The literature on neoliberalism is large. Here are some scholarly books on this subject or on related matters:
- The power of market fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's critique, by Fred Block & Margaret R. Somers (2016).
- Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism's stealth revolution, by Wendy Brown (2015).
- The great persuasion: Reinventing free markets since the Depression, by Angus Burgin (2015).
- The strange non-death of neoliberalism, by Colin Crouch (2013).
- The birth of biopolitics: lectures at the Collège de France, 1978 - 1979, by Michel Foucault (2010).
- The illusion of free markets: Punishment and the myths of natural order, by Bernard E. Harcourt (2012). (I haven't read this one.)
- A brief history of neoliberalism, by David Harvey (2007).
- Masters of the universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the birth of neoliberal politics, by Daniel Stedman Jones (2014).
- Neoliberalism's demons: On the political theory of late capital, by Adam Kotsko (2018). (I haven't read this. Here is an interview with the author.)
- Democracy in chains: The deep history of the radical right's stealth plan for America, by Nancy MacLean (2017). (I haven't read this one. Here is Marshall Steinbaum's review.)
- Never left a serious crisis go to waste: How neoliberalism survived the financial meltdown, by Philip Mirowski (2013). (This is the most recent Mirowski book I have read. Here is a more recent paper by him.)
- Invisible hands: The businessmen's crusade against the new deal, by Kim Phillips-Fein (2010). (I haven't read this.)
- Globalists: The end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism, by Quinn Slobodian (2018).
- Rationality and the ideology of disconnection, by Michael Taylor (2010). (I haven't read this; it seems more narrowly focused on economic theory.)
- Crashed: How a decade of financial crises changed the world, by Adam Tooze (2018). (I haven't read this one.)
I think this literature has some common themes:
- Neoliberalism was always a global project. (Is there a whole literature on Latin America I am missing?)
- Markets are not natural, but a society organized around such must be created by a system of laws, along with instilling a "common sense" in the population so governed.
- Neoliberalism must be accompanied by control on or limitations of democracy.
- The development of neoliberalism was funded by extremely wealthy individuals around the world, who sought to prevent their project from receiving public scrutiny.
- Those academics funded to develop apologetics and guidance were always interdisciplinary, including those specializing in law and international relations, as well as in economics.
The literature also contains disagreements, including what institutions, groups, and individuals to emphasize in telling the story of the project of imposing neoliberalism on the world.
What is your definition of neoliberalism?
ReplyDeleteI guess my second bullet point is as close to a definition as I want to get. It is a matter of creating a legal and institution framework for organizing a society around markets, along with instilling a "common sense" in the population so governed. The "Neo" comes from realizing a night watchman state won't get you there.
ReplyDeleteBut it is not the kind of thing admitting of a precise definition. One would want to talk about the Mont Pelerin Society, the Washington consensus, Charles Peters and the Washington Monthly (in the USA), and so on.
A apropos of nothing in particular, I am amused by this twitter thread.