Category: Neoliberalism

Laissez-Faire, Laissez Mourir

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The spread of the coronavirus epidemic around the world in the past few weeks has exposed not only differences in the lack of preparedness of various public health systems, but also differences in reactions to the crisis. Some governments imposed an early lockdown in their attempt to 鈥榝latten the curve鈥� while others have taken a more gradual approach, proceeding from travel restrictions through limits on non-essential businesses to shelter-in-place regimes.聽

As the epicenter of the pandemic shifts from Asia to Europe and the U.S, however, some reactions stand out among the rest in their utter disregard for human life. Federal and state officials in the U.S. have first downplayed the threat two months before it arrived in the country, as well as refused offers for help from the World Health Organization. Now, as the curve in the U.S. is about to get steeper (see the surgeon general鈥檚 , top levels of government are considering scaling back the moderate measures that have been taken so far, with a view to return to normal activity within a few weeks. While blaming China for not controlling the virus early enough, some officials are contemplating consciously allowing their own citizens to experience a much worse spread of infection and death than China has seen.聽

One clear example of this misguided and dangerous ideology can be seen in the pressure put on the U.S. government by corporate lobbyists not to activate the – which enables the executive branch to order corporations to manufacture the direly-needed medical supplies for testing and treating the virus. Large swaths of the political elite, instead, are relying on the private sector鈥檚 voluntary offers to produce such goods. Worse, these same politicians are aching to get the economy back to normal, so as to boost the stock market and their own ratings at the same time. The聽 lieutenant-governor of Texas even went as far as suggesting that older citizens – the group most prone to dying from the virus – would gladly themselves in the interest of getting the economy moving again.Read More »

Re-thinking Social Reproduction: Crises, Contradictions, and Variegations聽

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A of Capital & Class, edited by Isabella Bakker and Stephen Gill, sets out to broaden the analysis of social reproduction. Following their earlier volume on social reproduction 鈥� (2003) 鈥� Bakker and Gill restate in this issue their commitment to 鈥榓 novel methodological synthesis premised upon the mutual constitution of power, production, and social reproduction鈥� (2019, p. 510), and reassert the centrality of 鈥榯he unfolding contradiction between the global accumulation of capital and the provision of stable and progressive conditions of social reproduction鈥� (p. 504) to their analysis.聽

The key contribution of this issue, however, is twofold. First, it further develops the theory of social reproduction, advancing a conception of social ontology based around a new concept: variegated social reproduction. Second, it contributes to the analysis of contemporary neoliberalism as a whole 鈥� and in particular, to discussions around variegated neoliberalism 鈥� mapping out how this latter variegation is internally linked to that of social reproduction. In this post I will briefly review these contributions, focussing on the articles of the special issue that deal with cases outside of Western Europe and North America to highlight different geographies鈥� contributions to the discussion of social reproduction.聽Read More »

Philanthrocapitalism: How to Legitimize the Hegemony of the Rich with a “Good Vibes” Discourse

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Melinda Gates speaking at DFID. Photo: .

Is philanthrocapitalism a vehicle for so-called 鈥渄evelopment鈥�? In an article recently released in Globalizations (), Juanjo Mediavilla (University of Valladolid, Spain) and I analysed the phenomenon of philanthrocapitalism as a financing for development (FfD) instrument from the perspective of Critical Development Studies and Discourse Theory. We argue that we are witnessing the deepening of a neoliberal development agenda, where philanthrocapitalism and the elites play a key role. Read More »

Neoliberalism or Neocolonialism? Evaluating Neoliberalism as a Policy Prescription for Convergence

Rahul Menon6 Comments

Melton_Prior_-_Illustrated_London_News_-_The_Transvaal_War_-_General_Sir_George_Colley_at_the_Battle_of_Majuba_Mountain_Just_Before_He_Was_Killed.jpgBradford deLong has recently argued that neoliberalism provides a way for former colonies to close the gaps with their erstwhile colonial masters. But this argument ignores the fact that several economic policies of colonial times were explicitly laissez-faire in nature.

The recognition of the dangers of allowing finance a free hand in the economy has led to a rethink of the soundness of neoliberalism as an economic and policy doctrine, from . has attacked the theoretical foundations of neoliberalism itself, judging that its insistence on allowing for unhindered market activity is bad economics itself, for economic models that make a theoretical case for markets cannot be easily transplanted into the real world in the way that advocates of neoliberalism believe.

Yet this is not to say that the concept is dead and buried. As Harvey (2007) points out, neoliberalism is a political economic process that ostensibly seeks to organise society and economies around the principle of free market activity, while primarily attempting to shift the balance of power towards dominant economic classes that control capital. Seen in this light, neoliberalism is still a powerful force shaping political and economic changes in much of the world today.

, first published in 1998 and re-published now shows that the term 鈥渘eoliberalism鈥� still carries intellectual currency. His is a curious argument; neoliberalism provides the only suitable path for countries of the developing world to close the gap with their former colonial powers. Access to the latest goods and technology allows developing economies 鈥� with low levels of productivity 鈥� to boost productivity and output growth, and consequently incomes. The reason the State should stay away from the economic sphere in the developing world is because democratic institutions have not been established yet, and hence the political sphere is vulnerable to capture by elites.Read More »

Market Forecasting: A Sensitive Practice at the Heart of Neoliberal Capitalism

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This article was originally posted on .

Since the emergence of modern financial markets, financial analysts have played a critical role in producing visions of 鈥渢he economy鈥� and its future development. As experts, they analyze market developments and predict future scenarios that enable other financial market participants to speculate on the rise or fall of stock prices, the success or failure of particular investment products, and the growth or decline of entire national economies.聽The substance of the analysts鈥� valuation and forecasting practices is, however, heavily disputed among economists. In neoclassical economic theory, the assumption that markets are informationally efficient has challenged the legitimacy of the work of financial analysts since the establishment of the efficient market hypothesis as a central paradigm in the mid 1960s. Alternative schools of thoughts 鈥� such as new institutional or behavioral economics 鈥� have criticized this paradigm. However, they have also argued that the degree of uncertainty, which is inherent to financial markets, makes prediction impossible.Read More »