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A Brief History of Neoliberalism
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| Part No: | 0199283273 |
| Manufacturer: | Oxford University Press, USA |
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| Customer Rating: | 4.5 / 5.0 |
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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.
| Great arguments, but thought is not as black or white | 2010-07-30 | 5 / 5 |
| Even though outdated because of its obsession with the George Bush presidency and the war in Iraq, this beautifully written, skillfully argued book is a great read, with a few downsides.
David Harvey first presents the historical context during which neoliberalism replaced embedded liberalism. Embedded liberalism was the period when most governments - throughout the world - offered safety nets and social programs to their citizens. By the 1970s, public budgets were scorching the bottom of their barrels and thus provoking anger on the part of labor unions: Enter neoliberal thought as defined by Austrian academic Fredrick Augustus Von Hayek and his disciples, such as Milton Friedman and the "boys of Chicago" - economists trained by the University of Chicago.
The neoliberal school argued that privatizing the public sector, dismantling labor unions and liberalizing markets were reforms needed to reverse the economic ailments of the 1970s. The neoliberals put their ideology to test first in Chile in 1973 and later to solve the crisis of the bankrupt city of New York.
Despite some initial success, we now know that neoliberalism has continuously resulted in economic disasters, first and foremost in the United States (such as in 2008, after this book was written).
To win popular support for the spread of their ideology, neoliberals split the most popular movement of 1968 when labor unions and student movement waged street battles against governments. According to Harvey, the fusion of the social welfare demands of the labor unions and individual freedoms of the student movement was no easy task, a lesson not lost on the neoliberals who capitalized on this difference, and eventually caused a split between the two by endorsing individual freedom as one of their scared principles.
Harvey writes: "A contradiction arises between a seductive but alienating possessive individualism on the one hand and the desire for a meaningful collective life on the other. While individuals are supposedly free to choose, they are not supposed to choose to construct strong collective institutions (such as trade unions) as opposed to weak voluntary associations (like charitable organizations)."
He heavily criticizes the tools of neoliberalism namely the IMF, World Bank, the US Federal Reserve (all unelected institutions) and the US Treasury, saying that the IMF, the World Bank and Washington have imposed their neoliberal ideas on countries like Mexico and Argentina, giving capital owners worldwide a chance to expand their wealth through financial games with the troubled countries and eventually causing economic havoc for these countries and colossal fortunes for themselves.
Harvey brilliantly highlights the failure of neoliberalism even within the United States. He argued (before the 2008 financial crisis) that neoliberals had de-industrialized America and transformed the economy base into finance. There, brokerage and speculating against the market - among other games - generated virtual wealth for the country at large, while actual fortunes were being accumulated for the finance dealers only (and even those had to be bailed out by government as evident in the US in 2008 and 2009). When America's bubbles burst, the poor usually find themselves poorer and the rich, much richer.
Harvey also writes in details about the Chinese style of neoliberalism.
Harvey argues that democracy is undermined when manipulated by the overwhelming power of affluent citizens and their ability to outspend everybody else on lobbying and other activities. Money gives a few the powers to decide on issues that affect the lives of the many.
Finally, Harvey - who implicitly calls for the restoration of a Keynesian state - commits grave errors through his sweeping generalizations of schools of thoughts and economic classes. Because of his opposition to neoliberalism, Harvey writes against the concept of individual freedoms, saying they account for little without social justice and economic rights. He even argues that if nations choose dictatorships, they should be allowed to do so.
As such, Harvey unintentionally aligns freedom and neoliberalism, on one side, vs. social justice and tyranny on the other. There is no reason why individual freedom and social justice cannot mix. |
| An excellent example of Ecopolinomic history | 2009-06-17 | 5 / 5 |
| David Harvey gives an excellent exposition of Ecopolinomics (which is a concatenation of economics + politics to represent their concomitant activities) over mainly the last 30 years. He explains the causations of the doctrine and its development in the last century and its relevance (and more) to the current century. This book and another, "Web of Debt "(ISBN: 0979560829), complement each other. If readers read both books and correlate the information, they will see greed reflected in history on a grand scale.
Economics & politics are intertwined and inseparable, for humans are no different from other creatures in their quest to survive, even at the expense of their fellow creatures, whether inadvertently or wilfully. Which is why the understanding of economics & politics must be understood together, both historically and currently.
Neoliberal theory makes the assumption that individual freedoms are guaranteed by freedom of the market and of trade (Global marketing and free trade). The freedoms it embodies reflect the interests of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations, and financial capital. This would include reversal of nationalisations, privatising public assets, opening up natural resources (fishing, etc.) to private and unregulated exploitation (of assets even belonging to indigenous inhabitants), and facilitating foreign direct investment and freer trade. The doctrine is very much related to the laissez-faire theory of the Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723 - 1790), which was the belief that if mankind were given the freedom to act out of self-interest (selfishness?) and pursue maximum personal gain, the consequences would be "most agreeable to the interests of the whole of society".
Neoliberalism in the last 30 years developed as a reaction to the crisis of (insufficient) monetary capital accumulation in the 1970s. The neoliberal economic and political doctrine began being put into practice by the followers (the "Chicago boys") of economist Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006) in the USA, and eventually got applied in Britain by Margaret Thatcher (and even by Blair). This trend is continuing even today (in 2009).
It is precisely because of that reaction 30 years ago that the current world financial crisis has eventually occurred, amongst other things. It explains the fact that absolutely most people in "developed" countries have the least amount of wealth, because monetary capital is concentrated in the hands of the few (especially those directing multinational corporations, including investment banks).
Zimbabwe is an example of an exception, because it has been undergoing "capital decolonisation", but be assured there is reason for that, because there is a theory that says that "shock therapy" (by violent natural causes or human intervention) to a country is a prerequisite for capital colonization (by USA, British and EU Imperialism). Naomi Klein's discourse on "disaster capitalism" ("Shock Doctrine", in audio-book or paperback) appears largely based on Harvey's exposition and is a sensational exposé of "Neoliberalism" in action brought about through the events of violent "capital colonization" (not human colonization) of so-called developing countries by capitalist countries (mainly by the EU, USA, and Britain).
The economist John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946) once said: "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else".
[...] |
| Time to move on | 2009-06-03 | 2 / 5 |
| | This book is as one-sided as extreme versions of neoliberalism, of which there are currently few adherents. Hence it is too easy to set up strawmen to attack. Further, much of the intellectual terrain has moved beyond Left and Right, or State and market, so the book is rehashing old debates of the 1980s, with superficial updates (e.g. China, which is not Harvey's area of expertise). Basically, markets need institutions to function, so there is no pure market. Markets are good at certain things, such as the need for proper pricing of resources (Friedman's and Hayek's often forgotten main point), and bad at others (e.g. income distribution or handling externalities, which most people know, apart from Nozick's weak defense). |
| A Seminal Work | 2009-03-16 | 5 / 5 |
| David Harvey had masterfully unmasked the machinations of the world plutocracy in its quest for (further) wealth and domination. Concluding on the basis of hard facts, Harvey shows how certain people and institutions have deliberately introduced a major political and economical shift in the last 30 years, a shift that has brought the world back to the dark ages in terms of human decencies.
The book might have actually been titled "A Brief History of Our Generation", because out of the fragmented reality, you finally see how all the pieces fall into place.
For all those who ever wondered why their lives and futures look the way they do - start with this book.
Whether you're one of the billions of impoverished outcasts;
Or one of the hundreds of millions of hard-working people;
Or one of the dozens of millions middle-class' citizens;
Or one of the millions of the upper middle-class' privileged;
Or one of the hundreds of thousands of the ruling elites;
Harvey shows how you got here.
If you're one of the billions or the millions, I would suggest that after reading this book you should:
A) Read it again
B) Read Harvey's latest posts concerning the crisis and the state of Capitalism - http://davidharvey.org/
C) Commence, what might actually become, your Sisyphean task of enlightening the multitude of the blind around you.
D) However creative or humble your input may be - strike back - for the benefit of each and every person in the world. |
| Brief and thorough | 2009-02-10 | 5 / 5 |
| David Harvey writes at a high level of abstraction so it helps if the reader has some familiarity with the history, especially economic, of the last 35 years. However, because he also writes very clearly, including offering specific examples of what he's talking about along the way, I think a general reader can get much from this work.
His history of neoliberalism offers insights into how this ideology was espoused and followed in different ways in different places. Harvey also provides a useful distinction between neoliberalism and neoconservatism.
There are also good explanations of the contradictions within neoliberal theory and dangers inherent as the effects of them are played out. (Some of the ideas are, unfortunately, prophetic of what is going on now - early 2009 - in national and international economies.)
David Harvey's work shows how the results of neoliberalism has been the huge increase in income and wealth inequality in country after country. Unlike other writers who notice this trend, Harvey is willing to suggest that this occurance is not incidental or accidental. The accumulation of so much wealth into one class has been the intent of neoliberalism all along. |
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