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Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader
Neoliberalism is the dominant ideology shaping our world today. It dictates the policies of governments, and shapes the actions of key institutions such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank and European Central Bank. Its political and economic implications can hardly be overstated. Yet there are obvious problems with the neoliberal project. This book is a perfect introduction to neoliberalism that is ideal for anyone seeking a critical perspective. It explains the nature, history, strengths, weaknesses and implications of neoliberalism from the point of view of radical political economics. Short, self-contained chapters are written by leading experts in each field. The books is organised in three parts: the first section outlining neoliberal theory, the second exploring how neoliberalism has affected various policy areas, and a third looking at how neoliberal policies have played out in particular regions of the world. Using a broad range of left economic perspectives, from post-Keynesian to Marxist, this is a great resource for students of politics and economics, and anyone looking for a grounded critical approach to this broad subject.
272 pages, Paperback
First published December 20, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 8, 2014
Hacking at the branches of evil (carefully avoiding to strike at the root)
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites.]
This book was published in 2005, before the demand-driven boom in anti-neoliberal literature caused by austerity. We're all versed in neoliberalism now, and when a title claims to offer a critical approach to the subject, expectations sky-rocket.
It might still be early in the day for a clear-cut separation between the object - how we manage the economy nowadays or how capitalism actually organizes itself - and its representation. But we need to get there as soon as possible if we believe in the possibility of a U-turn or at least action aimed at cutting losses.
Clearly, there are three levels at which critical thinking can be applied:
1) Neoliberal discourse and justification: what neoliberals say
2) Neoliberal policies: what neoliberals do
3) The economic outcomes: how neoliberal policies actually play out in different contexts.
Level three is the one that matters most because it is at that level that class formation takes place as vested interests emerge (or stakeholder groups if you prefer to go mainstream). Assuming of course that there is not such a thing as unintended outcomes in the long run. Focusing on level three, a few critical questions should be raised:
- who benefits from neoliberal outcomes?
- how many neoliberal beneficiaries are there?
- how politically empowered are the neoliberal beneficiaries compared to the neoliberal losers?
No matter how trivial these questions are, or maybe because they are so trivial, everyone thinks they know the answer even before starting the investigation: corporations benefit, a small number of them, with unlimited access to lobbying. This is not a critical analysis though as it is not the result of research, but the unchecked premise of much literature. In fact one should go on and ask: who owns corporations? How many million people? How many million votes?
This book does not ask these questions outright, but here and there you can can pick clues of how far the deep workings of neoliberalism are from the 'imagined' neoliberalism, or the representation that even its 'critics' are now offering to soothe the guilty masses. The higher employment rates guaranteed in the US at the expense of equality of income distribution, the offshoring of hazardous jobs, the overconsumption made possible by higher purchasing power in imported goods all point in the direction of a wider social base for neoliberalism than the uncritical critics of neoliberalism account for.
The books is extremely useful at level two, in describing the details of the policies and the relentless and in many case very transparent consolidation work through which we've turned an alarmed reaction to keynesian policies into a blueprint for political acquiescence.
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites.]
This book was published in 2005, before the demand-driven boom in anti-neoliberal literature caused by austerity. We're all versed in neoliberalism now, and when a title claims to offer a critical approach to the subject, expectations sky-rocket.
It might still be early in the day for a clear-cut separation between the object - how we manage the economy nowadays or how capitalism actually organizes itself - and its representation. But we need to get there as soon as possible if we believe in the possibility of a U-turn or at least action aimed at cutting losses.
Clearly, there are three levels at which critical thinking can be applied:
1) Neoliberal discourse and justification: what neoliberals say
2) Neoliberal policies: what neoliberals do
3) The economic outcomes: how neoliberal policies actually play out in different contexts.
Level three is the one that matters most because it is at that level that class formation takes place as vested interests emerge (or stakeholder groups if you prefer to go mainstream). Assuming of course that there is not such a thing as unintended outcomes in the long run. Focusing on level three, a few critical questions should be raised:
- who benefits from neoliberal outcomes?
- how many neoliberal beneficiaries are there?
- how politically empowered are the neoliberal beneficiaries compared to the neoliberal losers?
No matter how trivial these questions are, or maybe because they are so trivial, everyone thinks they know the answer even before starting the investigation: corporations benefit, a small number of them, with unlimited access to lobbying. This is not a critical analysis though as it is not the result of research, but the unchecked premise of much literature. In fact one should go on and ask: who owns corporations? How many million people? How many million votes?
This book does not ask these questions outright, but here and there you can can pick clues of how far the deep workings of neoliberalism are from the 'imagined' neoliberalism, or the representation that even its 'critics' are now offering to soothe the guilty masses. The higher employment rates guaranteed in the US at the expense of equality of income distribution, the offshoring of hazardous jobs, the overconsumption made possible by higher purchasing power in imported goods all point in the direction of a wider social base for neoliberalism than the uncritical critics of neoliberalism account for.
The books is extremely useful at level two, in describing the details of the policies and the relentless and in many case very transparent consolidation work through which we've turned an alarmed reaction to keynesian policies into a blueprint for political acquiescence.
September 10, 2015
This is a really nice, wide ranging collection of short accessible articles about neoliberalism. The articles deal with shifts in economic policy and ideology, regional variants, specific social concerns, etc. Taken as a whole this paints a pretty decent picture of the changes brought about by neoliberalism from the 1970s-early 2000s.
Of course, one of the problems is that this collection was published a decade ago, and the face of international neoliberal capitalism has changed drastically since then (though the foundations remain largely the same). The economic recession of 2008 and the War on Terror/Iraq/Afghanistan has forced/allowed neoliberal capitalism to reformulate itself in ways that writers in 2005 or earlier would probably not have anticipated. So ideally this should be supplemented with newer (i.e., post 2010) analyses of neoliberalism.
The other issue with this collection is that the chapter are quite short and include fairly little documentation for many of their claims. In that sense, this collection functions more like an overview or an introduction than a deep scholarly engagement with political economics and ideology.
Of course, one of the problems is that this collection was published a decade ago, and the face of international neoliberal capitalism has changed drastically since then (though the foundations remain largely the same). The economic recession of 2008 and the War on Terror/Iraq/Afghanistan has forced/allowed neoliberal capitalism to reformulate itself in ways that writers in 2005 or earlier would probably not have anticipated. So ideally this should be supplemented with newer (i.e., post 2010) analyses of neoliberalism.
The other issue with this collection is that the chapter are quite short and include fairly little documentation for many of their claims. In that sense, this collection functions more like an overview or an introduction than a deep scholarly engagement with political economics and ideology.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews