The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom
The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom

Author: Birsen Filip

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-12-01

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 3030616231

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book examines the relationship that prevails between the state and freedom in the works of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, as well as those of some of their peers, including Gary Becker, James Buchanan, and George Stigler. The author explains that their concept of freedom was largely derived from the principles and values of neo-liberalism. However, she maintains that neo-liberals never cared about providing the masses with genuine freedom; rather, they value freedom for its instrumental value in terms of facilitating the global spread of free-market capitalism. The author explains that the neo-liberal concept of freedom has been a very useful tool in promoting the superiority of free-market capitalism over centrally planned economies aimed at achieving the common good. She argues that even though neo-liberals are strongly opposed to central planning, they are tolerant of state planning intended to help establish and sustain the conditions of a free-market system. She also contends that the extensive implementation of neo-liberal reforms and policies has led to states losing their sovereignty and moving away from their traditional role of achieving the common good. The author claims that the world has essentially become the sum of many neo-liberal societies, particularly during the last four decades. She also maintains that, throughout human history, no other ideology, school of thought, political, religious or military institution, kingdom, or empire has been as successful as neo-liberalism, when it comes to shaping people’s beliefs, ideals, goals, and lifestyle on a global scale. Unfortunately, neo-liberalism has proven to be very detrimental for civilization and the future of the planet. The author concludes that the widespread adoption of the neo-liberal concept of freedom, in combination with the pretense that economics is a natural, ahistorical and value-free science, has triggered the emergence of methodological monism, which has resulted in unfreedom and the poverty of economics, while also delaying the progress of the entire discipline.

Neoliberalism's Demons
Neoliberalism's Demons

Author: Adam Kotsko

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1503607135

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Adam Kotsko’s premise—that the devil and the neoliberal subject can only ever choose their own damnation—is as original as it is breathtaking.” —James Martel, author of Anarchist Prophets By both its supporters and detractors, neoliberalism is usually considered an economic policy agenda. Neoliberalism’s Demons argues that it is much more than that: a complete worldview, neoliberalism presents the competitive marketplace as the model for true human flourishing. And it has enjoyed great success: from the struggle for “global competitiveness” on the world stage down to our individual practices of self-branding and social networking, neoliberalism has transformed every aspect of our shared social life. The book explores the sources of neoliberalism’s remarkable success and the roots of its current decline. Neoliberalism’s appeal is its promise of freedom in the form of unfettered free choice. But that freedom is a trap: we have just enough freedom to be accountable for our failings, but not enough to create genuine change. If we choose rightly, we ratify our own exploitation. And if we choose wrongly, we are consigned to the outer darkness—and then demonized as the cause of social ills. By tracing the political and theological roots of the neoliberal concept of freedom, Adam Kotsko offers a fresh perspective, one that emphasizes the dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality. More than that, he accounts for the rise of right-wing populism, arguing that, far from breaking with the neoliberal model, it actually doubles down on neoliberalism’s most destructive features. “One of the most compelling critical analyses of neoliberalism I’ve yet encountered, understood holistically as an economic agenda, a moral vision, and a state mission.” —Peter Hallward, author of Badiou

The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order

Author: Gary Gerstle

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0197519660

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The most sweeping account of how neoliberalism came to dominate American politics for nearly a half century before crashing against the forces of Trumpism on the right and a new progressivism on the left. The epochal shift toward neoliberalism--a web of related policies that, broadly speaking, reduced the footprint of government in society and reassigned economic power to private market forces--that began in the United States and Great Britain in the late 1970s fundamentally changed the world. Today, the word "neoliberal" is often used to condemn a broad swath of policies, from prizing free market principles over people to advancing privatization programs in developing nations around the world. To be sure, neoliberalism has contributed to a number of alarming trends, not least of which has been a massive growth in income inequality. Yet as the eminent historian Gary Gerstle argues in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, these indictments fail to reckon with the full contours of what neoliberalism was and why its worldview had such persuasive hold on both the right and the left for three decades. As he shows, the neoliberal order that emerged in America in the 1970s fused ideas of deregulation with personal freedoms, open borders with cosmopolitanism, and globalization with the promise of increased prosperity for all. Along with tracing how this worldview emerged in America and grew to dominate the world, Gerstle explores the previously unrecognized extent to which its triumph was facilitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist allies. He is also the first to chart the story of the neoliberal order's fall, originating in the failed reconstruction of Iraq and Great Recession of the Bush years and culminating in the rise of Trump and a reinvigorated Bernie Sanders-led American left in the 2010s. An indispensable and sweeping re-interpretation of the last fifty years, this book illuminates how the ideology of neoliberalism became so infused in the daily life of an era, while probing what remains of that ideology and its political programs as America enters an uncertain future.

The Econocracy
The Econocracy

Author: Joe Earle

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2017-07-06

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0141986883

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A century ago, the idea of 'the economy' didn't exist. Now economics is the supreme ideology of our time, with its own rules and language. The trouble is, most of us can't speak it. This is damaging democracy. Dangerous agendas are hidden inside mathematical wrappers; controversial policies are presented as 'proven' by the models of economic 'science'. Government is being turned over to a publicly unaccountable technocratic elite. The Econocracy reveals that economics is too important to be left to the economists - and shows us how we can begin to participate more fully in the decisions which affect all our futures.

From Triumph to Crisis
From Triumph to Crisis

Author: Hilary Appel

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-05-10

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1108422292

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Explains the surprising endurance of neoliberal policymaking over two decades in post-Communist countries, from 1989-2008, and its decline after the financial crash.

Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction
Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Manfred B. Steger

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-01-21

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 0191609765

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Anchored in the principles of the free-market economics, 'neoliberalism' has been associated with such different political leaders as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, and Junichiro Koizumi. In its heyday during the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm stretching from the Anglo-American heartlands of capitalism to the former communist bloc all the way to the developing regions of the global South. At the dawn of the new century, however, neoliberalism has been discredited as the global economy, built on its principles, has been shaken to its core by a financial calamity not seen since the dark years of the 1930s. So is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? Will reform-minded G-20 leaders embark on a genuine new course or try to claw their way back to the neoliberal glory days of the Roaring Nineties? Is there a viable alternative to neoliberalism? Exploring the origins, core claims, and considerable variations of neoliberalism, this Very Short Introduction offers a concise and accessible introduction to one of the most debated 'isms' of our time. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Profit Over People
Profit Over People

Author: Noam Chomsky

Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Published: 2011-09-06

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1609802918

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Why is the Atlantic slowly filling with crude petroleum, threatening a millions-of-years-old ecological balance? Why did traders at prominent banks take high-risk gambles with the money entrusted to them by hundreds of thousands of clients around the world, expanding and leveraging their investments to the point that failure led to a global financial crisis that left millions of people jobless and hundreds of cities economically devastated? Why would the world’s most powerful military spend ten years fighting an enemy that presents no direct threat to secure resources for corporations? The culprit in all cases is neoliberal ideology—the belief in the supremacy of "free" markets to drive and govern human affairs. And in the years since the initial publication of Noam Chomsky’s Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, the bitter vines of neoliberalism have only twisted themselves further into the world economy, obliterating the public’s voice in public affairs and substituting the bottom line in place of people’s basic obligation to care for one another as ends in themselves. In Profit Over People, Chomsky reveals the roots of the present crisis, tracing the history of neoliberalism through an incisive analysis of free trade agreements of the 1990s, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund—and describes the movements of resistance to the increasing interference by the private sector in global affairs. In the years since the initial publication of Profit Over People, the stakes have only risen. Now more than ever, Profit Over People is one of the key texts explaining how the crisis facing us operates—and how, through Chomsky’s analysis of resistance, we may find an escape from the closing net.

In the Ruins of Neoliberalism
In the Ruins of Neoliberalism

Author: Wendy Brown

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-07-16

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 0231550537

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Across the West, hard-right leaders are surging to power on platforms of ethno-economic nationalism, Christianity, and traditional family values. Is this phenomenon the end of neoliberalism or its monstrous offspring? In the Ruins of Neoliberalism casts the hard-right turn as animated by socioeconomically aggrieved white working- and middle-class populations but contoured by neoliberalism’s multipronged assault on democratic values. From its inception, neoliberalism flirted with authoritarian liberalism as it warred against robust democracy. It repelled social-justice claims through appeals to market freedom and morality. It sought to de-democratize the state, economy, and society and re-secure the patriarchal family. In key works of the founding neoliberal intellectuals, Wendy Brown traces the ambition to replace democratic orders with ones disciplined by markets and traditional morality and democratic states with technocratic ones. Yet plutocracy, white supremacy, politicized mass affect, indifference to truth, and extreme social disinhibition were no part of the neoliberal vision. Brown theorizes their unintentional spurring by neoliberal reason, from its attack on the value of society and its fetish of individual freedom to its legitimation of inequality. Above all, she argues, neoliberalism’s intensification of nihilism coupled with its accidental wounding of white male supremacy generates an apocalyptic populism willing to destroy the world rather than endure a future in which this supremacy disappears.

Authoritarian Neoliberalism
Authoritarian Neoliberalism

Author: Ian Bruff

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-06-09

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 100071246X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Authoritarian Neoliberalism explores how neoliberal forms of managing capitalism are challenging democratic governance at local, national and international levels. Identifying a spectrum of policies and practices that seek to reproduce neoliberalism and shield it from popular and democratic contestation, contributors provide original case studies that investigate the legal-administrative, social, coercive and corporate dimensions of authoritarian neoliberalism across the global North and South. They detail the crisis-ridden intertwinement of authoritarian statecraft and neoliberal reforms, and trace the transformation of key societal sites in capitalism (e.g. states, households, workplaces, urban spaces) through uneven yet cumulative processes of neoliberalization. Informed by innovative conceptual and methodological approaches, Authoritarian Neoliberalism uncovers how inequalities of power are produced and reproduced in capitalist societies, and highlights how alternatives to neoliberalism can be formulated and pursued. The book was originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.

Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism

Author: Damien Cahill

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-08-31

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0745695566

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For over three decades neoliberalism has been the dominant economic ideology. While it may have emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis of 2007-8, neoliberalism is now - more than ever - under scrutiny from critics who argue that it has failed to live up to its promises, creating instead an increasingly unequal and insecure world. This book offers a nuanced and probing analysis of the meaning and practical application of neoliberalism today, separating myth from reality. Drawing on examples such as the growth of finance, the role of corporate power and the rise of workfare, the book advances a balanced but distinctive perspective on neoliberalism as involving the interaction of ideas, material economic change and political transformations. It interrogates claims about the impending death of neoliberalism and considers the sources of its resilience in the current climate of political disenchantment and economic austerity. Clearly and accessibly written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars across the social sciences.