuts and subsidies to corporations.

The magic spells neoliberalism uses to make wealth flow uphill to the rich instead of trickling down to the rest of us as are as numerous as the bedrooms in a billionaire's mansion and as subtle as a lawyer's undisclosed side letter. Chapter six explains the methods in detail: privatization and commodification, excessive financialization, the management and manipulation of crises and state redistribution.

Privatization is particularly invidious. As a trained accountant I well know how the tiniest change to a pension fund's expected investment return or the smallest tweak to the priority of a lien can send large sums of money out of the taxpayer's pocket and into the ether, only to rematerialize in the hands of a well connected businessman.

If you don't believe this just pause to reflect, how did the twenty four Mexican billionaires appeared on the Forbes rich list after Mexican privatization? Are these billionaires genuine "wealth creators"? Did Mexico spontaneously generate twenty four Bill Gates or Steve Jobs practically overnight?

Harvey outdid many trained economists with his insight into the financial markets and the phantom speculative profits they were reporting. As events in 2008 showed, Harvey was spot on in foreseeing how:

"…So-called global cities of finance…become spectacular islands of wealth and prvilege, with towering skyscrapers…Within these towers, trading between floors creates a vast amount of fictitious wealth…"

The only thing he got wrong was underestimating the depths of criminality in the financial system. Even Harvey couldn't imagine the extent to which bankers were shamelessly breaking out the Bollinger to toast their rigging of LIBOR, FX, commodity and other markets. Neoliberalism has failed to live up even to its limited ambition of preserving private property rights and creating fair markets: the markets were rigged and if you ever took out a loan or changed foreign currency then your pocket was picked.

The discussion on neo-liberalism's theft of the human desire for individual freedom as a cover story for its rapaciousness is the best section in the book. Harvey is known as a Marxist and he has some controversial quotes up his sleeve. Take this for example:

"…Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well…we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him and his a proper security, a reasonable leisure, and a decent living throughout life, is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power…"

Who is this preferring the freedom evinced by proper security, reasonable leisure and a decent living throughout life ahead of the acquisition of wealth and power? Roosevelt of course - who these days is a dangerous radical given Neoliberalism's current hold on public debate.

It only took the US a few decades to abandon the freedoms Roosevelt spoke about and replace them with the freedom of unregulated markets.

Sad.

UPDATE: An outstandingly good article on neo liberalism in The Guardian today
http://gu.com/p/4tbfb?CMP=Share_iOSAp...

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is one thing to maintain, for example, that my health-care status is my personal choice and responsibility, but quite another when the only way I can satisfy my needs in the market is through paying exorbitant premiums to inefficient, gargantuan, highly bureaucratized but also highly profitable insurance companies.

Neoliberalism is a term that is often thrown about; and yet, like socialism and capitalism, I often feel that I do not quite know what it means. Its common definition—the preference for free trade and free markets—did not seem to distinguish it from capitalism itself, as I understood the term, which made me wonder why neoliberalism was so controversial and hated.

Harvey’s book goes a long way in answering this question. The best way to understand neoliberalism may be historical. After the end of the Second World War, governments were dominated by Keynesian policies—that is, the use of taxation and spending (if necessary, deficit-spending) to control boom and bust cycles. But in the 1970s the Keynesian consensus broke down as a result of stagflation: low growth combined with high inflation. The failure of Keynesian policies to get the economy out of its rut led, eventually, to the embrace of quite a different governing philosophy: neoliberalism.

This has many intellectual components. Neoliberals are—at least in theory—opposed to fiscal policies as a way of fighting economic ups and downs. (In practice, this means that governments must adopt austerity measures in order to keep their budgets balanced in an economic downturn.) In fact, neoliberals are quite generally anti-government, at least in their rhetoric. They favor privatization, deregulation, low taxes, and low tariffs. The central idea is simple and, on its face, compelling. Prices communicate market information far better than a government can manage; individuals understand their own needs better than the government; and the profit motive is the great driver of general prosperity.

Yet what (ostensibly) began as a great liberation of sovereign individuals and all of their creative genius became, instead, an economic transfer from the poor to the rich. The evidence, by now, is clear that neoliberalization did not jump-start the economy. Growth has never recovered its pre-1970s levels; and economists now admit that they simply do not know how to make an economy grow. But as growth slowed, and wages stagnated for most mere mortals, the rich, richer, and richest made off with ever-increasing slices of the economic pie. Inequality reached such stark levels not seen since the 1920s. Harvey contends that this was not a mere byproduct of the economic philosophy, but one of its primary goals.

If the rhetoric of neoliberalism were, indeed, true—if the government was merely “getting out of the way,” and letting the market do its magic—then claims of nefarious intent would perhaps be unfounded. But as Harvey points out, the neoliberal state is no mere bystander. On the contrary, state power is quite necessary to the operation of neoliberal policies.

Most obviously, if property rights and contracts are sacrosanct, then there must be enforcement—violent if necessary—of those rights. In practice, this also means that there is a double standard between debtors and lenders. In a neoliberal state, the debtor has all the responsibility not to take out a loan that they cannot pay back; and there is very little protection if they do take such a loan. Meanwhile, there is no similar responsibility on behalf of the lender not to lend irresponsibly (as the 2008 financial crash proved); and if the lender does so, the state sanctions any draconian measures necessary to extract repayment.

The state also actively subsidizes the wealthy, both directly and indirectly. It directly subsidizes companies through (among other things) bailouts. The mortgage tax deduction is essentially a handout to the rich—as well as a spur to high-end housing construction. It puts up legal impediments to labor organizations and strikes.

And the indirect subsidies are many. If a community is devasted by a free trade deal, the state deals with the social fallout (often through mass incarceration, in the US). If the housing market leaves many homeless, then the state steps in to enforce eviction notices and provide homeless shelters. If medical insurance is out of reach to many, then the state provides public healthcare and emergency rooms. And this is only to speak domestically. Harvey documents many cases when the IMF and World Bank pressured developing countries to adopt neoliberal policies, and then demanded repayment of loans even if it meant impoverishing their populations.

In sum, the neoliberal state is not a mere onlooker, enforcing class-neutral rights and ensuring a fair game is played without cheating. On the contrary, the neoliberal state serves to provide welfare to the rich while enforcing brutal ‘capitalism’ on the poor.

Yet Harvey is not only valuable in his catalogue of neoliberal hypocrisies. Many of the most interesting parts of this book, I found, were Harvey’s reflections on how neoliberalism has transformed the culture. His contention is that the 1960s era emphasis on personal liberty has led to a kind of atomization of society. As more and more people are convinced that the government is evil or at least useless, people seek different forms of community. This can take many forms: religiousness, political populism (which Harvey predicts), or, for the progressively minded, NGOs. Indeed, one can see the rise in NGO activity as a kind of tacit defeat by the left, as they have yielded the possibility of democratic, governmental action, and instead turned to privately owned organizations run by elites.

More broadly, the embrace of a radically individualist philosophy makes political organization difficult. How can you politically unite people behind the idea that the government is the problem? Few forces have been able to transcend this limitation, most notably nationalism—giving birth to neoliberalism’s ugly cousin, neoconservatism. Other collective bonds—such as race, gender, or sexuality—do not have the widespread pull of nationalism, which Harvey believes gives the left a chronic disadvantage.

Harvey’s solution to this (unsurprisingly, given that he is a Marxist) is to make class, once again, a basis of political mobilization. It is only when workers collectively reform the society that the rich can be defeated. Unfortunately, the two economic crises that have transpired since this book was published have yet to make that happen. Nevertheless, I think this is a valuable and incisive book about one of our era’s most distinctive features.

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

IF YOU’RE NOT RICH, YOU’RE FUCKED!

Have you noticed that increasingly over the past 40 years (especially over that last 10) if you’re not rich you’re fucked?

Particularly if you want to go to college, have health insurance, own a car, own a home, have kids, send them to college, and (maybe, just maybe retire).

Forget all that fancy stuff.

If you want to feed, cloth and house yourself in old age.

Than you better have around 2-5 mil in the bank (not), and some investment dividends rolling in (nope), and some type of property to sell so you can downsize after the kids leave.

So…

You need to be (not just rich, but) wealthy.

Essentially…

But wait a minute!

This is America.

The land of opportunity and upward mobility.

What happened to the American dream, whereby a lot of hard work + a little moxie, and a dash of prudent self sacrifice for a better tomorrow = basic security in old age.

Author (Marxist geographer and social theorist) David Harvey might answer…

Neoliberalism is what happened.

A Brief History of Neoliberalism critically examines the rise and impact of neoliberal economic policies in the UK and the US in the 1980’s under Thatcher and Regan, then in China in the 1990’s under Deng Xiaoping and then the whole rest of the world (🌎) under funky-dollar-bill Clinton.

So…

WHAT THE (ACTUAL) FUCK IS NEOLIBERALISM?

I’m glad you asked 👍

Neoliberalism is an ideology that sort of smashes up socially liberal stuff like human rights and free speech, with free wheeling, free market capitalist economic policy, and a global police force type agenda to protect freedom and promote economic prosperity.

Not just here in the UK/US.

But all over the world!

Neoliberals go with fiscal conservatives in that they believe in small government, low taxes, privatization of everything (like prisons and utilities) and low/no social safety net.

On the other hand.

Neoliberals go with social liberals in that they are not racist, or homophobic, and tend to support women’s reproductive rights.

Neoliberalism also refers to global market reform policies, such as eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, and lowering trade barriers. Which sounds reasonable (in theory), but have actually have led to increased poverty, unemployment, and income disparities, not just in the USA, but anywhere and everywhere they have been implemented like Asia and Latin America.

At the individual level, neoliberal beliefs as pretty similar to libertarian in the they promote self-efficacy, and self-reliance. And also in that pretty only white men (with some exceptions) like it.

AMERICAN WELFARE STATE

Recently, I realized that America has a totally rad welfare system, wherein college tuition, transportation, healthcare and retirement savings (and more) are ALL highly subsidized by the government.

I came to this realization when I started my own business and realized you can write all of that shit of as BUSINESS EXPENSES.

Just then I realized that all that advice my dad gave me, about “go to work and pick up a paycheck every two weeks and it will all work out” was completely wrong. Because it won’t. It did for him, but not for me, and probably not for you either. Why?

NEOLIBERALISM!

One of the basic tenets of neoliberalism is that people who can self-regulate their lives (ie, start a business or run their life as a business) become eligible to receive the “benefits of society”.

And those who can’t.

Well…

Their FUCKED!

Neoliberals can be socially progressive, but only in relation to that part of the population who can self-regulate (meaning entrepreneurs and rich people).

If you’re not one of those.

You’re FUCKED under neoliberalism.

So anyway.

Right about the time the world was starting to push back on neoliberalism.

911 happened.

AND THEN CAME THE NEOCONSERVATIVES

Neoconservatives are a political school that advocates for American global/economic interests (like access to OIL) via military force if necessary (and even when it isn’t).

After 9/11, the “NeoCons” (e.g. Irving Kristol, Dick Cheney under/above George W. Bush) argued for a series of (nakedly geopolitical) open-ended wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Economically, NeoCons seem to believe in a fixed market (beneficial to the wealthy) for US, and free market (beneficial to US) for the rest of the world.

SICK 👍

And the came TRUMP.

And then we all got SICK 😷.

Anyway.

This is a very satisfying and eye opening read.

Don’t let this crappy review keep you from reading it.

David Harvey is a fantastic, and very reasonable historian and social critic.

5/5 stars ⭐️

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Brief History of Neoliberalism was written shortly before the current economic recession, and has become even more 'appealing' at a time when many are searching for both answers and blame. Critique of the current system and its damage is important. However, this critique falls into the category of 'sloppy and lazy,' and I have a tough time giving Harvey the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his intellectual honesty.

Let me say that I fully appreciate the central criticism of joint state-corporate power, which has no doubt produced undesirable effects. I found myself nodding my head at each mention of how the state along with big business has corrupted the ideas rooted in the Mont Pelerin Society. In addition, he has used writing that is pretty accessible, albeit a bit pretentious, for a book about such an intricate subject. In keeping the narrative brief, he has geared the book toward a wide audience, though it will likely catch on most with those already inclined toward his attitude, as his work is simply too weak to be persuasive.

So about the only positive comment I have is that the book is readable and at least makes a feeble attempt to discuss corporatism and its lamentable consequences. That's where my praise ends. I say 'feeble' because there is no evidence of actual curiosity about the current political-economic framework. He equates neoliberalism with financial disaster, without any economic analysis as to why, instead using a caricature of the wealthy and the (non-existent) free market as scapegoats. There's no exploration of why 'embedded liberalism' failed, no thought as to why the IMF might impose restrictions on countries in debt, no look into who actually composes that 'capitalist class' he has so vilified.

Harvey tries to hammer it in, on close to every page, that neoliberalism has been a product of a deliberate conspiracy from the individuals of the upper class to maintain their own status while stamping down the lower classes. Harvey makes this claim many times, each without citation, yet speaks as though they are obvious facts. Repetition of a concept does not count as evidence.

Furthermore, Harvey blatantly ignores parts of the story that don't enhance his arguments. For instance, he treats the Fed as a tool abused solely by neoliberals 'to make key decisions', when the institution was created in 1913, (almost 40 years before the foundation of the Mont Pelerin Society, to which he traces the root of neoliberal ideas) and has always been used 'to make key decisions' by progressives and conservatives alike. Harvey also fails to mention that many of the members of the MPS were against the existence of the Fed in the first place. But I suppose that in a book critiquing the ideas of these men and their implementation by the state, that information couldn't possibly be relevant.

Finally, having an entire chapter dedicated to alternatives with no such concrete alternatives to be found weakens this book and its message significantly. It ultimately enables the book to be summed up as, "Neoliberalism is bad, we should do something." The further I read into the book, the more I got the sense that Harvey already had a conclusion, and simply adjusted his research to fit in line without thinking critically about it.

I can accept that 'brief' entails some omissions; I cannot accept such seeming intellectual dishonesty regarding those omissions.

[May · Rating 4 out of 5]

And so it has been: a horror story of the most repulsive sort -except that it's not fiction; that's the reality we live in.

This brief history of Neo-Liberalism has left a bad taste in my mouth. The more I read, the more I felt overwhelming disgust towards those advocating and propagating this pernicious system of gross inequality, upper class enrichment, labour exploitation, and environmental degradation.

"...neo-liberalization was from the very beginning a project to achieve the restoration of class power."

The book itself starts with the circumstances that lead to the emergence of Neo-Liberalism as a theory and then garnering popular support through political slogans and vague rhetorical devices centered around the value of freedom.

"This neoliberal debasement of the concept of freedom ‘into a mere advocacy of free enterprise’ can only mean, as Karl Polanyi points out, ‘the fullness of freedom for those whose income, leisure and security need no enhancing, and a mere pittance of liberty for the people, who may in vain attempt to make use of their democratic rights to gain shelter from the power of the owners of property’."

After explaining what this Neo-Liberal state is (as opposed to what it should be like), Harvey takes us through the neo-liberalization of the US, the UK, Sweden, Argentine, Mexico, and China. The details are harrowing. In some cases it was a response to a financial crisis, in others it was forcefully imposed by the US to serve its own financial interests, and sometimes it was propelled by rich people who felt threatened by the welfare state they lived in and their diminishing economic and political status.

"After the implementation of neoliberal policies in the late 1970s, the share of national income of the top 1 per cent of income earners in the US soared, to reach 15 per cent by the end of the century. The top 0.1 per cent of income earners in the US increased their share of the national income from 2 per cent in 1978 to over 6 per cent by 1999, while the ratio of the median compensation of workers to the salaries of CEOs increased from just over 30 to 1 in 1970 to nearly 500 to 1 by 2000. Almost certainly, with the Bush administration’s tax reforms now taking effect, the concentration of income and wealth in the upper echelons of society is continuing apace because the estate tax (a tax on wealth) is being phased out and taxation on income from investments and capital gains is being diminished, while taxation on wages and salaries is maintained."

Are you scared yet?

You will be, after reading Chapter Six, titled "Neo-Liberalism on Trial", where we get to see exactly the achievements of this system and where it has failed to deliver its utopian-like promises.
Here are some of those "successes" resulting from Accumulation by Dispossession:

a) Commodification and Privatization:

o The commodification and privatization of public assets. Its primary aim has been to open up new fields for capital accumulation in domains hitherto regarded off-limits to the calculus of profitability.
o Conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights (most spectacularly represented by China)
o Suppression of rights to the commons
o Commodification of labour power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption
o The commodification of nature in all its forms resulting in environmental degradation
o The extraction of rents from patents and intellectual property rights and the diminution or erasure of various forms of common property rights (such as state pensions, paid vacations, and access to education and health care) won through a generation or more of class struggle.

b) Financialization:

o Monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land
o Predation, corporate fraud, thievery, stock promotions, ponzi schemes, structured asset destruction through inflation, asset-stripping through mergers and acquisitions, the promotion of levels of debt incumbency that reduced whole populations to debt peonage

c) Crisis creation, management, and manipulation, which has evolved into the fine art of deliberative redistribution of wealth from poor countries to the rich.

d) State Redistributions:

o Privatization schemes and cutbacks in those state expenditures that support the social wage (has negative long-term effects)
o Revisions in the tax code to benefit returns on investment rather than incomes and wages
o The provision of a vast array of subsidies and tax breaks to corporations
o Intense social control: the rise of surveillance and policing and, in the case of the US, incarceration of recalcitrant elements in the population

The effect of the Commodification of Everything, including human labour, has devastating consequences on our lives and our well-being.

"For the alleged commodity ‘labour power’ cannot be shoved about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused, without affecting also the human individual who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar commodity. In disposing of man’s labour power the system would, incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity ‘man’ attached to that tag."

The push towards mindless consumerism is one method to sedate these feelings and quell social unrest resulting from gross inequality, dismal working conditions, lack of state financed public services and safety net, environmental destruction, and the failure to address social issues. It's quite effective. "I shop, therefore I am".

Chapter Seven examines the Neo-Liberal emphasis on a narrow definition of freedom, that of markets. Individuals are of course free; however "they are not supposed to choose to construct strong collective institutions (such as trade unions)...They most certainly should not choose to associate to create political parties with the aim of forcing the state to intervene in or eliminate the market…"
To prevent individuals and groups from exercising these "bad" freedoms, the state is to use surveillance and policing to protect the upper class -which is a blatant contradiction to what neo-liberals advocate. In effect, the state withdraws from all social obligations except those that benefit the rich.

Note that Neo-conservatism = Neo-Liberalism + authoritarianism + morality deriving from nationalism, Christianity, and antagonizing new social movements.

The writing style is a bit technical and dry; there were a few concepts that I wasn't fmiliar with *hyperinflation, gentrification, and deficit-funding*, but overall it isn't a difficult read if you have an idea about how Capitalism works. More organization in idea presentation would've been a great touch.

The book ends on a somewhat hopeful (though by no means reassuring) note. It's basically up to us whether to continue down this destructive and harmful path or to choose an alternative. I think the former is more likely, and then Global Warming will teach us that -surprise- we can't eat money or status. Even if the rich survive in their underground bunkers or lofty resorts, they will be forced to work for themselves, since the slaves (i.e. everyone else) will be long gone.

[Mehrsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was written during the Bush presidency, but it predicts everything--financial crisis, rising nationalism, crisis response, etc. And we did not go the route suggested, but only doubled down on neoliberalism and added some xenophobia and nationalism. It's time to talk about class politics without caricatures

[Sebastien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, first off, let me give you a bit of full disclosure. I am 100% behind globalization and free trade. These are essential tenets for me in my economic philosophy. In my estimation globalization and free trade are the best tools in growing economies and maximizing the total wealth pie. Although I have to say that protective barriers are sometimes warranted given certain unfair practices like US/Europe subsidizing their agricultural industries, which in turn decimates agricultural industries in other developing countries which can't compete with those artificially cheap prices. That is not a fair marketplace. I also think that protective measures are sometimes warranted when a country is developing, the US used a lot of protective tariffs before its industries had fully developed.

There is a case to be made against neoliberalism. David Harvey makes it, and he makes it very well. Personally I agree with a lot of his arguments. I consider myself a capitalist, but I really think we need to strive for a much more sustainable balanced regulated capitalism with a very strong social safety net and protections for the citizenry. Neoliberalism - with its belief in unfettered capitalism and deregulation and commodification and privatization of every atom in this universe - is decimating large segments of our societies, decimating the environment, and corporations are agglomerating and wielding way too much power in the system. These corporations are usurping our governments, in effect controlling and writing laws and capturing the regulators, and creating very unbalanced markets where they make it hard for true competition. This set of circumstances also gives them astounding leverage in their positioning against labor, with the most stark examples coming in countries with weak labor laws and unions.

As I see it, yes, globalization, free trade (and of course technology like AI, robotics) are decimating the working class in industrialized countries (but globalization and free trade are growing the world economy at better rate than if everyone stayed in a closed system). Pure neoliberalism is allowing the top 10% to get all the gains of a growing economy. It is turbocharging inequality and further marginalizing labor. Complete deregulation is a travesty, but is sold under the guise of the freedom philosophy (sneaky, but smart). Corporations cannot be trusted without proper controls, they slam our communities with negative externalities like pollution, environmental degradation, and unchecked poisons in our food supply. Without controls they are unaccountable for this devastation. And the unfair market and labor practices which they take advantage of are really incredible. Add to that the pure consumerism and commodification of our societies (result of neoliberalism), and the belief that every single thing should be privatized and commodified... wow, that is a recipe for disaster imo. Some industries absolutely need to be treated as public utilities, corporations cannot be trusted with certain industries.

David Harvey makes all these points. And he also effectively contrasts various countries, comparing their systems, comparing how much they adopted neoliberal tenets within their societies and the resulting outcomes. His comparisons focus on western Europe, Scandinavian countries, the UK, China, and the US. All great comparisons each featuring different degrees of neoliberal adoption.

The one point where David Harvey falls short imo is he somewhat ignores and gives short shrift to the fact that the implementation of free trade and globalization principles has ended up lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, especially in India and China. Yes, the counter is there has been a growing inequality in those countries, the top 1% are reaping tons of gains, but the overall wealth pie has grown a lot and the rest of the society has also benefited. The world economy has grown at a great rate due to globalization. We (US) also benefit in a certain sense because this free trade has provided us with very cheap products and goods. Although I won't be particularly keen to say this to a person who has lost their job to outsourcing or robotization! sadly they are martyrs for this benefit. But overall it increases our purchasing power and keeps inflation low, but it decimates our wages for large segments of society which is why I think we need greater safety net, universal healthcare, more fair education system, proper and fair protections and unions for labor, and greater redistribution.

Oh, another great point that Harvey focuses on are how the large neoliberal institutions like the IMF and World Bank and also various national governments always focused on protecting and saving the capital investors, which means they always bailed out the elitist lenders and really shivved the borrowers (in essence the little guy). This means that it was always elite corporations, elite large banking institutions, that would get bailed out, while the borrowers were always getting shivved, getting stuck with ridiculous austerity measures that would decimate the economy and destroy livelihoods and quality of life. But don't worry, the big banking guys always got to make their profits while the little guy got roasted at the stake. Nice. Austerity is a huge tenet in neoliberalism, government is bad, must be relegated to the margins and cut down to the smallest size possible... I mean, this is all about freedom right? and corporations deserve absolute freedom, just like people do... because corporations are people right?

To summarize. Imo we need to maintain free trade and globalization. But what we need to do is balance that out with proper controls over industry and corporations, we should have a more redistributive model that spreads the wealth, protects the "losers" in this system, strive to spread opportunity, ensure adequate labor protections and fair union practices, and makes sure we invest in a very strong social safety net and education system. We are failing so terribly here in the US it is astounding. The wealth inequality is only getting worse, we are reaching and have surpassed levels not seen since the 1920s. Imo we are primed for an ever greater reckoning/punishment than what happened this past election. What is incredible is how mind-blowingly prescient David Harvey is in this book in predicting all the terrible outcomes and manifestations (political and economic crises) that have come to pass due to the current paradigm. Personally I'd like to see a more robust, effective, and respectable federal government that protects and cares for its citizenry, and redistributes wealth to a greater degree.

Please feel free to offer any critiques or thoughts on my thinking.

Def recommend this book if you are curious about political economy.

[HAMiD · Rating 5 out of 5]

دستاورد مهم و اصلی نئولیبرالی سازی، به جای تولید، باز توزیع ثروت و درآمد بوده است. سازوکارهای اصلی تحقق این امر را "انباشت از طریق سلب مالکیت" تعریف کرده ام. منظور من از این عبارت ادامه و تکثیر روش هایی از انباشت است که مارکس آنها را به عنوان روش های ابتدایی یا نخستین مطرح کرده بود. این روش ها عبارت است از کالایی سازی و خصوصی سازی زمین و اخراج اجباری روستاییان، تبدیل انواع مختلف حقوق مالکیت(مشترک، جمعی، دولتی و...) به حقوق مالکیت خصوصی و انحصاری(چشم گیرترین نمونه آن چین است)؛ پنهان سازی حقوق مردم؛ کالایی سازی نیروی کارگری و کتمان انواع جایگزین(بومی) تولید و مصرف؛ فرآیندهای استعماری؛ نو استعماری، و امپریالیستی مصادره ی دارایی ها( از جمله منابع طبیعی)؛ پولی کردن مبادله و مالیات، و به ویژه مبادله و مالیات زمین؛ تجارت برده(که به ویژه در صنعت امور جنسی ادامه دارد)؛ و رباخواری، بدهی ملی و از همه ویران کننده تر، استفاده از نظام اعتباری(وام بانکی) به عنوان بنیادی ترین شیوه ی انباشت از راه سلب مالکیت. دولت با انحصار مالکیتِ ابزار خشونت و داشتن حق تعریف و تعیین قانونی بودن، نقش مهمی در حمایت و پیشبرد این روندها دارد... ص 222

دستِ کم با خواندنِ آنچه که دیوید هاروِی نوشته است می شود روی زشتِ وضعیتی که سرزمین ما نیز دچار آن شده است را به خوبی دریافت کرد. آن وضعیتی که شکافی هولناک را سبب شده است و هم چنان به آن عرض و پهنا می دهد. در این میانه است که می شود به سقوطِ همه جانبه و هر روزه ی خودمان بیشتر آگاه شویم و رفتارهای جمعیِ رو به تباهی مان را درست تر نگاه کنیم. اگرچه وضعیتِ ما خودش شکلِ دیگری از آن چیزی است که هاروِی شرح می دهد و از قضا رویه ای بسیار تاریک تر است حتا. این چنین است که بزرگ ترین خیانت، خوش بینی و امیدواری است. چه بسا که در ناامیدی محض و تمام است که سرانجام بشود از وضعیت خارج شد، اگر راه بازگشتی باقی بماند. کتاب هاروِی هم چنین تفسیر ساده اما بسیار ژرفی است که به خوبی نشان می دهد که دسیسه بازانِ خوش خط و خال و روشنفکرانِ رو سیاهِ همیشه در سوی وزشِ باد چه خوش بر این بزمِ چپاول، گرمِ نانِ خویش اند و شگفتا از غفلتِ همیشه ی ما و دلبستگی مدام به همان ها... شگفتا

1399/02/29

[Peter Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read some insubstantial reviews of this book on Goodreads that accuse this book of being insubstantial. Mouth breathers, every one.

It's true that there is a certain political angle to Harvey's analysis, but the facts stand firmly with him. Primary among those facts are the massive transfers of wealth that have widened the gap between rich and poor in the contemporary world. That's not a political opinion, it's a fact.

Secondly, there is the demonstrably negative effects that these transfers have had not just on the poor, but on women as a whole. Yes, some women have benefited, but on the whole the effects have been devastating. Also a fact.

Third, I happen to think that Harvey's politics are pretty sound. The absolute priority of money over people is one of the worst possible ways of viewing both life and society.

Fourth, the timing of this book is exquisite. Harvey turned out to be absolutely right in predicting the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and what turned out to be the largest-ever transfer of wealth to the wealthiest class in history during the Obama presidency.

Is this really the world we want to live in? To me, it looks very much like a return to the very worst days of oligopoly, a quasi-aristocracy that can and does anything it wants in the pursuit of its own insatiable greed. All it will do is breed unrest and hatred and misery.

[Fatma Al Zahraa Yehia · Rating 3 out of 5]

تم نشر هذا الكتاب قبل ثلاث سنوات من كارثة انهيار سوق العقارات "الكساد الثاني" عام ٢٠٠٨. وكان بمثابة تحذير مبكر للأثر الكارثي لليبرالية الجديدة التي سادت العالم منذ السبعينيات.

تعني الليبرالية الجديدة الحرية..الحرية في أن تكون فاحش الثراء دون قيود ضرائب تصاعدية أو رسوم أو جمارك أو غيرها من الالتزامات التقليدية التي وُضعت بهدف محاولة توزيع الثروات بصورة عادلة قدرالإمكان، وتقليل الفجوة بين الغني والفقير.

بشرت الليبرالية الجديدة بالحرية وفرص الثراء السهل والسريع. وعدت بعالم أفضل بدون نقابات عمالية أو دعم حكومي للمنشآت العامة، عالم ترفع فيه الدولة يدها عن حماية المواطن تاركة إياه لمصيره.

وكان القانون ببساطة:
إما أن تكون فاحش الثراء، أو تكون مواطنا عادياً تُصارع وحشية الحياة انت واسرتك لأنك فاشل، لأنك لست مليارديراً.

في مصر، عندما نتحدث عن الارتفاع غير المنضبط لأسعار إيجارات الشقق على سبيل المثال مطالبين بوجود نظام يحكم تلك الزيادات، نجد من يصرخ قائلا:
"يا سلام؟ انتوا عاوزين ترجعونا لأيام الاشتراكية؟ ما كل واحد حر يحط السعر اللي عاوزه، واللي معهوش مايلزموش".
نجد ذلك المواطن نفسه بعد فترة زمنية طالت أم قصرت يصرخ مستغيثاً من أسعار المستشفيات الخاصة التي افلسته وجشع القائمين عليها بعد إصابته بمرض عضال، وعن فوضى المستشفيات الحكومية التي لا ينال علاجها المجاني بعد ذل مرير إلا لمن استطاع إليه سبيلا. أو شاكياً من استغلال المدارس الخاصة التي يدرس بها أولاده والتي لا تساوي قيمة خدماتها ومستواها الدراسي والتربوي ربع ما يدفعه فيها من مصروفات.
واتمنى وقتها أن أسأله: "مين قالك يا مغفل إن تطبيلك للظالم الغني هايخليك في يوم تبقى زيه؟"

البقاء للأقوى...شعار الغابة التي نعيشها وليرحمنا الله برحمته

كتاب مميز وقراءة يسيرة سهلة تستعرض تاريخ الليبرالية الجديدة وكيف شقت طريقها وسط عالم كان يحاول منذ نهاية الحرب العالمية الثانية أن لا يكرر مأساة كساد الثلاثينيات الكبير. وللأسف قضت وعود الليبرالية الجديدة الكاذبة على تلك المحاولة.

أُثني على ترجمة مُجاب الإمام البارعة لذلك العمل، فتلك واحدة من النوادر التي أجد فيها ترجمة سلسة بسيطة وقوية لغويا لكتاب عن الاقتصاد.

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harvey has performed a rather impressive feat here: in a dimpled gumdrop over two hundred pages he has summarized - with a scope and depth that belies its brevity - the forty years of political-economic development labelled Neoliberalism - or globalism - that has, in fitful and uneven, but always steady, progression, become the dominant meme throughout the world. The basic plot has been tackled by many others*: Hayekian/Friedmanite Monetarism challenges the postwar Keynesian Embedded Liberalism consensus during the stagflation seventies; Thatcher and Reagan initiate the first marked turn towards neoliberalism amongst major nations by breaking the power of labour and backing the power of finance; the state's role channeled towards ensuring that the provision of a good business environment supersedes that of the welfare of its citizens; the tendency to favor diverting capital accumulations towards the finance sector rather than those of production and industry; the formation of the IMF and WTO as neoliberal organs that take advantage of endemic fiscal crises to force austerity and neoliberal policies onto developing countries in order to facilitate the transfer of tribute to the Western Powers; the inevitable result being stagnant and/or declining wages for the majority, and vast, unparalleled wealth accumulation by that teensy sliver of a percentage at the very top of the pile.Although the focus is upon changes that took place within the United States, the UK, and China, he manages to at least touch upon every important event or development in the drive to return to regular, catastrophic capitalist boom-and-bust cycles with a new goal of making the taxpayers and borrowers completely responsible for mending the disasters by transferring subsidized wealth to prop up the lenders, a central tenet that is but one of the paradoxes that flourish amongst regnant neoliberal practices. What Harvey stresses is that, seeing as how the re-creation of class structures has been the one consistent result of neoliberal implementation, perhaps we should begin to agree - or at least assess the likelihood - that this was the principal goal of the turn to neoliberalism all along. Marx provides the proper lens with which to view this system of encroaching and extreme disparity.

This is a very good and well-written book on a subject that tends towards aridity; perhaps the fact that I have read this account several times already tempered my appreciation for what the distinguished author has achieved. The numbers Harvey cites to prove the illusory nature of neoliberalism's claims to be a rising tide have been countered by other (pro-market) publications; which you choose to believe will likely depend upon which side of the free-market divide you claim as home turf. Although I lean towards accepting the class recreation that claims primacy in Harvey's determination of motivation for implementing a global neoliberal system, I am also leery of the concept. There has been an immense mobility across various levels of wealth in the past thirty years, and I'm uncertain of the value of a class distinction apart from the truism that - in the United States and elsewhere - those who are rich enjoy such status, and are apt to do anything necessary to maintain their wealth and avoid giving it/having it taken away. Harvey stresses that class is a nebulous construct, and that he is not advocating any manner of conspiracy theorizing; but such an admission from the author himself leads me to question what the benefit of establishing such a bifurcation would be.

I am not a free-market cheerleader, and Harvey's account fills me with the proper gloom and outrage over the appalling plunder that has been wreaked upon the world - it is actually quite remarkable how prescient and accurate Harvey has proved to be in his estimations of the potentiality for disaster endemic to the highly-leveraged and corrupt state of global financial institutions. He basically described the 2008/09 meltdown three years before it took place. Unfortunately, the solutions and challenges he offers to neoliberalism are a weak tea. This system is now entrenched and heavily supported by government and media elites, especially in North America; furthermore, there is a sizable percentage of the populace that deems the potentiality for entrepreneurial initiative, creative destruction, and freedoms resulting from an uninhibited or lightly regulated market to be a necessary component of the cultural, economic and moral clime that promotes individual responsibility and ensures individual freedom over the enslaving uniformities of collectivity. Whether or not this segment, a la Thomas Frank, is confoundingly-yet-consistently voting against its own economic interests, it is a very real and active portion who continue to prop up neoliberal policies. It is hard to fathom how this economic powder keg will be challenged or rolled-back absent a clear-cut disaster of sufficient proportion to induce a violent re-assertion of popular rights. One of the painful pictures Harvey paints is that it has required terrible upheavals to derail past incarnations of free market dominance; I hold out little hope that anything short of another will be able to do the trick this time around.

*For an interesting analysis of this phenomenon from a Canadian perspective, I suggest The Integrated Circus by the late Patricia Marchak, a renowned British Columbian academic and author.

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein as a 19-year old was a profoundly radicalizing experience. This book by David Harvey could be counted as a more academic version of that work, published around the same time and making the same general critique of neoliberal economics and its political enablers. But while Klein’s book focused on the role that crises played in pushing forward laissez faire economic policies, Harvey's book dives deeper into the mechanics and goals of neoliberal theories and practices.

First and foremost, Harvey says that the practical goal of neoliberalism has always been to promote and preserve the power of the upper class at the extent of any broader society. The set of tools used to accomplish this goal are familiar: privatization, financialization and appropriation of public assets. What is interesting however is how much neoliberal practice tends to diverge from theory. According to Harvey, upper classes around the world are more than willing to eschew neoliberal pieties whenever needed in order to achieve the overriding goal of consolidating their class position. This book was written before the 2008 financial bailout, but it seems like the most jarring example of what he was describing would be the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a government initiative that amounted to a radical act of Keynesianism on behalf of those who had spent decades shredding Keynesian economics for the rest of the population. It became impossible to argue that financiers and others who had spent their lives proselytizing against government intervention in the market "on principle” were acting on behalf of anything other than narrow class interest, following that grotesque episode. Harvey’s argument tries to take the wind out of the glamorous criticism that neoliberalism is a failed utopian idea rather than a more basic upper class power play.

So who exactly is the upper class whose interests neoliberalism promotes? Its not entirely clear and varies from country to country. In the UK, neoliberal policies were promoted by Thatcher specifically in opposition to the old inherited aristocracy. In the U.S. and China, entirely new elite classes were formed in Manhattan, Silicon Valley, Shanghai and Beijing in the course of political changes and advances in information technology and financial technologies. In most cases, these new and newly empowered classes have promoted their interests under the attractive guise of “freedom.” On this point Harvey refers extensively to the economist Karl Polanyi who correctly pointed out that freedom can mean all types of things, some of them quite troubling:

"In a complex society, [Polanyi] pointed out, the meaning of freedom becomes as contradictory and as fraught as its incitements to action are compelling. There are, he noted, two kinds of freedom, one good and the other bad. Among the latter he listed 'the freedom to exploit one's fellows, or the freedom to make inordinate gains without commensurable service to the community, the freedom to keep technological inventions from being used for public benefit, or the freedom to profit from public calamities secretly engineered for private advantage'. But, Polanyi continued, 'the market economy under which these freedoms throve also produced freedoms we prize highly. Freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of meeting, freedom of association, freedom to choose one's own job.’"

Polanyi presciently foresaw planning and control of the economy being demonized as a form of unfreedom, and the “freedom that regulation creates,” for most people, denied and ignored. The fruit of this assault by elites has been the modern neoliberal state, a state that is very different from the government of “embedded liberalism” that prevailed in many countries after World War II. Instead of promoting and protecting the interests of ordinary people and preserving freedom from want, over time the state decided that its narrow purpose would be national security, protecting private property and ensuring the functioning of the marketplace.

Within these loose boundaries pretty much anything goes, which in practice has meant allowing the rich and powerful run roughshod over everyone else. Many hard-fought benefits on behalf of the public good were lost, while, in the United States, the top tax rate went from 70 percent in the 1970s to 28 percent and falling today. A key part of this program also entailed undercutting the ability of workers to negotiate on their own behalf, something made possible by technological advances and globalization that eviscerated their bargaining positions. Lawyers and doctors are some of the few examples of high-skilled professions that were able to preserve their interests, in part by being able to maintain barriers to entry to their field.

How have so many people acquiesced to this class warfare against themselves? Harvey argues here that the attractive language of individual rights has been hijacked and used by elites to create space for their own “bad freedoms.” Ordinary people are afforded a greater array of rights in areas of lifestyle, sexuality and personal expression, while being systematically denied rights to economic security, a clean environment or any of the power that comes from collective organization on class grounds.

Human rights discourse is important and understandably resonates with people, but it has been used as a Trojan Horse for other more exploitative practices, leading Harvey to strongly argue for a more expansive set of collective freedoms instead of just the liberal individualistic ones on offer. This was a powerful argument to reminded of and one that I think is worth noting by movements for change that are just finding their voice at the moment. A call for collective freedoms instead of strictly individual ones would also help address the psychological dilemmas caused by atomized post-industrial modernity, which are increasingly bleeding into our politics and making them less rationally negotiable. Thatcher famously claimed that “there's no such thing as society,” stating instead that there are "only individual men, women and families." Its important to push back against this chilling declaration by arguing in terms of collectives.

Harvey is a Marxist and within that context he makes an important point about the description of “labor” as just another commodity; something like coal or FX reserves that can be transferred around, reduced or gotten rid of as needs change. This idea of labor as commodity is deeply troubling as it suggests that our society is not being owned or catalogued for “we the people,” since labor is in fact the “we” for whom public decisions are supposedly being made. As Polanyi also noted land (as in, the environment) and labor are both fictitious commodities; they are things owned by everyone and no one in particular, and the latter is something that has hopes and dreams and is part of our collective society rather than a commodity subject to business needs.

The rest of the book is a familiar litany of crimes and outrages that have occurred in both the developed and developing worlds over the past several decades, pushed forward under the Washington Consensus and using its practical implements like the IMF and World Bank. I was a bit suspicious as to whether this was a blinkered version of history that leaves out some of the genuine gains that seem to have been achieved in the developing world in recent years. Harvey ends by quoting Roosevelt’s now seemingly radical statement that, "Americans must forswear that conception of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well,” and calling vaguely for some sort of alternatives to be drawn up to the global neoliberal project that has been accelerating over the past few decades.

The book is quite dense, repetitive and the arguments seem a little stale since it was written a decade ago. Nonetheless the core point is important and still relevant. While there have been real economic and human development gains over the past half century, exploding levels of income inequality and chronic economic crises suggest that we are not in a sustainable situation. I’d like to see a book that takes things a step further and begins articulating some realistic steps that can be taken to help create collective social and economic justice, particularly in light of the sweeping technological and political changes that have occurred in the years since this was published. While I think that Harvey generally escapes the charge of being an ideologue, I’d also like to see more rigor on his charge that neoliberalism is a deliberate conspiracy of the rich rather than just another failed ideology.

[Eli Za · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب با رویکردی منتقدانه و با استناد به آمارها در کشورهای مختلف، به چگونگی و دلایل شکل‌گیری نئولیبرالیسم می‌پردازد.
نئولیبرالیسم علیرغم شعارهای زیبا مبنی بر آزادی فردی مبتنی بر نظام بازار، بی‌عدالتی گسترده‌ای را در مناطق مختلف جهان به بار آورده است. نکته قابل توجه این است که نئولیبرالیسم آزادی را تقلیل می‌دهد و از آزادی زندگی در جهانی دموکراتیک و عادلانه، سخنی به میان نمی‌آورد.

[Asa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Come on, admit it, you don’t really know much about neoliberalism do you?

Well, I won’t tell anyone. This here though is an admirably short history of how the elite got, get, and are getting so filthy (rich) while the lower classes eat deeper layers of dirt in our neoliberal age. Harvey calls the process 'accumulation by dispossession'. Neoliberals call it freeing up the market. It certainly does free…although perhaps not in the way we would like.

Well, the story goes something like this…

once upon a time in the 70s a minority idea began and was into power full-force by about 1980…called ‘neo-liberalism’ (angels singing in the background)…

The neoliberal-mongerers granted us our ‘freedom’ in 4 main ways. One was privatization where the elite can then sell or rent to the public what used to be commonly owned. Of course privatization involves public-owned natural resources too, such as earth, forest, water, air. We are of course supposed to feel gracious and liberated when public land is handed off to the market, so they can make money grow where the trees once were.

The message is that privatization is profitable to the lower class, to all classes. Conversion from rental to ownership at a relatively low cost leads to untold riches. You would be silly not to gain control over a valuable asset! They of course don’t tell you that once the proposed transfers are accomplished, housing speculation takes over, eventually bribing or forcing low income populations out. Integral to this ‘liberating’ practice is that the state actually seeks redistributions on those profits through strategies like changing the tax code to profit returns on investment rather than incomes and wages.

So that leads us to the second practice: state redistributions. Redistribution not only occurs in the aforementioned way, but also when contracts are given to power groups: for large infrastructures, services are paid by the State and carried by private enterprise, defense developments, research projects, etc. These generous grantings of licenses for all sorts of State sanctioned activities often obviously turn out as unfair wealth distribution. If you are confused by how ‘free’ market jives with corporate welfare, you aren’t the only one.

Another common practice that is supposed to make us feel more liberated is financialization by credit and stock manipulations. This consists usually of 'liberatory' mechanisms like stock promotions, Ponzi schemes, structured asset destruction through inflation, asset stripping through mergers and acquisitions, dispossession of assets through raiding of pension funds and their decimation by stock and corporate collapses. Feeling like flying like Dicaprio on the edge of the Titanic yet?

If that isn’t enough there is the fail-safe ploy of management and manipulation of crises: by suddenly raising interest rates, they can force poorer nations into bankruptcy, and if the poorer nation agrees to such deals like structural adjustment programs, it can yield even more damages (er...freedoms) to those nations. This is of course authorized by parties such as the U.S. Treasury, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

If that isn’t inspiring enough for you, Harvey argues that the internal contradictions of neoliberalism will inevitably lead to its collapse, perhaps in a new type of authoritarianism. If alternative progressive ideas do not come to the fore, it will be surely be a more authoritarian one that abuses the concept of freedom in new ways.

Until then, the almighty neoliberal ideology continues to use its invisible hand to emphasize individual freedom above social justice, to continue to split us up into different factions, to make us obsess on individual post-modern expressions of identity (and allow us to consume freely, based on our newly-minted particularist identities). This is really probably just thinly veiled libertarianism and narcissistic consumerism with a mission to teach us in mind, body and soul (sell?) the belief that social justice itself is simply another type of slavery. According to neoliberal doctrine: whatever is against the freedom of the market must be slavery.

And if neoliberalism in practice isn’t really even about a free market either (for all the aforementioned evidence)? Well, maybe we should consider whether we are actually already enslaved…

Freedom?
What does the billboard say?
Come and play. Forget about the movement.
Freedom yeah right! (Zack de la Rocha, Rage Against the Machine).

[Andrew]

More or less the same argument that Naomi Klein presented in The Shock Doctrine-- neoliberalism is by no means necessarily paired with democracy. Harvey, however, presents it in a more intellectually rigorous, less journalistic fashion. I'm very OK with this-- it's what one would expect from a widely regarded academic, and something I would hope for from someone whose intellect I admire as much as David Harvey's.

The basic point is that we should all reject neoliberalism, and that in the past 20 years, the leadership of the supposed "alternative" in the US and UK, the Democratic Party and the Labour Party, has played into the neoliberal playbook to an absurd degree, with dolorous social consequences. Notice how more or less ALL of Harvey's predictions came to a head in the collapse of the economy in 2008. Guess he wasn't surprised.

[Renin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Dolayısıyla almamız gereken ilk ders, bir şey sınıf mücadelesi gibi görünüyor ve sınıf savaşı gibi davranıyorsa, adını utanmadan koymamız gerektiğidir. İnsanların büyük bölümü, durmadan artan ezici üst sınıf iktidarının belirlediği tarihsel ve coğrafi yörüngeyi ya kabullenecek ya da ona sınıfının diliyle yanıt verecek.”

Mükemmel bir tarihsel özet. Kısa, anlaşılır ve analitik. Beynim pırıl pırıl oldu.

[Alex Hiatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism is an invaluable survey of neoliberal theory and practice. It begins with the intellectual roots of the theory in the 1930's and continues through the complex and often antithetical realities of neoliberal development since the late 1970's.

He characterizes neoliberalism as an economic system, however one which requires a complementary political component, that has either sought to, or has in certain cases merely facilitated the conditions to, reconstitute or newly construct capitalist class power. This has been achieved through a multi-pronged mechanism he calls "accumulation by dispossession". This is the primary thesis of the book, and is very strongly developed. "Accumulation by dispossession" Harvey describes as a political-economic prescription that utilizes privatization, commodification, financilization, the management and manipulation of crises, and state redistribution (which is heavily geared toward upward wealth transfer, despite common myth).

Most of the book is spent tracing the "uneven geographical developments" of neoliberal practice throughout the world, focusing on the United States, Britain, and China, with smaller studies of Mexico, Sweden, South Korea, Argentina, Chile, and others. While neoliberal theory has long promised more-or-less even creation of wealth, Harvey demonstrates that neoliberalism in practice has meant the transfer of wealth from the poor majority of the world to the governing and moneyed elites.

From there he briefly outlines the mostly devastating direct consequences of global neoliberal development for laborers, women, and the environment, and its peripheral affects on activist and oppositional culture, including the rise and role of NGOs and religiously based movements, and even our long-held universalisms such as "freedom" and "human rights". In one of the more interesting tangents in the book, he also explores the rise of neoconservatism and its relationship with neoliberal theory, and offers a warning against the increasingly authoritarian and militaristic doctrine of American neoconservativism.

Anyone interested in understanding the precarious economic realities of today ought to give this book a read. It is the best I have read so far on the subject of neoliberalism, and the only one which features such a comprehensive historical analysis. Be warned that David Harvey presumes an understanding of international economics, financial markets, fiscal and monetary policy, and the like. I found this to be an obstacle at first, as my grasp of macroeconomics is casual at best. Highly recommended for anyone interested in globalization and its effects. Also see Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order by Noam Chomsky and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.

[Bro_Pair أعرف · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a layman, this text was extremely accessible and informative. Unlike most political economists/geographers, he is compulsively readable, and has a flair for narrative and scope. As for his political and economic judgment, it is stunning to see how accurately in 2005 he anticipated the 2008 financial collapse, and more impressively, the concomitant state coercion used against the global protest movement that emerged from the depression. Harvey never descends into histrionics, but his attitude towards the financial elite and their enablers is admirably hard-nosed. Indeed, reading him is a good salve after imbibing too much of the MSNBC "lean forward" blather; Harvey argues (convincingly) that our econonomic predicament was not caused by a few bad apples, or a misapplication of neoliberal theory, or a dearth of Clintonite/Obamalarian "centre-left" fig leaves. The economy is built on a three decade-old transferrance of wealth from the bottom upwards. Relevant and shocking.

[Anand Gopal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The key point in this book is that neoliberalism isn't just a failed economic policy (as Stiglitz and others claim) but a deliberate attempt to steal wealth from the poor. In other words, neoliberalism is class warfare, waged since the 1970s.

[Ezgi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harvey’nin neoliberalleşmenin ilerleme haritasını çıkardığı, çok temel bilgiler üzerine kurulu, harika bir kısa tarih çalışması. Neoliberalizme giriş için kullanılmasa da hemen sonraki adımlardan biri bu kitabı okumak olmalı. Harvey okumayı çok sevdiğim bir sol düşünür. Bu kitabında polemikçi bir tavrı yok, bilgilenmek isteyenlere yönelik tam olarak.

Neoliberalizmin genel kabullerinin içinin ne denli boş olduğunu gösteriyor kitap. Neoliberalizm genel olarak İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra -Amerika’da Büyük Burhan’a çekebiliriz- liberal ekonominin çakılışıyla yeni bir yol arayanların doktrini oldu. Liberalizm küreselleşme ile revize edildi de diyen var. Neoliberalizmin temel tezi bireysel hırsların tüm medeniyete katkı yapacağı şeklinde. Yükselen dalga tüm gemileri yüzdürür diyorlar kısaca. Bir sınıfın zenginliği tüm sınıflarda hissedilir gibi çarpık bir düşünceleri var. Harvey de dünyadaki yoksulluğu bitirmesi gerekirken yoksulluğu daha kötü koşullara hapseden bu sistemi sorguluyor. Serbest piyasanın sınıf yokmuş gibi davranarak çok derin sınıfsal dışlamalar yaptığı da bir gerçek. Şu an öğrenci ya da yetişkin birçok insan sınıf kavramının eskidiğini düşünüyor. Sınıf dendiğinde kafalarında canlanan Hindistan’daki kast oluyor. Neoliberal sistemin en büyük kazanımı da bu. Sınıfı reddedince modern problemi kalmıyor. Ama gerçekte yaşanan gecekonduların artık bir kent kadar büyümesi. Devletler de bu piyasanın çıkarlarını gözeterek varoluyor. Sermayenin büyümesini sağlayan koşulları adalet ve güvenlikle geliştiriyor. Para, zaman ve güvenliğe ihtiyaç duymayan insanlara hak ve hürriyetlerini verip, toplumun geri kalanına kırıntıları atan bir sistem bu. Kitap yirmi sene önce yazılsa da büyük oranda geçerliliğini koruyor. Çağı anlamlandırmak için çok iyi bir kitap.

[Iman Rouhipour · Rating 4 out of 5]

جهان چه‌طور به نئولیبرالیسم روی آورد؟ این ایده اصلاً از کجا اومد؟ آیا دولت‌های نئولیبرال صد درصد به اصول نئولیبرالیسم پایبند هستن؟ مختصات نئولیبرالیسم در مثلاً چین و شیلی و مکزیک و کره‌ی جنوبی و انگلستان چه تفاوت‌هایی دارند؟ اصلاً چین بعد از مائو چه‌طور نئولیبرال شد؟ چرا مکزیک شد محل انواع جرم و جنایت و مواد مخدر و چین شد یک ابرقدرت مالی/صنعتی/نظامی ؟
دیوید هاروی - همون‌طور که اسم کتاب می‌گه - راجع به همه‌ی این موضوعات به‌اختصار و به شکل چکیده‌ی نکات و سیاست‌گذاری های مهم اشاره می‌کنه که از این جهت قطعاً برای شروع مباحثی مثل ژئوپولیتیک یا نئولیبرالیسم کتاب خیلی مناسبیه.
فصل «نئولیبرالیسم با خصوصیات چینی» برام خیلی قابل‌توجه بود و حتماً سعی ‌می‌کنم به‌زودی در مورد چین بیشتر مطالعه کنم.

پ.ن : یه خاطره. چند وقت پیش تو گروه تلگرامی عضو بودم که -مثلاً- چپ بودن و معترض به وضعیت جهان. ادمین اصلی گروه به شکل مصرانه‌ای طرفدار حزب کمونیست امروز چین بود و معتقد به این‌که کارگران چین بالاترین امنیت و رفاه جهان رو دارند. حتی اگه کسی می‌گفت آمار کرونای چین احتمالاً دق��ق نیست ریموو می‌شد. حالا منم ریموو شدم اما هرجا که کتاب راجع به چین حرف می‌زد یاد اون بنده‌خدا میفتادم.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Review thingy forthcoming placeholder]

[Stefanos · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Harvey undertook a difficult project. He tried to unravel the complicated story of neoliberalism and to give an enlightening narrative account of how it originated theoretically, how it was practiced and what have been the results. And in my opinion he did a great job!

Concerning the first question - he acknowledges that there are many different theoretical versions but he is mostly concerned with the ‘Hayek version’ since it’s the most well-known and influential. It was Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig Von Mises (even Karl Popper for a while) and others that got together to create a new ideological movement around the 18th century liberalism - of liberty and freedom - and neo-classical economics. Hence the name neo-liberal.
Their most significant and fundamental idea was that individual freedoms can only be guaranteed by freedom of the market and of trade, combined with strong private property rights, individualism, ‘personal responsibility’ and the rule of law. Free trade is regarded as a fundamental imperative and competition as a primary virtue.Goods and services must move freely without any form of intervention by the state or any other price-setting monopoly which implies deregulation, privatisation, low taxes, no tariffs, no subsidies, low barriers to entry etc. As a result, the argument goes, private enterprise and entrepreneurial initiative works as the key to innovation and economic prosperity/growth. The increases in productivity would result in higher living standards to everyone under the assumption/hypothesis of trickle down economics. Thus the elimination of poverty (both domestic and worldwide) can best be secured through free markets and free trade(pg 65) Additionally, they emphasized on individual right to freedom of action, expression, and choice - which includes businesses and corporations since they are considered legally as individuals - and that these virtues must be protected at any cost. And there lies the role of the government. It must be confined to preserve these freedoms by using its monopoly of the means of violence. Lastly their skepticism of the government as an institution made them suspicious of democracy as well since the majority rule of majority could be a threat to individual rights and constitutional liberties

All these were written in the middle of the Golden age of Capitalism, between 1950 and 1960, a period of extreme prosperity and economic growth for the western world. It was mainly based on interventionism, Keynesianism, embedded liberalism and a strong social democratic system in Europe within regulatory structures and institutional arrangements (such as strong unions) Neo-liberal thinkers were a minority in intellectual circles and were widely overlooked
But the crisis in 1970 of economic accumulation , the oil crisis 1973, Keynesianism not working hit the western capitalist system hard and led an immediate need for a paradigm shifting ideology.This is when neo-liberals grabbed the opportunity! They used think-tanks, extensive media coverage to spread their ideas and ‘took advantage’ of the strong social movements of 60s(e.g civil rights) and appealed to people’s sparking feelings about individual liberty, freedom but excluded social justice - without many noticing the distinction. And they succeeded!

Very soon the first experiments took place, starting with Chile, a little later Uk under Thatcher and USA under Reagan but the system was unstable and didn’t live up to it’s promises of great capital accumulation and development - especially for Russia where it was disastrous. On the contrary it was the interventionist Germany and Japan that were at their prime. Harvey claims that this was a result of the internal contradictions of neoliberal theory. On that account there was a further systematic shift that departed, in some respects, from the original ideology towards a “more pragmatic neo-liberalism”. This included:

1)Maintaining the imperative for free market while at the same time demanding an active state in order to create a good business for investment to strengthen their position in the global economy and induce a strong inflow of foreign investment.
2) The state should favour the well-being of the financial system and the interest of the institutions instead of supporting welfare programs, hospitals, universities etc. A kind of “Keynesianism for the rich”
3)In case of a financial default the state has to intervene and rescue companies or deter financial failures by replacing the ‘bad’ money with ‘good state money’. It has usually been the citizens that were called to pay for these mistakes through higher taxing, austerity and other similar measures. Internationally this meant extracting surpluses from impoverished Third World populations in order to pay off the international bankers(pg. 74)
4) Institutions like the IMF and WTO had an increasingly important role in the global market to make key political decisions in developing countries forcing them to follow the neo-liberal orthodoxy. A case of intense state interventions and government by elites and ‘experts’ in a world where the state is supposed not to be interventionist.(pg. 69)
5) A strict control on trade unions, social movements in the name of protecting the liberty of isolated labourers and freeing the market.
6) Privatization of public utilities, social welfare provision, public institutions and even warfare, the commodification (through tourism) of cultural forms, histories, and intellectual creativity as well as treating labour and the environment as mere commodities and of course financialisation.

These above, constituted the Washington Consensus(with few more) meaning the “pragmatic neoliberal” orthodoxy that was proposed to every country as the best possible system. Naturally, every country had it’s slightly adjusted policies and Harvey devotes a whole chapter looking at many specific cases(Mexico, Argentina’s collapse,South Korea,Sweden) and their “uneven geographical developments” and a whole chapter on China which case he founds extremely interesting.

Nevertheless the most important and interesting part is about the outcomes. The evidence strongly suggests some consistently similar results wherever this neoliberalism has been practiced. First of all it didn’t live up to it’s economic promises. The stimulation of capital accumulation has been dismal, growth rates and GDP were steadily declining in neoliberal countries, developing countries ‘advised’ by the IMF hence the neoliberal orthodoxy remained stagnated or spurts of growth followed by economic collapse (with very few exceptions), financial crises multiplied and were more endemic and contagious.
So why did it continue to prevail as a system? It was mainly because from the standpoint of the upper classes that the neoliberalization was a huge success since wealth was concentrating in fewer hands - especially the super-rich(0.1%) - and they restored class power and wanted to maintain the status quo. On the other side, unemployment was rising, real wage levels declining, the social safety net was reduced to a bare minimum, the welfare programs and national health care were restricted creating overall huge inequalities and problems for the vast majority of people. Of course, you don’t have to be an expert economist to see that such a system is not sustainable and the great financial crisis of 2008 is the manifestation of this. It may even be the case that you had to be an expert economist in order to miss a self-evident truth like this!

I’m can’t be sure that it was a deliberate plan to restore class power but the evidence is clear.Neoliberalism is a ‘utopian’ project gone wild. It is not the most efficient economic system, it is unethical since it completely disregards social justice and basic human rights and democracy, it’s short-term contractual logic on environmental uses has disastrous consequences and of course, it’s not the “only alternative”

"There is a far, far nobler prospect of freedom to be won than that which neoliberalism preaches. There is a far, far worthier system of governance to be constructed than that which neoconservatism allows."

This is a extremely important story everyone should know. A valuable analysis and useful tool to understand the political and economic world of today. It doesn't come without it's problems and shortcomings but it is still, truly worth-reading!

[Alexander Popov · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Neoliberal concern for the individual trumps social democratic concern for equality, democracy, and social solidarities."

This was written in 2005 or even earlier. OK, yes, it is a silly coincidence of a pun, but, coincidentally, it pretty succinctly captures 2016. More importantly, the rest of the book provides a framework within which Trump and Brexit are not surprising at all, they emerge as events that are a natural development under the current reckless course of globalization and capital accumulation. A short and useful book. Don't expect any great theoretical depths from it, that was evidently not Harvey's goal here. However, neoliberalism doesn't seem to have any great theoretical depth to itself either, so a largely descriptive account such as this one is more than adequate. It brings clarity, much needed practical definitions and makes it a little bit easier for the proverbial fish to realize the existence of water. Even for readers who will eventually disagree with most of what is written here, it is an important reference point towards a more meaningful map of modernity.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading this while lying on the beach in El Segundo next to the power station when I was preparing my big return to academia. For that purpose it was fantastic, though I won't pretend I didn't nod off to the sound of waves... As a basic summary of a very influential strand of political economy it’s great, David Harvey writes clearly and well, with a passionate interest that I find very engaging and decades of experience in wrestling with these issues, so on that level alone I would recommend him highly.

Going back over my underlinings a few years later, with much more to compare him to, I find it still holds up strong. It has all the strengths and failings of a ‘brief history’, so I won’t spend much time on those. It is very much a grand theory of political economy, a worldwide explanation of the broad processes that are occurring, but I confess I feel the need for a bit of that, in spite of my appreciation of Foucauldian nuance. Because it is undoubtedly true that:

… one persistent fact within this complex history of uneven neoliberalization has been the universal tendency to increase social inequality and to expose the least fortunate elements in any society––be it in Indonesia, Mexico, or Britain––to the chill winds of austerity and the dull fate of increasing marginalization. [118]

It is also true that for the most part, the people on each side of the divide between rich and poor have also remained the same, although Harvey makes the good point that changing technology and focus on the market have possibly rearranged those with the greatest amounts of wealth and power to some degree. What I miss, and a terrible absence I find it, is the analysis of race, because that is another thing I find remains always the same: the darker your skin, the further down the economic and political hierarchy you are likely to be, at least in Latin America, the United States, and Europe. I think we need to grapple with these truths at both the macro and the microlevels, sadly most people do one or the other…

So Harvey’s argument: that neoliberalization is in fact a class project to advance the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. The reality is that this has happened, whether or not you believe that is due to a conscious effort, as any look at the statistics of how the wealth of the top 5% in the world has grown since the 1970s will show. Forget about the 1%, it is obscene. That ‘the assets of the top three billionaires [were by then] more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people’ could be true, I find nauseating. So yeah, I find some version of this class project idea rather persuasive – I don’t think such large levels of wealth accumulation happened just by accident, and it is natural enough that the wealthy promote their own interests.

I think the way that the theory has been developed and disseminated is also clearly shown to be deliberate, from the Mont Pelerin society onwards through a host of thinkers and think tanks. That it has become hegemonic, I see for myself in the news, in politician’s speeches, in the unquestioned beliefs held by many of my students at the London School of Economics.

I study forms of democracy, and here again you see a narrowing of the idea of democracy to become nothing more than a simple vote in much discourse. Harvey also puts his finger on this:

Neoliberal theorists are, however, profoundly suspicious of democracy. Governance by majority rule is seen as a potential threat to individual rights and constitutional liberties. Democracy is viewed as a luxury, only possible under conditions of relative affluence coupled with a strong middle-class presence to guarantee political stability. Neoliberals therefore tend to favour governance by experts and elites.

It follows that struggle is channeled into courts and policy but that in doing that it can never achieve full victory. Of course liberals have always been afraid of ‘the mob’, and I didn’t think there was nearly enough on privatisation and the new forms of governance, but then such discussions would have to be pretty specific to place.

I like the way he thinks through the contradictions in the logic of neoliberalism, and how practice deviates from neoliberal theory…those seem the most fruitful areas to explore in terms both of pointing out (and targeting) weaknesses, but also in thinking about how to form an alternative vision strong enough to replace it.

I also found the discussion of rights as rallying call and the [limited] thoughts on contestation quite useful as a basic starting point … though again this I find weaker than I’d like. The uprisings of the 60s and 70s surely had a huge impact on neoliberal thought and practice, shaping it in effect, nor is there enough detail on contestation to make it too useful. It’s an interesting warning, how neoliberalism has co-opted movements. I’m not sure what to take away from that and I rather think I strongly disagree – not that movements haven’t been co-opted, but I think contestation has always come from outside a state structure, and that NGO or ‘interest-group’ status alone does not necessarily lead to co-optation, and certainly not anarchist politics … that is what this edges towards saying if I read it right. But the kind of organization needed to challenge neoliberalism is definitely a key question, one I have yet to see satisfactorily answered.

Including a chapter on China in a book like this is key I think, and I found it fascinating, but have no background to judge how accurate it might be. And to wrap this lengthy meandering up, I’d definitely recommend this to anyone really, particularly if you need something introductory.

[Marcel Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

ENGLISH

In 1994, then Minister of Finance of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, launched “Plano Real”, an economic plan to stabilize the Brazilian economy, which for several years had been suffering with galloping inflation (see an account of that in my review of Mises’s “Economic Policy: Lessons for Today and Tomorrow” here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).

The Plano Real seemed like another attempt among several preceding ones. But this time it worked. The success of the plan in reducing inflation guaranteed Fernando Henrique’s victory in the presidential election of the same year and even his reelection fours years later.

The Plano Real and Mr. Cardoso’s term were pillared in basic measures of the Neoliberal recipe emphatically preached by international economic organizations such as the IMF and WTO during the 1980s and 1990s in what came to be known as “the Washington Consensus”: monetary stability (with tight control of inflation), floating exchange rate (which came years later), fiscal surplus (strict control over State spending), privatizations to reduce the presence of the State in the economy, and stimulus to competition by exposure of internal markets to foreign competition and strengthening of the antitrust enforcement.

Being a Social Democrat politician with strong leftist academic background, Mr. Cardoso also created several social programs, as well as distributed land in response to an increase in the activity of the popular landless movement.

The reduction of inflation and currency stabilization were a total success. To the point that any politician with presidential intentions in the country to this date must address this issue under penalty of not being elected.

Mr. Cardoso’s trajectory as president, nevertheless, seems to be a good illustration of the limited potential of economic measures based solely on the Neoliberal recipe. After 6 years or so, persistent high levels of interest rates and unemployment cooled the enthusiasm down as the performance of the economy seemed to hit a ceiling and move sideways. Mr. Cardoso failed in making his successor (and one could insinuate that his vanity prevented him from engaging properly in the campaign), and his party lost the election to opposition candidate Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva from the workers’ party.

To everyone’s surprise, Lula’s economic programe in his first term strictly followed the Neoliberal recipe in continuation of his successor. The optimism with the election of a very popular politician with rigorous Neoliberal management of the Economy and intensification of social agenda made Brazil’s economy enter into a very optimistic phase. The flight was, however, short and again not really high. The policy showed signals of wear and tear some years later, and eventually ended with the resignation of then Minister of Finance under rumors of corruption.

David Harvey in “A Brief History of Neoliberalism” identifies a convincing pattern of measures in the economic realm that characterized the so-called Neoliberalism. Harvey goes through the experiences of the UK and the US with the elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s in response to the crisis of the 1970s — which for him was the culmination of Keynesian policies in practice since the end of WWII —, and other countries, especially developing ones. For Harvey, Neoliberal policies in fact did not deliver high economic performance in developed countries and caused actual damages to developing ones. The only success of Neoliberal policies was in fighting inflation. Countries that disobeyed the “Washington Consensus” ended up performing better, like China, which didn’t apply a disastrous Neoliberal “shock therapy” like Russia did — even though Harvey sees China as in fact having adopted Neoliberal policies.

For Harvey, the seductive discourse of Neoliberalism on the prominence of individual freedom and reduction of State intervention in private life served in fact to restore and reinforce the power of the elite over working class by means of the weakening of the bargaining power of labor unions. For Harvey, Neoliberalism in fact doesn’t match with democracy, as its recipe is hard to implement in a complex political system with popular approvals. Harvey sees a nefarious marriage between Neoliberalism in the Economy and Neoconservatism in politics and morals, which characterizes persistent modern policies across the world.

Harvey tries to immerse his analysis in the economic aspects of Neoliberalism, which he does relatively well. The weak points in this “brief” account is exactly the “History” part of it — which he could have explored more deeply — and, most importantly, the geopolitical context of Cold War from the 1970s through the end of the 1980s, which was unquestionably imbricated in the phenomenon.


PORTUGUÊS

Em 1994, o então Ministro da Fazenda do Brasil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, lançou o “Plano Real” numa tentativa de estabilizar a economia brasileira, que durante vários anos vinha sofrendo com uma inflação galopante (veja um relato disso na minha resenha de “As Seis Lições” de Mises aqui https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).

O Plano Real parecia mais uma tentativa entre várias anteriores, mas desta vez deu certo. O sucesso do plano na contenção da inflação garantiu a vitória de Fernando Henrique nas eleições presidenciais do mesmo ano e até a sua reeleição quatro anos depois.

O Plano Real e o mandato de FHC foram sustentados em medidas básicas da cartilha neoliberal apregada enfaticamente por organizações econômicas internacionais como o FMI e a OMC durante as décadas de 1980 e 1990, no que veio a ser conhecido como “o Consenso de Washington”: estabilidade monetária (com rigoroso controle da inflação), câmbio flutuante (o que veio anos depois), superávit fiscal (controle rígido sobre gastos públicos), privatizações para reduzir a presença do Estado na economia e estímulo à concorrência através da exposição dos mercados internos à concorrência estrangeira e fortalecimento da fiscalização antitruste.

Sendo um político social-democrata com uma forte formação académica de esquerda, FHC também criou vários programas sociais, bem como distribuiu terras em resposta ao aumento da atividade do movimento dos sem-terra.

A redução da inflação e a estabilização da moeda foram um sucesso total. A tal ponto que qualquer político com intenções presidenciais no país até hoje deve abordar esta questão de maneira satisfatória sob pena de não ser eleito.

A trajetória de FHC como presidente, no entanto, parece ser uma boa ilustração do potencial limitado das medidas econômicas baseadas apenas na cartilha neoliberal. Após cerca de 6 anos, os níveis elevados e persistentes das taxas de juro e do desemprego esfriaram o entusiasmo, à medida que o desempenho da economia parecia atingir um limite e andar de lado. FHC não conseguiu fazer seu sucessor (e pode-se insinuar que a sua vaidade o fez não se envolver adequadamente na campanha), e o seu partido perdeu a eleição para o candidato da oposição Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva, do Partido dos Trabalhadores.

Para surpresa de todos, o programa econômico de Lula em seu primeiro mandato acabou seguindo rigorosamente a receita neoliberal de seu sucessor. O otimismo com a eleição de um político muito popular, com rigorosa gestão neoliberal da economia e intensificação da agenda social fez com que a economia do Brasil entrasse em uma fase de muito otimismo. O voo, no entanto, foi curto e novamente não muito alto, e a política mostrou sinais de desgaste alguns anos depois, tendo acabado definitivamente com a demissão do então Ministro da Fazenda do governo entre rumores de corrupção.

David Harvey, em “Uma Breve História do Neoliberalismo”, visualiza convincentemente um padrão de medidas no domínio econômico que caracterizou o chamado Neoliberalismo. Harvey repassa as experiências do Reino Unido e dos EUA, com as eleições de Margaret Thatcher e Ronald Reagan, no início da década de 1980 em resposta à crise da década de 1970 — que para ele foi o ápice das políticas keynesianas desde o final da Segunda Guerra Mundial — e outros países, especialmente os em desenvolvimento. Para Harvey, as políticas neoliberais, de fato, não proporcionaram um elevado desempenho econômico nos países desenvolvidos e causaram danos reais aos países em desenvolvimento. O único sucesso das políticas neoliberais foi o combate à inflação. Os países que desobedeceram ao “Consenso de Washington” acabaram por ter um desempenho melhor, como a China, que não aplicou uma desastrosa “terapia de choque” neoliberal, como o fez a Rússia – apesar de Harvey considerar que a China de fato adotou políticas neoliberais.

Para Harvey, o discurso sedutor do Neoliberalismo sobre a proeminência da liberdade individual e a redução da intervenção do Estado na vida privada serviu, de fato, para restaurar e reforçar o poder da elite sobre a classe trabalhadora através do enfraquecimento do poder de negociação dos sindicatos. Para Harvey, o neoliberalismo não combina com a democracia, pois a suas receitas são difíceis de implementar num sistema político complexo com aprovações populares. Harvey vê um casamento nefasto entre o neoliberalismo na economia e o neoconservadorismo na política e na moral, que caracteriza políticas modernas persistentes em todo o mundo.

Harvey tenta mergulhar a sua análise nos aspectos econômicos do neoliberalismo, o que faz relativamente bem. Os pontos fracos deste “breve” relato são exatamente a parte da “História” – que ele poderia ter explorado mais profundamente – e, mais importante, o contexto geopolítico da Guerra Fria dos anos 1970 até o final dos 1980, que estava inquestionavelmente imbricado no fenômeno.

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, let me be honest. Would I have read this book if it hadn't been assigned for class? Maybe? But probably not. That being said, I am really glad I took this class and I'm glad she us start with this book. I wouldn't have been able to articulate neoliberalism before this book. Harvey deftly traces the history and emergence of neoliberal policies, mainly the privatization of industry, the opening of the market, and the financialization / globalization.

"It has been part of the genius of neoliberal theory to provide a benevolent mask full of wonderful-sounding words like freedom, liberty, choice and rights, to hide the grim realties of the restoration or reconstitution of naked class power, locally as well as transnationally, but most particularly in the main financial centers of global capitalism." - David Harvey

Harvey is an anthropologist by trade and not an economist. So this is a really readable account of a complex history. If you wonder why unemployment is high and no one seems to care, or why the government is willing to bail out banks but not help home-owners, this book will help you see how these policies work in a larger framework.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think we're living in a democracy read this book. There's too much here to comment on but Harvey basically uncovers the root of America's foreign policy, as well as the motives of those in power, since the 1970s. What's really scary is how the elites mask their reconstruction of class power through words familiar to us all: freedom, democracy, liberty, choice, etc...and we buy into it. When's the last time you heard any mention of CLASS in a newspaper or on TV?? Absolutely phenomenal book, I would give it ten stars if I could. Oh yeah, the author is even a geographer!

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect companion piece for The System by Robert B. Reich.

It's the same idea. The rich are stealing all the wealth and hoarding it and making us fight for scraps while telling us it's in our best interest. #freedom

This was written during the Bush-era. I'm like oh man, 2007 David Harvey you are about to go on a wild ride.