Neo-Liberalism
Theorising contemporary society – Kate Nash
Lecture 2 Neo-liberalism, states and empire
Libyans on military intervention - YouTube | | www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hcyUADP1zk |
Neo-liberalism
The basic facts of economic globalization aren’t disputed by anyone – they’re just interpreted differently.
Neo-liberalism is a project - began in the 1970s under General Pinochet in Chile, which was then energetically taken up by Thatcherites in the UK and Reaganites in the US to ‘roll back the state’ in favour of markets.
Harvey – to escape the ‘rigidities’ of Keynesian corporatism – especially labour markets and flows of capital investment.
Nationally Keynesianism involved agreements between states, corporations and workers that industries should be supported, subsidised where necessary, even owned by the state, that high wages and social provision should enable workers to stimulate manufacturing by high levels of consumption, and corporations were to accept high wages and high taxes in exchange for a stable context of economic growth.
Internationally Keynesianism involved setting up the Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and World Bank, which were to prevent currencies becoming devalued, so enabling economies to remain stable even when they ran temporary trade deficits. ie intended to strengthen national control over economies.
Neo-liberal economic policies - enabled the rapid growth of speculation in financial instruments and the growth of border-crossing multinational corporations (MNCs) to take advantage of cheap labour (anti-union agreements, low wages and living standards etc). Given a boost by the end of state communism in 1989, which was widely seen as a historical triumph for free markets, and which resulted in neo-liberal policies being rolled out across Eastern Europe.
At the same time, throughout the 1980s the IMF and World Bank, demanded the return of loans and imposed strict neo-liberal discipline on countries across Latin America
Lecture 2 Neo-liberalism, states and empire
Libyans on military intervention - YouTube | | www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hcyUADP1zk |
Neo-liberalism
The basic facts of economic globalization aren’t disputed by anyone – they’re just interpreted differently.
Neo-liberalism is a project - began in the 1970s under General Pinochet in Chile, which was then energetically taken up by Thatcherites in the UK and Reaganites in the US to ‘roll back the state’ in favour of markets.
Harvey – to escape the ‘rigidities’ of Keynesian corporatism – especially labour markets and flows of capital investment.
Nationally Keynesianism involved agreements between states, corporations and workers that industries should be supported, subsidised where necessary, even owned by the state, that high wages and social provision should enable workers to stimulate manufacturing by high levels of consumption, and corporations were to accept high wages and high taxes in exchange for a stable context of economic growth.
Internationally Keynesianism involved setting up the Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and World Bank, which were to prevent currencies becoming devalued, so enabling economies to remain stable even when they ran temporary trade deficits. ie intended to strengthen national control over economies.
Neo-liberal economic policies - enabled the rapid growth of speculation in financial instruments and the growth of border-crossing multinational corporations (MNCs) to take advantage of cheap labour (anti-union agreements, low wages and living standards etc). Given a boost by the end of state communism in 1989, which was widely seen as a historical triumph for free markets, and which resulted in neo-liberal policies being rolled out across Eastern Europe.
At the same time, throughout the 1980s the IMF and World Bank, demanded the return of loans and imposed strict neo-liberal discipline on countries across Latin America