Neoliberalism[1] is both apolitical philosophy and a term used to signify the late-20th-century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated withfree-market capitalism.[2][3][4] The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is often used pejoratively.[5][6] In scholarly use, the term is often left undefined or used to describe a multitude of phenomena;[7][8][9] however, it is primarily employed to delineate the societal transformation resulting from market-based reforms.[10]
Neoliberalism is aneconomic philosophy that originated among Europeanliberal scholars during the 1930s. It emerged as a response to the perceived decline in popularity ofclassical liberalism, which was seen as giving way to asocial liberal desire to control markets. This shift in thinking was shaped by theGreat Depression and manifested in policies designed to counter the volatility offree markets.[11] One motivation for the development of policies designed to mitigate the volatility ofcapitalist free markets was a desire to avoid repeating the economic failures of the early 1930s, which have been attributed, in part, to theeconomic policy of classical liberalism. In the context of policymaking,neoliberalism is often used to describe aparadigm shift that followed the failure of thepost-war consensus andneo-Keynesian economics to address thestagflation of the 1970s.[12][1] The collapse of theUSSR and the end of theCold War also facilitated the rise of neoliberalism in the United States, the United Kingdom and around the world.[13][14][15][16]
An early use of the term in English was in 1898 by the French economistCharles Gide to describe the economic beliefs of the Italian economistMaffeo Pantaleoni,[31] with the termnéo-libéralisme previously existing in French;[32] the term was later used by others, including the classical liberal economistMilton Friedman in his 1951 essay "Neo-Liberalism and its Prospects".[33] In 1938, at theColloque Walter Lippmann,neoliberalism was proposed, among other terms, and ultimately chosen to be used to describe a certain set of economic beliefs.[34][35] The colloquium defined the concept of neoliberalism as involving "the priority of the price mechanism, free enterprise, the system of competition, and a strong and impartial state".[36] According to attendeesLouis Rougier andFriedrich Hayek, the competition of neoliberalism would establish anelite structure of successful individuals that would assume power in society, with these elites replacing the existingrepresentative democracy acting on the behalf of the majority.[37][38] To beneoliberal meant advocating a modern economic policy withstate intervention.[39] Neoliberal state interventionism brought a clash with the opposinglaissez-faire camp of classical liberals, likeLudwig von Mises.[40] Most scholars in the 1950s and 1960s understood neoliberalism as referring to thesocial market economy and its principal economic theorists such asWalter Eucken,Wilhelm Röpke,Alexander Rüstow, andAlfred Müller-Armack. Although Hayek had intellectual ties to the German neoliberals, his name was only occasionally mentioned in conjunction with neoliberalism during this period due to his more pro-free market stance.[7]
During themilitary rule under Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) in Chile, opposition scholars took up the expression to describe theeconomic reforms implemented there and its proponents (theChicago Boys).[7] Once this new meaning was established among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy.[7] According to one study of 148 scholarly articles, neoliberalism is almost never defined but used in several senses to describe ideology, economic theory, development theory, or economic reform policy. It has become used largely as aterm of abuse and/or to imply alaissez-fairemarket fundamentalism virtually identical to that of classical liberalism – rather than the ideas of those who attended the 1938 colloquium. As a result, there is controversy as to the precise meaning of the term and its usefulness as a descriptor in thesocial sciences, especially as the number of different kinds of market economies have proliferated in recent years.[7]
Unrelated to the economic philosophy,neoliberalism is used to describe a centrist political movement frommodern American liberalism in the 1970s. According to political commentatorDavid Brooks, prominent neoliberal politicians includedAl Gore andBill Clinton of the Democratic Party.[41] The neoliberals coalesced around two magazines,The New Republic and theWashington Monthly,[42] and often supportedThird Way policies. The "godfather" of this version of neoliberalism was the journalistCharles Peters,[43] who in 1983 published "A Neoliberal's Manifesto".[44]
Historian Elizabeth Shermer argued that the term gained popularity largely among left-leaning academics in the 1970s to "describe and decry a late twentieth-century effort by policymakers, think-tank experts, and industrialists to condemn social-democratic reforms and unapologetically implement free-market policies";[45] economic historian Phillip W. Magness notes its reemergence in academic literature in the mid-1980s, after French philosopherMichel Foucault brought attention to it.[46]
At a base level we can say that when we make reference to 'neoliberalism', we are generally referring to the new political, economic and social arrangements within society that emphasize market relations, re-tasking the role of the state, andindividual responsibility. Most scholars tend to agree that neoliberalism is broadly defined as the extension of competitivemarkets into all areas of life, including theeconomy,politics andsociety.
Neoliberalism is contemporarily used to refer to market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminatingprice controls,deregulatingcapital markets, loweringtrade barriers" and reducing, especially throughprivatization andausterity, state influence in the economy.[7] It is also commonly associated with the economic policies introduced byMargaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom andRonald Reagan in the United States.[25] Some scholars note it has a number of distinct usages in different spheres:[47]
As anideology, it denotes a conception of freedom as an overarchingsocial value associated with reducing state functions to those of aminimal state.
As apublic policy, it involves the privatization of public economic sectors or services, the deregulation of private corporations, sharp decrease ofgovernment budget deficits and reduction of spending onpublic works.
There is debate over the meaning of the term. SociologistsFred L. Block andMargaret Somers claim there is a dispute over what to call the influence of free-market ideas which have been used to justify the retrenchment ofNew Deal programs and policies since the 1980s: neoliberalism,laissez-faire or "free market ideology".[48] Other academics such as Susan Braedley, Med Luxton, and Robert W. McChesney, assert that neoliberalism is a political philosophy which seeks to "liberate" the processes ofcapital accumulation.[49] In contrast,Frances Fox Piven sees neoliberalism as essentially hyper-capitalism.[50]Robert W. McChesney, while defining neoliberalism similarly as "capitalism with the gloves off", goes on to assert that the term was largely unknown by the general public in 1998, particularly in theUnited States.[51]Lester Spence uses the term to critique trends in Black politics, defining neoliberalism as "the general idea that society works best when the people and the institutions within it work or are shaped to work according to market principles".[52] According toPhilip Mirowski, neoliberalism views the market as the greatest information processor, superior to any human being. It is hence considered as the arbiter of truth.Adam Kotsko describes neoliberalism aspolitical theology, as it goes beyond simply being a formula for an economic policy agenda and instead infuses it with a moral ethos that "aspires to be a complete way of life and a holistic worldview, in a way that previous models of capitalism did not."[53]
Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocatelaissez-faire economic policy, but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society.[54] AnthropologistJason Hickel also rejects the notion that neoliberalism necessitates the retreat of the state in favor of totally free markets, arguing that the spread of neoliberalism required substantial state intervention to establish a global 'free market'.[55]Naomi Klein states that the three policy pillars of neoliberalism are "privatization of the public sphere,deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering ofincome andcorporate taxes, paid for with cuts topublic spending".[56]
Neoliberalism has a history of being used as apejorative by critics. Additionally, Neoliberalism has outpaced similar terms such asmonetarism,neoconservatism, theWashington Consensus and "market reform" in scholarly writing.[7]The Handbook of Neoliberalism, for instance, posits that the term has "become a means of identifying a seemingly ubiquitous set of market-oriented policies as being largely responsible for a wide range of social, political, ecological and economic problems".[10] Its use in this manner has been criticized by those who advocate for policies characterized as neoliberal.[57] TheHandbook, for example, further argues that "such lack of specificity [for the term] reduces its capacity as an analytic frame. If neoliberalism is to serve as a way of understanding the transformation of society over the last few decades, then the concept is in need of unpacking."[10] Historian Daniel Stedman Jones has similarly said that the term "is too often used as a catch-all shorthand for the horrors associated with globalization and recurring financial crises".[58]
Several writers have criticizedneoliberal as an insult or slur used by leftists against liberals and varieties of liberalism that leftists disagree with.[59][60] British journalistWill Hutton called neoliberal "an unthinking leftist insult" that "stifle[s] debate."[61] On the other hand, many scholars believe it retains a meaningful definition. Writing inThe Guardian, Stephen Metcalf posits that the publication of the 2016IMF paper "Neoliberalism: Oversold?"[62] helps "put to rest the idea that the word is nothing more than a political slur, or a term without any analytic power".[63]Gary Gerstle argues that neoliberalism is a legitimate term,[64] and describes it as "a creed that calls explicitly for unleashing capitalism's power."[65] He distinguishes neoliberalism from traditional conservatism, as the latter values respect for traditions and bolstering the institutions which reinforce them, whereas the former seeks to disrupt and overcome any institutions which stand in the way.[65]
Radhika Desai, director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at theUniversity of Manitoba, argues that global capitalism reached its peak in 1914, just prior to the two great wars,anti-capitalist revolutions andKeynesian reforms, and the purpose of neoliberalism was to restore capitalism to the preeminence it once enjoyed. She argues that this process has failed as contemporary neoliberal capitalism has fostered a "slowly unfolding economic disaster" and bequeathed to the world increased inequalities, societal divisions, economic misery and a lack of meaningful politics.[66]
TheGreat Depression in the 1930s, which severely decreasedeconomic output throughout the world and produced highunemployment and widespreadpoverty, was widely regarded as a failure ofeconomic liberalism.[68] To renew the damaged ideology, a group of 25 liberal intellectuals, including a number of prominent academics and journalists likeWalter Lippmann,Friedrich Hayek,Ludwig von Mises,Wilhelm Röpke,Alexander Rüstow, andLouis Rougier, organized theWalter Lippmann Colloquium, named in honor of Lippmann to celebrate the publication of the French translation of Lippmann's pro-market bookAn Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society.[69][70] Meeting in Paris in August 1938, they called for a new liberal project, with "neoliberalism" one name floated for the fledgling movement.[71] They further agreed to develop the Colloquium into a permanent think tank based in Paris called the Centre International d'Études pour la Rénovation du Libéralisme.[72]
While most agreed that thestatus quo liberalism promotinglaissez-faire economics had failed, deep disagreements arose around the proper role of thestate. A group of "true (third way) neoliberals" centered around Rüstow and Lippmann advocated for strong state supervision of the economy while a group of old school liberals centered around Mises and Hayek continued to insist that the only legitimate role for the state was to abolish barriers to market entry. Rüstow wrote that Hayek and Mises were relics of the liberalism that caused the Great Depression while Mises denounced the other faction, complaining that theordoliberalism they advocated really meant "ordo-interventionism".[73]
Divided in opinion and short on funding, the Colloquium was mostly ineffectual; related attempts to further neoliberal ideas, such as the effort by Colloque-attendeeWilhelm Röpke to establish a journal of neoliberal ideas, mostly floundered.[69] Fatefully, the efforts of the Colloquium would be overwhelmed by the outbreak ofWorld War II and were largely forgotten.[74] Nonetheless, the Colloquium served as the first meeting of the nascent neoliberal movement and would serve as the precursor to theMont Pelerin Society, a far more successful effort created after the war by many of those who had been present at the Colloquium.[75]
Neoliberalism began accelerating in importance with the establishment of theMont Pelerin Society in 1947, whose founding members includedFriedrich Hayek,Milton Friedman,Karl Popper,George Stigler andLudwig von Mises. Meeting annually, it became a "kind of international 'who's who' of the classical liberal and neo-liberal intellectuals."[76][77] While the first conference in 1947 was almost half American, the Europeans dominated by 1951. Europe would remain the epicenter of the community as Europeans dominated the leadership roles.[78]
Established during a time whencentral planning was in the ascendancy worldwide and there were few avenues for neoliberals to influence policymakers, the society became a "rallying point" for neoliberals, as Milton Friedman phrased it, bringing together isolated advocates of liberalism andcapitalism. They were united in their belief that individual freedom in the developed world was under threat from collectivist trends,[75] which they outlined in their statement of aims:
The central values of civilization are in danger. Over large stretches of the Earth's surface the essential conditions of human dignity and freedom have already disappeared. In others, they are under constant menace from the development of current tendencies of policy. The position of the individual and the voluntary group are progressively undermined by extensions of arbitrary power. Even that most precious possession of Western Man, freedom of thought and expression, is threatened by the spread of creeds which, claiming the privilege of tolerance when in the position of a minority, seek only to establish a position of power in which they can suppress and obliterate all views but their own...The group holds that these developments have been fostered by the growth of a view of history which denies all absolute moral standards and by the growth of theories which question the desirability of the rule of law. It holds further that they have been fostered by a decline of belief in private property and the competitive market...[This group's] object is solely, by facilitating the exchange of views among minds inspired by certain ideals and broad conceptions held in common, to contribute to the preservation and improvement of the free society.[79]
The society set out to develop a neoliberal alternative to, on the one hand, thelaissez-faire economic consensus that had collapsed with theGreat Depression and, on the other,New Deal liberalism and Britishsocial democracy, collectivist trends which they believed posed a threat to individual freedom.[75] They believed that classical liberalism had failed because of crippling conceptual flaws which could only be diagnosed and rectified by withdrawing into an intensive discussion group of similarly minded intellectuals;[80] however, they were determined that the liberal focus onindividualism andeconomic freedom must not be abandoned to collectivism.[81]
For decades after the formation of theMont Pelerin Society, the ideas of the society would remain largely on the fringes of political policy, confined to a number of think-tanks and universities[82] and achieving only measured success with theordoliberals inGermany, who maintained the need for strong state influence in the economy. It would not be until a succession of economic downturns and crises in the 1970s that neoliberal policy proposals would be widely implemented. By this time, neoliberal thought had evolved. The early neoliberal ideas of theMont Pelerin Society had sought to chart a middle way between the trend of increasing government intervention implemented after theGreat Depression and thelaissez-faire economics many in the society believed had produced the Great Depression.Milton Friedman, wrote in his early essay "Neo-liberalism and Its Prospects" that "Neo-liberalism would accept the nineteenth-century liberal emphasis on the fundamental importance of the individual, but it would substitute for the nineteenth century goal oflaissez-faire as a means to this end, the goal of the competitive order", which requires limited state intervention to "police the system, establish conditions favorable to competition andprevent monopoly, provide a stablemonetary framework, and relieve acute misery and distress."[83] By the 1970s, neoliberal thought—including Friedman's—focused almost exclusively onmarket liberalization and was adamant in its opposition to nearly all forms of state interference in the economy.[75]
One of the earliest and most influential turns to neoliberal reform occurred inChile after an economic crisis in the early 1970s. After several years ofsocialist economic policies under presidentSalvador Allende, a1973 coup d'état, which established amilitary junta under dictatorAugusto Pinochet, led to the implementation of a number of sweeping neoliberal economic reforms that had been proposed by theChicago Boys, a group of Chilean economists educated underMilton Friedman. This "neoliberal project" served as "the first experiment with neoliberal state formation" and provided an example for neoliberal reforms elsewhere.[84] Beginning in the early 1980s, theReagan administration andThatcher government implemented a series of neoliberal economic reforms to counter the chronicstagflation theUnited States andUnited Kingdom had each experienced throughout the 1970s. Neoliberal policies continued to dominate American and British politics until theGreat Recession.[75] Following British and American reform, neoliberal policies were exported abroad, with countries inLatin America, theAsia-Pacific, theMiddle East, andChina implementing significant neoliberal reform. Additionally, theInternational Monetary Fund andWorld Bank encouraged neoliberal reforms in manydeveloping countries by placing reform requirements on loans, in a process known asstructural adjustment.[85]
Neoliberal ideas were first implemented inWest Germany. The economists aroundLudwig Erhard drew on the theories they had developed in the 1930s and 1940s and contributed to West Germany's reconstruction after the Second World War.[86] Erhard was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and in constant contact with other neoliberals. He pointed out that he is commonly classified as neoliberal and that he accepted this classification.[87]
TheordoliberalFreiburg School was more pragmatic. The German neoliberals accepted the classical liberal notion that competition drives economic prosperity. However, they argued that alaissez-faire state policy stifles competition, as the strong devour the weak since monopolies and cartels could pose a threat to freedom of competition. They supported the creation of a well-developed legal system and capable regulatory apparatus. While still opposed to full-scale Keynesian employment policies or an extensivewelfare state, German neoliberal theory was marked by the willingness to placehumanistic and social values on par with economic efficiency.Alfred Müller-Armack coined the phrase "social market economy" to emphasize theegalitarian and humanistic bent of the idea.[7] According to Boas and Gans-Morse,Walter Eucken stated that "social security and social justice are the greatest concerns of our time".[7]
Erhard emphasized that the market was inherently social and did not need to be made so.[88] He hoped that growing prosperity would enable the population to manage much of their social security by self-reliance and end the necessity for a widespread welfare state. By the name ofVolkskapitalismus, there were some efforts to foster private savings. Although average contributions to the public old age insurance were quite small, it remained by far the most important old age income source for a majority of the German population, therefore despite liberal rhetoric the 1950s witnessed what has been called a "reluctant expansion of the welfare state". To end widespread poverty among the elderly the pension reform of 1957 brought a significant extension of the German welfare state which already had been established underOtto von Bismarck.[89] Rüstow, who had coined the label "neoliberalism", criticized that development tendency and pressed for a more limited welfare program.[88]
Hayek did not like the expression "social market economy", but stated in 1976 that some of his friends in Germany had succeeded in implementing the sort of social order for which he was pleading while using that phrase. In Hayek's view, the social market economy's aiming for both a market economy andsocial justice was a muddle of inconsistent aims.[90] Despite his controversies with the German neoliberals at the Mont Pelerin Society,Ludwig von Mises stated that Erhard and Müller-Armack accomplished a great act of liberalism to restore the German economy and called this "a lesson for the US".[91] According to different research Mises believed that the ordoliberals were hardly better than socialists. As an answer to Hans Hellwig's complaints about the interventionist excesses of the Erhard ministry and the ordoliberals, Mises wrote: "I have no illusions about the true character of the politics and politicians of the social market economy". According to Mises, Erhard's teacherFranz Oppenheimer "taught more or less theNew Frontier line of"President Kennedy's "Harvard consultants (Schlesinger,Galbraith, etc.)".[92]
In Germany, neoliberalism at first was synonymous with both ordoliberalism and social market economy. But over time the original term neoliberalism gradually disappeared since social market economy was a much more positive term and fit better into theWirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) mentality of the 1950s and 1960s.[88]
Chile was among the earliest nations to implement neoliberal reform.Marxist economic geographerDavid Harvey has described the substantial neoliberal reforms in Chile beginning in the 1970s as "the first experiment with neoliberal state formation", which would provide "helpful evidence to support the subsequent turn to neoliberalism in both Britain... and the United States."[96] Similarly,Vincent Bevins says that Chile underAugusto Pinochet "became the world's first test case for 'neoliberal' economics."[97]
The turn to neoliberal policies in Chile originated with theChicago Boys, a select group of Chilean students who, beginning in 1955, were invited to theUniversity of Chicago to pursue postgraduate studies in economics. They studied directly underMilton Friedman and his disciple,Arnold Harberger, and were exposed toFriedrich Hayek. Upon their return to Chile, their neoliberal policy proposals—which centered on widespreadderegulation,privatization, reductions to government spending to counter high inflation, and other free-market policies[98]—would remain largely on the fringes of Chilean economic and political thought for a number of years, as thepresidency of Salvador Allende (1970–1973) brought about asocialist reorientation of the economy.[99]
Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth ofGDP (1971–2007)
During the Allende presidency, Chile experienced a severe economic crisis, in which inflation peaked near 150%.[100] Following an extended period of social unrest and political tension, as well as diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure from theUnited States,[101] the Chilean armed forces and national police overthrew the Allende government in acoup d'état.[102] They established a repressivemilitaryjunta, known for its violentsuppression of opposition, and appointed army chief Augusto Pinochet Supreme Head of the nation.[103] His rule was later given legal legitimacy through a controversial1980 plebiscite, which approved a newconstitution drafted by a government-appointed commission that ensured Pinochet would remain as president for a further eight years—with increased powers—after which he would face a re-election referendum.[104]
The Chicago Boys were given significant political influence within themilitary dictatorship, and they implementedsweeping economic reform. In contrast to the extensivenationalization and centrally planned economic programs supported by Allende, the Chicago Boys implemented rapid and extensive privatization of state enterprises, deregulation, and significant reductions in trade barriers during the latter half of the 1970s.[105] In 1978, policies that would further reduce the role of the state and infuse competition and individualism into areas such as labor relations, pensions, health and education were introduced.[7] Additionally, the central bank raised interest rates from 49.9% to 178% to counter high inflation.[106]
These policies amounted to ashock therapy, which rapidly transformed Chile from an economy with a protected market and strong government intervention into a liberalized, world-integrated economy, where market forces were left free to guide most of the economy's decisions.[109] Inflation was tempered, falling from over 600% in 1974, to below 50% by 1979, to below 10% right before theeconomic crisis of 1982;[110] GDP growth spiked (see chart) to 10%.[111] however, inequality widened as wages and benefits to the working class were reduced.[112][113]
In 1982, Chile again experienced asevere economic recession. The cause of this is contested but most scholars believe theLatin American debt crisis—which swept nearly all of Latin America into financial crisis—was a primary cause.[114] Some scholars argue the neoliberal policies of the Chicago boys heightened the crisis (for instance, percent GDP decrease was higher than in any other Latin American country) or even caused it;[114] for instance, some scholars criticize the high interest rates of the period which—while stabilizing inflation—hampered investment and contributed to widespread bankruptcy in the banking industry. Other scholars fault governmental departures from the neoliberalagenda; for instance, the government pegged the Chilean peso to the US dollar, against the wishes of the Chicago Boys, which economists believe led to an overvalued peso.[115][116]
Unemployment in Chile and South America (1980–1990)
After the recession, Chilean economic growth rose quickly, eventually hovering between 5% and 10% and significantly outpacing the Latin American average (see chart). Additionally, unemployment decreased[117] and the percent of the population below the poverty line declined from 50% in 1984 to 34% by 1989.[118] This ledMilton Friedman to call the period the "Miracle of Chile", and he attributed the successes to the neoliberal policies of the Chicago boys. Some scholars attribute the successes to the re-regulation of the banking industry and a number of targeted social programs designed to alleviate poverty.[118] Others say that while the economy had stabilized and was growing by the late 1980s, inequality widened: nearly 45% of the population had fallen into poverty while the wealthiest 10% had seen their incomes rise by 83%.[119] According to Chilean economistAlejandro Foxley, when Pinochet finished his 17-year term by 1990, around 44% of Chilean families were living below the poverty line.[120][121][non-primary source needed]
Despite years of suppression by the Pinochet junta, a presidential election was held in 1988, as dictated by the 1980 constitution (though not without Pinochet first holding another plebiscite in an attempt to amend the constitution).[104] In 1990,Patricio Aylwin was democratically elected, bringing an end to the military dictatorship. The reasons cited for Pinochet's acceptance of democratic transition are numerous. Hayek, echoing arguments he had made years earlier inThe Road to Serfdom,[122] argued that the increased economic freedom he believed the neoliberal reforms had brought had put pressure on the dictatorship over time, resulting in a gradual increase in political freedom and, ultimately, the restoration of democracy.[citation needed] The Chilean scholars Javier Martínez and Alvaro Díaz reject this argument, pointing to the long tradition of democracy in Chile. They assert that the defeat of the Pinochet regime and the return of democracy came primarily from large-scale mass rebellion that eventually forced partyelites to use existing institutional mechanisms to restore democracy.[123]
GDP per capita in Chile and Latin America 1950–2010 (time under Pinochet highlighted)
In the 1990s, neoliberal economic policies broadened and deepened, including unilateral tariff reductions and the adoption of free trade agreements with a number of Latin American countries and Canada.[124] At the same time, the decade brought increases in government expenditure on social programs to tackle poverty and poor quality housing.[125] Throughout the 1990s, Chile maintained high growth, averaging 7.3% from 1990 to 1998.[124] Eduardo Aninat, writing for the IMF journalFinance & Development, called the period from 1986 to 2000 "the longest, strongest, and most stable period of growth in [Chile's] history."[124] In 1999, there was a brief recession brought about by theAsian financial crisis, with growth resuming in 2000 and remaining near 5% until theGreat Recession.[126]
In sum, the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and 1990s—initiated by a repressiveauthoritarian government—transformed the Chilean economy from aprotected market with highbarriers to trade and heftygovernment intervention into one of the world's mostopenfree-market economies.[127][109] Chile experienced the worst economic bust of any Latin American country during theLatin American debt crisis (several years into neoliberal reform), but also had one of the most robust recoveries,[128] rising from the poorest Latin American country in terms ofGDP per capita in 1980 (along with Peru) to the richest in 2019.[129] Average annual economic growth from the mid-1980s to the Asian crisis in 1997 was 7.2%, 3.5% between 1998 and 2005, and growth in per capita real income from 1985 to 1996 averaged 5%—all outpacing Latin American averages.[128][130] Inflation was brought under control.[110] Between 1970 and 1985 theinfant mortality rate in Chile fell from 76.1 per 1000 to 22.6 per 1000,[131] the lowest in Latin America.[132] Unemployment from 1980 to 1990 decreased, but remained higher than the South American average (which was stagnant). And despite public perception among Chileans that economic inequality has increased, Chile'sGini coefficient has in fact dropped from 56.2 in 1987 to 46.6 in 2017.[129][133] While this is near the Latin American average, Chile still has one of the highest Gini coefficients in theOECD, an organization of mostlydeveloped countries that includes Chile but not most other Latin American countries.[134] Furthermore, the Gini coefficient measures onlyincome inequality; Chile has more mixed inequality ratings in the OECD'sBetter Life Index, which includes indexes for more factors than only income, likehousing andeducation.[135][129] Additionally, the percentage of the Chilean population living in poverty rose from 17% in 1969 to 45% in 1985[136] at the same time government budgets for education, health and housing dropped by over 20% on average.[137] The era was also marked by economic instability.[138]
Overall, scholars have mixed opinions on the effects of the neoliberal reforms. TheCIA World Factbook states that Chile's "sound economic policies", maintained consistently since the 1980s, "have contributed to steady economic growth in Chile and have more than halved poverty rates,"[139] and some scholars have even called the period the "Miracle of Chile". Other scholars have called it a failure that led to extreme inequalities in the distribution of income and resulted in severe socioeconomic damage.[108] It is also contested how much these changes were the result of neoliberal economic policies and how much they were the result of other factors;[138] in particular, some scholars argue that after theCrisis of 1982 the "pure" neoliberalism of the late 1970s was replaced by a focus on fostering asocial market economy that mixed neoliberal and social welfare policies.[140][141]
As a response to the2019–20 Chilean protests, anational plebiscite was held in October 2020 to decide whether theChilean constitution would be rewritten. The "approve" option for a new constitution to replace the Pinochet-era constitution, which entrenched certain neoliberal principles into the country's basic law, won with 78% of the vote.[142][143] However, inSeptember 2022, the referendum to approve a rewritten the constitution was rejected with 61% of the vote.
Peruvian economistHernando de Soto, the founder of one of the first neoliberal organizations in Latin America,Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), began to receive assistance fromRonald Reagan's administration, with theNational Endowment for Democracy's Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) providing his ILD with funding.[144][145][146] The economic policy ofPresidentAlan García distanced Peru from international markets, resulting in lower foreign investment in the country.[147] Under García, Peru experiencedhyperinflation and increased confrontations with the guerrilla groupShining Path, leading the country towards high levels of instability.[148] The Peruvian armed forces grew frustrated with the inability of the García administration to handle the nation's crises and began to draft an operation –Plan Verde – to overthrow his government.[148]
The military's Plan Verde involved the "total extermination" of impoverished and indigenous Peruvians perceived as a drain on the economy, the control orcensorship of media in the nation and the establishment of aneoliberal economy in Peru.[149][148] During his campaigning for the1990 Peruvian general election,Alberto Fujimori initially expressed concern against the proposed neoliberal policies of his opponentMario Vargas Llosa.[150] Peruvian magazineOiga reported that, following the election, the armed forces were unsure of Fujimori's willingness to fulfill the plan's objectives, though they planned to convince Fujimori to agree to the operation prior to his inauguration.[151] After taking office, Fujimori abandoned his campaign's economic platform, adopting more aggressive neoliberal policies than those espoused by his election competitor Vargas Llosa.[152] With Fujimori's compliance, plans for a coup as designed in Plan Verde were prepared for two years and finally executed during the1992 Peruvian coup d'état, which ultimately established a civilian-military regime.[153][151]
Shortly after the inauguration of Fujimori, his government received a $715 million grant fromUnited States Agency for International Development (USAID) on 29 September 1990 for the Policy Analysis, Planning and Implementation Project (PAPI) that was developed "to support economic policy reform in the country".[154] De Soto proved to be influential to Fujimori, who began to repeat de Soto's advocacy for deregulating the Peruvian economy.[155] Under Fujimori, de Soto served as "the President's personal representative", withThe New York Times describing de Soto as an "overseas salesman", while others dubbed de Soto as the "informal president" for Fujimori.[156][144] In a recommendation to Fujimori, de Soto called for a "shock" to Peru's economy.[144] The policies included a 300% tax increase, unregulated prices and privatizing two-hundred and fifty state-owned entities.[144] The policies of de Soto led to the immediate suffering of poor Peruvians who saw unregulated prices increase rapidly.[144] Those living in poverty saw prices increase so much that they could no longer afford food.[144]The New York Times wrote that de Soto advocated for the collapse of Peru's society, with the economist saying that a civil crisis was necessary to support the policies of Fujimori.[157] Fujimori and de Soto would ultimately break their ties after de Soto recommended increased involvement of citizens within the government, which was received with disapproval by Fujimori.[158] USAID would go on to assist the Fujimori government with rewriting the 1993 Peruvian constitution, with the agency concluding in 1997 that it helped with the "preparation of legislative texts" and "contributed to the emergence of a private sector advisory role".[159][154] The policies promoted by de Soto and implemented by Fujimori eventually caused macroeconomic stability and a reduction in the rate ofinflation, though Peru's poverty rate remained largely unchanged with over half of the population living in poverty in 1998.[144][160][161]
According to theFoundation for Economic Education, USAID, theUnited Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and theNippon Foundation also supported the sterilization efforts of the Fujimori government.[162] E. Liagin reported that from 1993 to 1998, USAID "basically took charge of the national health system of Peru" during the period of forced sterilizations.[162] At least 300,000 Peruvians were victims of forced sterilization by the Fujimori government in the 1990s, with the majority being affected by thePNSRPF.[149] The policy of sterilizations resulted in a generational shift that included a smaller younger generation that could not provide economic stimulation to rural areas, making such regions more impoverished.[163]
Though economic statistics show improved economic data in Peru in recent decades, the wealth earned between 1990 and 2020 was not distributed throughout the country; living standards showed disparities between the more-developed capital city of Lima and similar coastal regions while rural provinces remained impoverished.[164][165][166] Sociologist Maritza Paredes of thePontifical Catholic University of Peru stated, "People see that all the natural resources are in the countryside but all the benefits are concentrated in Lima."[164] In 2020, theCOVID-19 pandemic in Peru compounded these disparities,[165][166] with political scientist Professor Farid Kahhat of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru stating that, "market reforms in Peru have yielded positive results in terms of reducing poverty ... But what the pandemic has laid bare, particularly in Peru, is that poverty was reduced while leaving the miserable state of public services unaltered – most clearly in the case of health services."[165] The candidacy ofPedro Castillo in the2021 Peruvian general election brought attention to the disparities between urban and rural Peruvians, with much of his support being earned in the exterior portions of the country.[166] Castillo ultimately won the election, withThe New York Times reporting his victory as the "clearest repudiation of the country's establishment".[167][168]
In the 1960s,Latin American intellectuals began to notice the ideas ofordoliberalism; they often used the Spanish term "neoliberalismo" to refer to this school of thought. They were particularly impressed by thesocial market economy and theWirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") in Germany and speculated about the possibility of accomplishing similar policies in their own countries. Neoliberalism in 1960s Argentina meant a philosophy that was more moderate than entirelyLaissez-fairefree-marketcapitalism and favored using state policy to tempersocial inequality and counter a tendency towards monopoly.[7]
In 1976, themilitary dictatorship's economic plan led byJosé Alfredo Martínez de Hoz was the first attempt at establishing a neoliberal program in Argentina. They implemented a fiscalausterity plan that reduced money printing in an attempt to counter inflation. In order to achieve this, salaries were frozen; however, they were unable to reduce inflation, which led to a drop in the real salary of the working class. They also liberalized trade policy so that foreign goods could freely enter the country. Argentina's industry, which had been on the rise for 20 years after the economic policies of former presidentArturo Frondizi, rapidly declined as it was not able to compete with foreign goods. Following the measures, there was an increase in poverty from 9% in 1975 to 40% at the end of 1982.[112]
From 1989 to 2001, more neoliberal policies were implemented byDomingo Cavallo. This time, the privatization of public services was the main focus, although financial deregulation and free trade with foreign nations were also re-implemented. Along with an increasedlabour market flexibility, the unemployment rate dropped to 18.3%.[169] Public perception of the policies was mixed; while some of the privatization was welcomed, much of it was criticized for not being in the people's best interests. Protests resulted in the death of 29 people at the hands of police.[170]
Along with many other Latin American countries in the early 1980s,Mexico experienced adebt crisis. In 1983 the Mexican government ruled by thePRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party,accepted loans from the IMF. Among the conditions set by the IMF were requirements for Mexico to privatize state-run industries,devalue their currency, decreasetrade barriers, and restrict governmental spending.[171] These policies were aimed at stabilizing Mexico's economy in the short run. Later, Mexico tried to expand these policies to encourage growth andforeign direct investment (FDI).
The decision to accept the IMF's neoliberal reforms split the PRI between those on the right who wanted to implement neoliberal policies and those the left who did not.[172]Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who took power in 1988, doubled down on neoliberal reforms. His policies opened up the financial sector by deregulating the banking system and privatizing commercial banks.[171][172] Though these policies did encourage a small amount of growth and FDI, the growth rate was below what it had been under previous governments in Mexico, and the increase in foreign investment was largely from existing investors.[172]
U.S. President Bush, Canadian PM Mulroney, and Mexican President Salinas participate in the ceremonies to sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
On 1 January 1994 theZapatista Army of National Liberation, named forEmiliano Zapata, a leader in the Mexican revolution, launched an armed rebellion against the Mexican government in the Chiapas region.[173] Among their demands were rights for indigenous Mexicans as well as opposition to theNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which solidified a strategic alliance between state and business.[174] NAFTA, a trade agreement between theUnited States,Canada, and Mexico, significantly aided in Mexico's efforts to liberalize trade.
In 1994, the same year of the Zapatista rebellion and the enactment of NAFTA, Mexico faced afinancial crisis. The crisis, also known as the"Tequila Crisis" began in December 1994 with the devaluation of the peso.[172][175] When investors' doubts led to negative speculation they fled with their capital. The central bank was forced to raiseinterest rates which in turn collapsed the banking system as borrowers could no longer pay back their loans.[175]
After Salinas,Ernesto Zedillo (1995–2000) maintained similar economic policies to his predecessor. Despite the crisis, Zedillo continued to enact neoliberal policies and signed new agreements with theWorld Bank and the IMF.[172] As a result of these policies and the 1994 recession, Mexico's economy did gain stability. Neither the 2001 or2008 recessions were caused by internal economic forces in Mexico. Trade increased dramatically, as well as FDI; however, as Mexico'sbusiness cycle synced with that of the United States, it was much more vulnerable to external economic pressures.[171] FDI benefited the Northern and Central regions of Mexico while the Southern region was largely excluded from the influx of investment. The crisis also left the banks mainly in the hands of foreigners.
The PRI's 71-year rule ended whenVicente Fox of the PAN, theNational Action Party, won the election in 2000. Fox and his successor,Felipe Calderón, did not significantly diverge from the economic policies of the PRI governments. They continued to privatize the financial system and encourage foreign investment.[172] Despite significant opposition,Enrique Peña Nieto, president from 2012 to 2018, pushed through legislation that would privatize theoil andelectricity industries. These reforms marked the conclusion to the neoliberal goals that had been envisioned in Mexico in the 1980s.[172]
Brazil adopted neoliberal policies in the late 1980s, with support from the worker's party on the left. For example, tariff rates were cut from 32% in 1990 to 14% in 1994. During this period, Brazil effectively ended its policy of maintaining a closed economy focused onimport substitution industrialization in favor of a more open economic system with a much higher degree of privatization. The market reforms and trade reforms ultimately resulted in price stability and a faster inflow of capital but had little effect on income inequality and poverty. Consequently, mass protests continued during the period.[176][177]
TheAdam Smith Institute, a United Kingdom–based free-market think tank and lobbying group formed in 1977 which was a major driver of the aforementioned neoliberal policies,[179] officially changed its libertarian label to neoliberal in October 2016.[180]
According to economists Denzau and Roy, the "shift from Keynesian ideas toward neoliberalism influenced the fiscal policy strategies of New Democrats and New Labour in both the White House and Whitehall.... Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton, and Blair all adopted broadly similar neoliberal beliefs."[181][182]
Early roots of neoliberalism were laid in the 1970s during the Nixon administration, with appointment of associates ofMilton Friedman to Departments of Treasury, Agriculture and Justice, and the Council of Economic Advisors and encouraged funding of theAmerican Enterprise Institute and defunding of the more centristBrookings Institution,[192] and during theCarter administration, with deregulation of thetrucking, banking andairline industries,[193][194][195] the appointment ofPaul Volcker to chairman of theFederal Reserve[196] as well as increased military spending at the end of his term leading to fiscal austerity in US nonmilitary budget diverting funds away from social programs.[192] This trend continued into the 1980s under theReagan administration, which includedtax cuts, increased defense spending, financial deregulation andtrade deficit expansion.[197] Likewise, concepts ofsupply-side economics, discussed by the Democrats in the 1970s, culminated in the 1980Joint Economic Committee report "Plugging in the Supply Side". This was picked up and advanced by the Reagan administration, with Congress following Reagan's basic proposal and cutting federal income taxes across the board by 25% in 1981.[198]
TheClinton administration embraced neoliberalism[22] by supporting the passage of theNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), continuing the deregulation of the financial sector through passage of theCommodity Futures Modernization Act and the repeal of theGlass–Steagall Act and implementing cuts to thewelfare state through passage of thePersonal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.[197][199][200] The American historianGary Gerstle writes that while Reagan was the ideological architect of the neoliberal order which was formulated in the 1970s and 1980s, it was Clinton who was its key facilitator, and as such this order achieved dominance in the 1990s and early 2000s.[201] The neoliberalism of the Clinton administration differs from that of Reagan as the Clinton administration purged neoliberalism ofneoconservative positions onmilitarism, family values, opposition tomulticulturalism and neglect of ecological issues.[202][disputed –discuss] Writing inNew York, journalistJonathan Chait disputed accusations that theDemocratic Party had been hijacked by neoliberals, saying that its policies have largely stayed the same since the New Deal. Instead, Chait suggested these accusations arose from arguments that presented afalse dichotomy between free-market economics and socialism, ignoring mixed economies.[203] American feminist philosopherNancy Fraser says the modern Democratic Party has embraced a "progressive neoliberalism", which she describes as a "progressive-neoliberal alliance of financialization plus emancipation".[204] HistorianWalter Scheidel says that both parties shifted to promote free-market capitalism in the 1970s, with the Democratic Party being "instrumental in implementing financial deregulation in the 1990s".[205] HistoriansAndrew Diamond andThomas Sugrue argue that neoliberalism became a "'dominant rationality' precisely because it could not be confined to a single partisan identity."[206] Economic and political inequalities in schools, universities, and libraries and an undermining of democratic and civil society institutions influenced by neoliberalism has been explored by Buschman.[207]
Scholars who emphasized the key role of the developmental state in the early period of fast industrialization in East Asia in the late 19th century now argue that South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have transformed from developmental to close-to-neoliberal states. Their arguments are matter of scholarly debate.[208]
Following the death ofMao Zedong in 1976,Deng Xiaoping led the country through far ranging market-centered reforms, with the slogan ofXiǎokāng, that combined neoliberalism with centralizedauthoritarianism. These focused on agriculture, industry, education and science/defense.[96]
Experts debate the extent to which traditional Maoist communist doctrines have been transformed to incorporate the new neoliberal ideas. In any case, the Chinese Communist Party remains a dominant force in setting economic and business policies.[209][210] Throughout the 20th century, Hong Kong was the outstanding neoliberal exemplar inside China.[211]
Taiwan exemplifies the impact of neoliberal ideas. The policies were pushed by the United States but were not implemented in response to a failure of the national economy, as in numerous other countries.[212]
Neoliberal policies were at the core of the leading party in Japan, theLiberal Democratic Party (LDP), after 1980. These policies had the effect of abandoning the traditional rural base and emphasizing the central importance of the Tokyo industrial-economic region.[213] Neoliberal proposals for Japan's agricultural sector called for reducing state intervention, ending the protection of high prices for rice and other farm products, and exposing farmers to the global market. The 1993Uruguay Round of theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade negotiations opened up the rice market. Neoconservative leaders called for the enlargement, diversification, intensification, and corporatization of the farms receiving government subsidies. In 2006, the ruling LDP decided to no longer protect small farmers with subsidies. Small operators saw this as favoritism towards big corporate agriculture and reacted politically by supporting theDemocratic Party of Japan (DPJ), helping to defeat the LDP in nationwide elections.[214]
In South Korea, neoliberalism had the effect of strengthening the national government's control over economic policies. These policies were popular to the extent that they weakened the historically very powerfulchaebol family-owned conglomerates.[215]
In India, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi took office in 2014 with a commitment to implement neoliberal economic policies. This commitment would shape national politics and foreign affairs and put India in a race with China and Japan for economic supremacy in East Asia.[216][217]
In Australia, neoliberal economic policies (known at the time as "economic rationalism"[218] or "economic fundamentalism") have been embraced by governments of both theLabor Party and theLiberal Party since the 1980s. The Labor governments ofBob Hawke andPaul Keating from 1983 to 1996 pursued a program of economic reform focused oneconomic liberalisation. These governments privatised government corporations, deregulated factor markets, floated theAustralian dollar and reduced trade protections.[219] Another key policy wasthe accords which was an agreement with unions to agree to a reduction in strikes, wage demands and a real wage cut in exchange for the implementation of social policies, such asMedicare andsuperannuation.[220] TheHoward government continued these policies, whilst also acting to reduce union power, cut welfare and reduce government spending.[221]
Keating, building on policies he had introduced while federal treasurer, implemented a compulsorysuperannuation guarantee system in 1992 to increasenational savings and reduce future government liability for old age pensions.[222] The financing of universities was deregulated, requiring students to contribute touniversity fees through a repayable loan system known as theHigher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and encouraging universities to increase income by admitting full-fee-paying students, including foreign students.[223] The admission of domestic full-fee-paying students to public universities was abolished in 2009 by theRudd Labor government.[224]
Immigration to the mainland capitals by refugees have seen capital flows follow soon after, such as from war-tornLebanon andVietnam. Later economic migrants from mainlandChina also, up to recent restrictions, had invested significantly in the property markets.[225][citation needed]
In New Zealand, neoliberal economic policies were implemented under theFourth Labour Government led by Prime MinisterDavid Lange. These neoliberal policies are commonly referred to asRogernomics, a portmanteau of "Roger" and "economics", after Lange appointedRoger Douglas minister of finance in 1984.[226]
Lange's government had inherited a severe balance of payments crisis as a result of the deficits from the previously implemented two-year freeze on wages and prices by preceding Prime MinisterRobert Muldoon, who had also maintained anexchange rate many economists now believe was unsustainable.[227] The inherited economic conditions lead Lange to remark "We ended up being run very similarly to a Polish shipyard."[228] On 14 September 1984, Lange's government held an Economic Summit to discuss the underlying problems withNew Zealand's economy, which lead to calls for dramatic economic reforms previously proposed by theTreasury Department.[229]
A reform program consisting ofderegulation and the removal oftariffs andsubsidies was put in place. This had an immediate effect onNew Zealand's agricultural community, who were hit hard by the loss of subsidies to farmers.[230] A superannuation surcharge was introduced, despite having promised not to reducesuperannuation, resulting inLabour losing support from the elderly. The financial markets were also deregulated, removing restrictions oninterests rates, lending and foreign exchange. In March 1985, the New Zealand dollar wasfloated.[231] Additionally, a number of government departments were converted into state-owned enterprises, which lead to significant job losses: 3,000 within the Electricity Corporation; 4,000 within the Coal Corporation; 5,000 within the Forestry Corporation; and 8,000 within the New Zealand Post.[230]
New Zealand became a part of the global economy. The focus in the economy shifted from the productive sector to finance as a result of zero restrictions on overseas money coming into the country. Finance capital outstripped industrial capital and the manufacturing industry suffered approximately 76,000 job losses.[232]
Beginning in the late 1960s, a number of neoliberal reforms were implemented in the Middle East.[233][234] For instance,Egypt is frequently linked to the implementation of neoliberal policies, particularly with regard to the 'open-door' policies of PresidentAnwar Sadat throughout the 1970s,[235] andHosni Mubarak's successive economic reforms between 1981 and 2011.[236] These measures, known asal-Infitah, were later diffused across the region. In Tunisia, neoliberal economic policies are associated with former president andde facto dictator[237]Zine El Abidine Ben Ali;[238] his reign made it clear that economic neoliberalism can coexist and even be encouraged byauthoritarian states.[239] Responses to globalisation and economic reforms in theGulf have also been approached via a neoliberal analytical framework.[240]
The school emphasizes non-intervention from government and generally rejects regulation in markets as inefficient, with the exception of the regulation of the money supply by central banks (in the form ofmonetarism). Although the school's association with neoliberalism is sometimes resisted by its proponents,[261] its emphasis on reduced government intervention in the economy and alaissez-faire ideology have brought about an affiliation between the Chicago school and neoliberal economics.[12][263]
The Washington Consensus is a set of standardized policy prescriptions often associated with neoliberalism that were developed by theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), theWorld Bank, and theUS Department of Treasury for crisis-wracked developing countries.[264][265][266] These prescriptions, often attached as conditions for loans from the IMF and World Bank, focus on marketliberalization, and in particular on loweringbarriers to trade, controllinginflation, privatizingstate-owned enterprises, and reducing government budget deficits.John Williamson, a British-born economist defined theWashington Consensus by making in 1989 10 rules that were imposed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the US government on developing nations.[267] He came to strongly oppose the way those recommendations were actually imposed and their use by neoliberals.[268]
HistorianQuinn Slobodian proposed in 2018 the existence of a so-called Geneva School of economics to describe a group of economists and political economists who gravitated in the 1920s and 1930s around theGeneva Graduate Institute, and theGeneva-basedGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) andLeague of Nations. The particular strand of political philosophy revolved around renowned economists such asFriedrich von Hayek,Wilhelm Röpke,Jacob Viner, as well asGottfried Haberler.[269][270][271] Slobodian describes them as "ordo-globalists" who promoted the creation of global institutions to safeguard the unimpeded movement of capital across borders.[271][272] He argues the school combined the "Austrian emphasis on the limits of knowledge and the global scale with the German ordoliberal emphasis on institutions and the moment of the political decision."[270][273]
Economic and political freedom are inextricably linked with each other. There cannot be any question of liberty and religious and intellectual tolerance where there is no economic freedom.[275]
Many neoliberal thinkers advance the view that economic and political freedom are inextricably linked.Milton Friedman argued in his bookCapitalism and Freedom thateconomic freedom, while itself an extremely important component ofabsolute freedom, is also a necessary condition forpolitical freedom. He claimed thatcentralized control of economic activities is always accompanied bypolitical repression. In his view, the voluntary character of all transactions in an unregulated market economy and the wide diversity of choices that it permits pose fundamental threats to repressive political leaders by greatly diminishing their power to coerce people economically. Through the elimination of centralized control of economic activities,economic power is separated from political power and each can serve as a counterbalance to the other. Friedman feels that competitive capitalism is especially important to minority groups since impersonal market forces protect people from discrimination in their economic activities for reasons unrelated to their productivity.[276] InThe Road to Serfdom,Friedrich Hayek offered a similar argument: "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends".[122]
A central feature of neoliberalism is the support of free trade,[277][278] and policies that enable free trade, like theNorth American Free Trade Agreement, are often associated with neoliberalism.[279] Neoliberals argue that free trade promoteseconomic growth,[280] reducespoverty,[280][277] produces gains of trade like lower prices as a result ofcomparative advantage,[281] maximizesconsumer choice,[282] and is essential to freedom,[283][284] as they believe voluntary trade between two parties should not be prohibited by government.[285] Relatedly, neoliberals argue thatprotectionism is harmful toconsumers,[286] who will be forced to pay higher prices for goods;[287] incentivizes individuals to misuse resources;[288] distorts investment;[288] stifles innovation;[289] and props up certain industries at the expense of consumers and other industries.[290]
Monetarism is an economic theory commonly associated with neoliberalism.[96] Formulated byMilton Friedman, it focuses on the macroeconomic aspects of thesupply of money, paying particular attention to the effects ofcentral banking.[291] It argues that excessive expansion of the money supply is inherently inflationary and that monetary authorities should focus primarily on maintainingprice stability, even at the cost of other macroeconomic factors likeeconomic growth.
Monetarism is often associated with the policies of theU.S. Federal Reserve under thechairmanship of economistPaul Volcker,[96] which centered around high interest rates that are widely credited with ending the high levels of inflation seen in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s[292] as well as contributing to the1980–1982 recession.[293] Monetarism had particular force in Chile, whose central bank raised interest rates to counter inflation that had spiraled to over 600%.[110] This helped to successfully reduce inflation to below 10%,[110] but also resulted in job losses.
The progress of the last 40 years has been mostly cultural, culminating, the last couple of years, in the broad legalization of same-sex marriage. But by many other measures, especially economic, things have gotten worse, thanks to the establishment of neo-liberal principles — anti-unionism, deregulation, market fundamentalism and intensified, unconscionable greed — that began with Richard Nixon and picked up steam under Ronald Reagan. Too many are suffering now because too few were fighting then.
Neoliberal thought has been criticized for supposedly having an undeserved "faith" in the efficiency ofmarkets, in the superiority of markets overcentralized economic planning, in the ability of markets to self-correct, and in the market's ability to deliver economic and political freedom.[317][75] EconomistPaul Krugman has argued that the "laissez-faire absolutism" promoted by neoliberals "contributed to an intellectual climate in which faith in markets and disdain for government often trumps the evidence".[75] Political theoristWendy Brown has gone even further and asserted that the overriding objective of neoliberalism is "the economization of all features of life".[318] A number of scholars have argued that, in practice, this "market fundamentalism" has led to a neglect of social goods not captured byeconomic indicators, an erosion ofdemocracy, an unhealthy promotion of unbridledindividualism andsocial Darwinism, and economic inefficiency.[319]
Some critics contend neoliberal thinking prioritizeseconomic indicators likeGDP growth andinflation over social factors that might not be easy to quantify, likelabor rights[320] and access to higher education.[321] This focus oneconomic efficiency can compromise other, perhaps more important, factors, or promoteexploitation and social injustice.[322] For example, anthropologist Mark Fleming argues that when the performance of atransit system is assessed purely in terms of economic efficiency, social goods such as strongworkers' rights are considered impediments to maximum performance.[323] He supports this assertion with a case study of theSan Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), which is one of the slowest major urban transit systems in the US and has one of the worston-time performance rates.[324][325] This poor performance, he contends, stems from structural problems including an aging fleet and maintenance issues. He argues that the neoliberal worldview singled out transit drivers and theirlabor unions, blaming drivers for failing to meet impossible transit schedules and considering additional costs to drivers as lost funds that reduce system speed and performance. This produced vicious attacks on the drivers' union and brutal publicsmear campaigns, ultimately resulting in the passing of Proposition G, which severely undermined the powers of the Muni drivers' union.
American scholar and cultural criticHenry Giroux alleges that neoliberal market fundamentalism fosters a belief that market forces should organize every facet of society, including economic and social life, and promotes asocial Darwinist ethic that elevates self-interest over social needs.[326][327] Giroux states that the United States has entered aSecond Gilded Age "more savage and anti-democratic than its predecessor" as a result of the enforcement of neoliberal policies and adherence tomarket fundamentalist principles.[328][329]Marxist economic geographerDavid Harvey argues that neoliberalism promotes an unbridled individualism that is harmful to social solidarity.[330]
While proponents ofeconomic liberalization have often pointed out that increasingeconomic freedom tends to raise expectations onpolitical freedom,[331] some scholars see the existence of non-democratic yetmarket-liberal regimes and the seeming undermining of democratic control by market processes as evidence that this characterization is ahistorical.[332] Some scholars contend that neoliberal focuses may even undermine the basic elements of democracy.[332][333]Kristen Ghodsee, ethnographer at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, asserts that the triumphalist attitudes ofWestern powers at the end of theCold War and the fixation on linking allleftist political ideals with the excesses ofStalinism, permitted neoliberal, free-market capitalism to fill the void, which undermined democratic institutions and reforms, leaving a trail of economic misery,unemployment and risingeconomic inequality throughout the formerEastern Bloc and much of the West that fueled a resurgence of extremistnationalism.[334] Costas Panayotakis has argued that the economic inequality engendered by neoliberalism creates inequality of political power, undermining democracy and the citizen's ability to meaningfully participate.[335]
Despite the focus on economic efficiency, some critics allege that neoliberal policies actually produceeconomic inefficiencies. The replacement of a government-ownedmonopoly withprivately owned companies might reduce the efficiencies associated witheconomies of scale.[336] Structurally, some economists argue that neoliberalism is a system thatsocializes costs andprivatizesprofits.[337][page needed][338][page needed] They argue this results in an abdication of private responsibility for socially destructive economic choices and may result in regressive governmental controls on the economy to reduce damages by private individuals.
American political theologianAdam Kotsko argues that contemporary right-wing populism, exemplified by Brexit and theTrump Administration, represent a "heretical" variant of neoliberalism, which accepts its core tenets but pushes them to new, almost "parodic" extremes.[339]
Critics have argued that neoliberal policies have increasedeconomic inequality[3][340] and exacerbated globalpoverty.[341][342][343] TheCenter for Economic and Policy Research's (CEPR)Dean Baker argued in 2006 that the driving force behind rising inequality in the United States has been a series of deliberate neoliberal policy choices, including anti-inflationary bias, anti-unionism and profiteering in thehealthcare industry.[344] The economists David Howell and Mamadou Diallo contend that neoliberal policies have contributed to aUnited States economy in which 30% ofworkers earn low wages (less than two-thirds the median wage for full-time workers) and 35% of thelabor force isunderemployed while only 40% of the working-age population in the country is adequately employed.[345] The globalization of neoliberalism has been blamed for the emergence of a "precariat", a new social class facing acute socio-economic insecurity and alienation.[346] In the United States, the "neoliberal transformation" of industrial relations, which considerably diminished the power ofunions and increased the power of employers, has been blamed by many for increasingprecarity, which could be responsible for as many as 120,000 excess deaths per year.[347] InVenezuela, prior to theVenezuelan crisis, deregulation of thelabor market resulted in greaterinformal employment and a considerable increase inindustrial accidents andoccupational diseases.[348] Even inSweden, in which only 6% of workers are beset with wages theOECD considers low,[349] some scholars argue that the adoption of neoliberal reforms—in particular the privatization of public services and the reduction of state benefits—is the reason it has become the nation with the fastest growing income inequality in the OECD.[350][351]
A 2016 report by researchers at theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) was critical of neoliberal policies for increasing economic inequality.[62] While the report included praise for neoliberalism, saying "there is much to cheer in the neoliberal agenda," it noted that certain neoliberal policies, particularly freedom of capital and fiscal consolidation, resulted in "increasinginequality", which "in turn jeopardized durable [economic] expansion". The report contends that the implementation of neoliberal policies by economic and politicalelites has led to "three disquieting conclusions":
The benefits in terms of increasedgrowth seem fairly difficult to establish when looking at a broad group of countries.
The costs in terms of increased inequality are prominent. Such costs epitomize the trade-off between the growth andequity effects of some aspects of the neoliberal agenda.
Increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth. Even if growth is the sole or main purpose of the neoliberal agenda, advocates of that agenda still need to pay attention to the distributional effects.[352]
A number of scholars see increasing inequality arising out of neoliberal policies as a deliberate effort, rather than a consequence of ulterior motives like increasingeconomic growth.Marxist economic geographerDavid Harvey describes neoliberalism as a "class project" "carried out by the corporate capitalist class", and argued in his bookA Brief History of Neoliberalism that neoliberalism is designed to increase the class power of economicelites.[186][353][96] EconomistsGérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy posit that "the restoration and increase of the power, income, and wealth of the upper classes" are the primary objectives of the neoliberal agenda.[354] Economist David M. Kotz contends that neoliberalism "is based on the thorough domination oflabor bycapital".[355] Similarly,Elizabeth S. Anderson writes that neoliberalism has "shifted economic and political power to private businesses, executives, and the very rich" and that "more and more, these organizations and individuals govern everyone else."[356] Sociologist Thomas Volscho argues that the imposition of neoliberalism in the United States arose from a conscious political mobilization by capitalistelites in the 1970s, who faced two self-described crises: the legitimacy of capitalism and a falling rate ofprofitability in industry.[357] InThe Global Gamble,Peter Gowan argued that "neoliberalism" was not only a free-market ideology but "a social engineering project". Globally, it meant opening a state's political economy to products and financial flows from the core countries. Domestically, neoliberalism meant the remaking of social relations "in favour of creditor and rentier interests, with the subordination of the productive sector to financial sectors, and a drive to shift wealth, power and security away from the bulk of the working population."[358]
According toJonathan Hopkin, the United States took the lead in implementing the neoliberal agenda in the 1980s, making it "the most extreme case of the subjection of society to the brute force of the market." As such, he argues this made the United States an outlier with economic inequality hitting "unprecedented levels for the rich democracies," and notes that even with average incomes "very high by global standards," US citizens "face greater material hardship than their counterparts in much poorer countries." These developments, along with financial instability and limited political choice, have resulted inpolitical polarization, instability and revolt in the United States.[359]
A 2022 study published inPerspectives on Psychological Science found that in countries where neoliberal institutions have significant influence over policy the psychology of those populations are molded not only to be more willing to tolerate large levels of income inequality, but actually prefer it over more egalitarian outcomes.[360][361]
Research byKristen Ghodsee, ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, argues that widespread discontent with neoliberal capitalism has led to a "red nostalgia" in much of the former Communist bloc. She argues that "the political freedoms that came with democracy were packaged with the worst type of unregulated, free-market capitalism, which completely destabilized the rhythms of everyday life and brought crime, corruption and chaos where there had once been comfortable predictability."[362] This ultimately fueled a resurgence ofnationalist politicians and parties, such asVladimir Putin inRussia,[363]Viktor Orbán inHungary,Alexander Lukashenko inBelarus, and theLaw and Justice party inPoland.[334]
Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless.
Some organizations and economists argue that neoliberal policies increase the power ofcorporations and shift wealth to theupper classes.[303] For instance,Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell argue that urban citizens are increasingly deprived of the power to shape the basic conditions of daily life, which are instead shaped by corporations involved in the competitive economy.[368]
TheInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) andWorld Bank, two majorinternational organizations which often espouse neoliberal views,[369] have been criticized for advancing neoliberal policies around the world.[370][371] Sheldon Richman, editor of the libertarian journalThe Freeman, argues that the IMF has imposed a "corporatist-flavored 'neoliberalism' on the troubled countries of the world."[372] He contends that IMF policies of spending cuts and tax increases, as well as subjection to paternalistic supranational bureaucrats, have fostered "long-term dependency, perpetual indebtedness, moral hazard, and politicization" in the developing world, which has undermined "real market reform" and "set back the cause of genuine liberalism." Ramaa Vasudevan, associate professor of economics at Colorado State University, states that trade policies and treaties fostered by the United States in the neoliberal era, along with bailouts brokered by the World Bank and the IMF, have allowed corporate capital to expand around the world unimpeded by trade protections or national borders, "sucking countries in different regions of the world into global corporations' logic of accumulation." This expansion of global corporate capital, Vasudevan says, has buttressed its ability to "orchestrate a global division of labor most conducive to the demands of profitability" which in turn has facilitated "a brutal, globalrace to the bottom".[373]
Mark Arthur, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development Research in Denmark, has written that the influence of neoliberalism has given rise to an "anti-corporatist" movement in opposition to it. This "anti-corporatist" movement is articulated around the need to reclaim the power that corporations and global institutions have stripped from governments. He says thatAdam Smith's "rules for mindful markets" served as a basis for the anti-corporate movement, "following government's failure to restrain corporations from hurting or disturbing the happiness of the neighbor [Smith]".[374]
The invisible hand of the market and the iron fist of the state combine and complement each other to make the lower classes accept desocialized wage labor and the social instability it brings in its wake. After a long eclipse, the prison thus returns to the frontline of institutions entrusted with maintaining the social order.
Several scholars have linkedmass incarceration of the poor in the United States with the rise of neoliberalism.[376][377][378][379] Sociologist Loïc Wacquant andMarxist economic geographerDavid Harvey have argued that the criminalization of poverty and mass incarceration is a neoliberal policy for dealing with social instability among economically marginalized populations.[380][96] According to Wacquant, this situation follows the implementation of other neoliberal policies, which have allowed for the retrenchment of the socialwelfare state and the rise of punitiveworkfare, whilst increasinggentrification of urban areas,privatization of public functions, the shrinking of collective protections for the working class via economicderegulation and the rise of underpaid,precarious wage labor.[381][382] By contrast, it is extremely lenient in dealing with those in the upper echelons of society, in particular when it comes to economic crimes of theupper class and corporations such asfraud,embezzlement,insider trading, credit andinsurance fraud,money laundering and violation of commerce and labor codes.[380][383] According to Wacquant, neoliberalism does not shrink government, but instead sets up a "centaur state" with little governmental oversight for those at the top and strict control of those at the bottom.[380][384]
In expanding upon Wacquant's thesis, sociologist and political economist John L. Campbell ofDartmouth College suggests that throughprivatization the prison system exemplifies the centaur state. He states that "on the one hand, it punishes the lower class, which populates the prisons; on the other hand, it profits the upper class, which owns the prisons, and it employs the middle class, which runs them." In addition, he argues that the prison system benefits corporations through outsourcing, as inmates are "slowly becoming a source of low-wage labor for some US corporations". Both through privatization and outsourcing, Campbell argues, the penal state reflects neoliberalism.[387]: 61 Campbell also argues that while neoliberalism in the United States established a penal state for the poor, it also put into place a debtor state for the middle class and that "both have had perverse effects on their respective targets: increasing rates of incarceration among the lower class and increasing rates of indebtedness—and recently home foreclosure—among the middle class."[387]: 68
David McNally, Professor of Political Science atYork University, argues that while expenditures on socialwelfare programs have been cut, expenditures on prison construction have increased significantly during the neoliberal era, with California having "the largest prison-building program in the history of the world".[388] The scholarBernard Harcourt contends the neoliberal concept that the state is inept when it comes toeconomic regulation, but efficient in policing and punishing "has facilitated the slide to mass incarceration".[389] Both Wacquant and Harcourt refer to this phenomenon as "Neoliberal Penality".[390][391]
The implementation of neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root offinancialization, with theGreat Recession as one of its results.[49][392][393] In particular, various neoliberal ideologies that had long been advocated by elites, such asmonetarism andsupply-side economics, were translated into government policy by theReagan administration, which resulted in decreased government regulation and a shift from a tax-financed state to a debt-financed one. While the profitability of industry and the rate of economic growth never recovered to the heyday of the 1960s, the political and economic power ofWall Street and finance capital vastly increased due to debt-financing by the state.[357] A 2016International Monetary Fund (IMF) report blames certain neoliberal policies for exacerbating financial crises around the world, causing them to grow bigger and more damaging.[62][394]
If you wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Yet that is precisely what thousands of trade and investment treaties over the past half century have done, through a process known as 'investor-state dispute settlement', or ISDS.[395]
Neoliberalism is commonly viewed by scholars as encouraging ofglobalization,[396] which is the subject of muchcriticism.
The emergence of the "precariat", a new class facing acute socio-economic insecurity and alienation due tooffshoring and a globalrace to the bottom, has been attributed to the globalization of neoliberalism.[346]
In a 2022 article for the journalGlobal Environmental Change,Jason Hickel et al. argued thatunequal exchange between theGlobal North and Global South in the era of neoliberal globalization led to a quantified $242 trillion in net appropriation of raw materials, energy and labor from the latter to the former (constant 2010 USD) between 1990 and 2015.[397]
A number of scholars have alleged neoliberalism encourages or covers forimperialism.[402][403][404] For instance, Ruth J Blakeley, Professor of Politics and International Relations at theUniversity of Sheffield, accuses the United States and its allies of fomentingstate terrorism and mass killings during theCold War as a means to buttress and promote the expansion ofcapitalism and neoliberalism in the developing world.[405] As an example of this, Blakeley says the case of Indonesia demonstrates that the U.S. and the UK put the interests of capitalistelites over thehuman rights of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians by supporting theIndonesian Army as it waged acampaign of mass killings, which resulted in the annihilation of theCommunist Party of Indonesia and its civilian supporters.[405] Historian Bradley R. Simpson posits that this campaign of mass killings was "an essential building block of the neoliberal policies that the West would attempt to impose on Indonesia after Sukarno's ouster."[406]GeographerDavid Harvey argues neoliberalism encourages an indirect form of imperialism that focuses on the extraction of resources from developing countries via financial mechanisms.[407]
This is practiced through international institutions like theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) andWorld Bank who negotiate debt relief with developing nations. He alleges that these institutions prioritize the financial institutions that grant the loans over the debtor countries and place requirements on loans that, in effect, act as financial flows from debtor countries to developed countries (for example, to receive a loan a state must have sufficient foreign exchange reserves—requiring the debtor state to buy US Treasury bonds, which have interest rates lower than those on the loan). EconomistJoseph Stiglitz,Chief Economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, has said of this: "What a peculiar world in which poor countries are in effect subsidizing the richest."[140]
James Pfeiffer, Professor of Global Health at theUniversity of Washington, has criticised the use ofStructural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) by the World Bank and IMF inMozambique, which resulted in reduced government health spending, leading international NGOs to fill service holes previously filled by government.[413] Rick Rowden, a Senior Economist at Global Financial Integrity, has criticised the IMF'smonetarist approach of prioritisingprice stability and fiscal restraint, which he alleges was unnecessarily restrictive and prevented developing countries from scaling up long-terminvestment in public health infrastructure.[411]
It has been argued that trade-led, unregulated economic activity and lax stateregulation of pollution have led toenvironmental degradation.[424][425] Furthermore, modes of production encouraged under neoliberalism may reduce the availability of natural resources over the long term, and may therefore not be sustainable within the world'slimited geographical space.[426]
In Robert Fletcher's 2010 piece, "Neoliberal Environmentality: Towards a Poststructuralist Political Ecology of the Conservation Debate"[427] his premise is that there is a conflict of ideas in conservation; that on one side of things you have deep ecology and protectionist paradigms and on the other side you have community based conservation efforts. There are problems with both approaches, and on either side they frequently fail to do conservation work in a substantial way. In the middle, Fletcher sees a space where social sciences are able to critique both sides of and blend the approaches, forming not a triangle of ideologies, but a spectrum. The relationship between capitalism and conservation is one that has to be reckoned with due to an overarching neoliberal framework guiding most conservation efforts.
According to ecologistWilliam E. Rees, the "neoliberal paradigm contributes significantly to planetary unraveling" by treating the economy and the ecosphere as totally separate systems, and by neglecting the latter.[428]Marxist economic geographerDavid Harvey argues neoliberalism is to blame forincreased rates of extinction.[429] Notably, he observes that "the era of neoliberalization also happens to be the era of the fastest mass extinction of species in the Earth's recent history." American philosopher and animal rights activistSteven Best argues that three decades of neoliberal policies have "marketized the entire world" and intensified "the assault on every ecosystem on the earth as a whole".[430] Neoliberalism reduces the "tragedy of the commons" to an argument for private ownership.[431]
TheFriedman doctrine, which Nicolas Firzli has argued defined the neoliberal era,[432] may lead companies to neglect concerns for the environment.[433] Firzli insists that prudent,fiduciary-driven long-term investors cannot ignore theenvironmental, social and corporate governance consequences of actions taken by the CEOs of the companies whose shares they hold as "the long-dominant Friedman stance is becoming culturally unacceptable and financially costly in the boardrooms of pension funds and industrial firms in Europe and North America".[432]
Critics like Noel Castree focus on the relationship between neoliberalism and the biophysical environment explain that critics of neoliberals see the free market as the best way to mediate the relationship between producers and consumers, as well as maximize freedom in a more general sense which they view as inherently good. Castree also asserts that the assumption that markets will allow for the maximization of individual freedom is incorrect.[434]
Conservation and management of natural resources has also been impacted by neoliberal policies and development. Prior to the neoliberalization of conservation efforts, conservation was done on the part of governmental and regulatory entities. Although conservation has typically been considered the "antithesis of production",[435] with the global shift towards neoliberalization, conservation programs have also shifted towards becoming a "mode of capitalist production".[435] It's done so through the reliance on private entities, non-governmental organizations, resource commodification and entrepreneurship (big and small). Access to the market through natural resource commodification became a neoliberal tool for communities and regions to further develop.
One scholar and critic of neoliberal conservation, Dan Klooster, published a study on forest certification in Mexico which demonstrated the socio-environmental consequences of neoliberal conservation networks.[436] In this example, global markets and a desire for sustainably-sourced products led to the adoption of forest certification programs, such as the Forest Conservation Fund, by Mexican companies. These certifications require that forest managers make improvements to the environmental and social aspects of harvesting wood and in return they gain access to international markets that prefer the consumption of certified wood. Today, 12 percent of Mexico's logged forests do so under a certification. However, many small logging businesses aren't able to successfully compete amongst the global market forces without accepting inaccessible costs to certification and unsatisfactory market prices and demand. Klooster uses this conservation example to demonstrate how the social impacts of conservation commodification can be both positive and negative. On the one hand the certification can create networks of producers, certifiers and consumers that oppose the socio-environmental disparities caused by the forestry industry, but on the other hand they might also widen further the north–south divisions.
Catholic political scientist Albert Bikaj considers the neoliberal concept of free market "fundamentally nihilistic" because it's profit-oriented, neglecting Christian ethics and undermining human dignity, common good, environment, and civilisation.[437] In his 84-pageapostolic exhortationEvangelii gaudium,Catholic PopeFrancis described unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny" and called on world leaders to fight rising poverty and inequality, stating:[438]
Some people continue to defendtrickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.[439]
In political science, disillusionment with neoliberalism is seen as a cause of de-politicization and the growth of anti-political sentiment, which can in turn encouragepopulist politics and re-politicization.[440]
Instances of political opposition to neoliberalism from the late 1990s onward include:
Research byKristen Ghodsee, ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, argues that widespread discontent with neoliberal capitalism has led to a "red nostalgia" in much of the former Communist bloc. She argues that "the political freedoms that came with democracy were packaged with the worst type of unregulated, free-market capitalism, which completely destabilized the rhythms of everyday life and brought crime, corruption and chaos where there had once been comfortable predictability",[362] which ultimately fueled a resurgence of extremistnationalism.[334]
In Latin America, the "pink tide" that swept leftist governments into power at the turn of the millennium can be seen as a reaction against neoliberal hegemony and the notion that "there is no alternative" (TINA) to theWashington Consensus.[441]
In protest against neoliberal globalization, South Korean farmer and former president of the Korean Advanced Farmers FederationLee Kyung-hae committed suicide by stabbing himself in the heart during a meeting of theWorld Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003.[442] He was protesting against the decision of the South Korean government to reduce subsidies to farmers.[443]
In 2018, theyellow vests protests in France and the2019–2021 Chilean protests emerged in direct opposition to neoliberal governments and policies, includingprivatization andausterity, that were blamed for the risingcost of living, surging personal debts, and increasedeconomic inequality.[446][447] In 2019, protests against neoliberal reforms, policies and governments have taken place in scores of countries on 5 continents, with opposition to austerity, privatization and tax hikes on the working classes being a common theme among many of them.[448]
During the2021 Chilean general election, president-electGabriel Boric promised to end the country's neoliberal economic model, stating that "if Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave."[449]
While neoliberalism itself doesn't directly imply the repression of worker's union, global trading benefits from the repression of trade unions.[450]Margaret Thatcher, a former UK prime minister and known prominent leader of neoliberalism (whileRonald Reagan in theUnited States promoted a set ofneoliberal reforms known as "Reaganomics"),[451] introduced a series of policies to reduce the power and influence oftrade unions and various social benefits.[452] According to BBC News, Thatcher reportedly "managed to destroy the power of the trade unions for almost a generation".[453]
^abVincent, Andrew (2009).Modern Political Ideologies. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 337.ISBN978-1405154956 – via Google Books.[Neoliberalism is] a revivified version of classical liberalism ... It has also close intellectual affinities with [American or right-wing] libertarianism. The ideology has, since the 1980s to the present, permeated an enormous amount of policy debates, on a global scale. It is seen, for example, to be the dominant ideology of the IMF and World Bank. It embodies a number of internal doctrinal differences, but the basic tenet is to identify the unregulated free-market capitalist order as the crucial ground for all efficient resource allocation. It is highly individualistic, intrinsically suspicious of all collective state or trades union action, and deeply uneasy with all forms of welfare policy premised on the state[.]
^Mirowski & Plehwe (2009), p. 428: "[W]e have thus far neglected to 'define' neoliberalism. This is because the premier point to be made about neoliberalism is that it cannot adequately be reduced to a set of Ten Commandments or six tenets or (N-1) key protagonists."
^(Springer, Birch & MacLeavy 2016, p. 1): "Neoliberalism is a slippery concept, meaning different things to different people. Scholars have examined the relationships between neoliberalism and a vast array of conceptual categories."
^Gerstle (2022), pp. 10–12, 149:"The collapse of communism, then, opened the entire world to capitalist penetration, shrank the imaginative and ideological space in which opposition to capitalist thought and practices might incubate, and impelled those who remained leftists to redefine their radicalism in alternative terms, which turned out to be those that capitalist systems could more, rather than less, easily manage. This was the moment when neoliberalism in the United States went from being a political movement to a political order."
^Ghodsee, Kristen (2018).Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism.Vintage Books. pp. 3–4.ISBN978-1568588902.Without the looming threat of a rival superpower, the last thirty years of global neoliberalism have witnessed a rapid shriveling of social programs that protect citizens from cyclical instability and financial crises and reduce the vast inequality of economic outcomes between those at the top and bottom of the income distribution.
Boas & Gans-Morse (2009): "Neoliberalism has rapidly become an academic catchphrase. From only a handful of mentions in the 1980s, use of the term has exploded during the past two decades, appearing in nearly 1,000 academic articles annually between 2002 and 2005. Neoliberalism is now a predominant concept in scholarly writing on development and political economy, far outpacing related terms such as monetarism, neoconservatism, the Washington Consensus, and even market reform."
Stedman Jones (2014), p. 13: "Friedman and Hayek are identified as the original thinkers and Thatcher and Reagan as the archetypal politicians of Western neoliberalism. Neoliberalism here has a pejorative connotation."
^abSpringer, Birch & MacLeavy (2016), p. 1: "Neoliberalism is easily one of the most powerful concepts to emerge within the social sciences in the last two decades, and the number of scholars who write about this dynamic and unfolding process of socio-spatial transformation is astonishing."
^abWilson, Julie (2017).Neoliberalism.Routledge. p. 6.ISBN978-1138654631.In recent decades, neoliberalism has become an important area of study across the humanities and social sciences.
^abcHickel, Jason (2016)."Neoliberalism and the End of Democracy". In Springer, Simon; Birch, Kean; MacLeavy, Julie (eds.).The Handbook of Neoliberalism.Routledge. p. 144.ISBN978-1138844001 – viaGoogle Books.The Reagan/Bush and Thatcher/Major administrations eventually came to power on platforms that promised to enhance individual freedoms by liberating capitalism from the 'shackles' of the state – reducing taxes on the rich, cutting state spending, privatising utilities, deregulating financial markets, and curbing the power of unions. After Reagan and Thatcher, these policies were carried forward by putatively progressive "Third Way" administrations such as Clinton in the United States and Blair in the UK, thus sealing the new economic consensus across party lines.
^Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
^abJones, Parker & Bos (2005), p. 100; "Neoliberalism represents a set of ideas that caught on from the mid to late 1970s, and are famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States following their elections in 1979 and 1981. The 'neo' part of neoliberalism indicates that there is something new about it, suggesting that it is an updated version of older ideas about 'liberal economics' which has long argued that markets should be free from intervention by the state. In its simplest version, it reads: markets good, government bad."
Slobodian, Quinn (2018).Globalists: The End of Empire and the Rise of Neoliberalism.Harvard University Press. p. 2.ISBN978-0674979529.In fact, the foundational neoliberal insight is comparable to that of John Maynard Keynes and Karl Polanyi: the market does not and cannot take care of itself. The core of twentieth-century neoliberal theorizing involves what they called the meta-economic or extra-economic conditions for safeguarding capitalism at the scale of the entire world. I show that the neoliberal project focused on designing institutions—not to liberate markets but to encase them, to inoculate capitalism against the threat of democracy, to create a framework to contain often-irrational human behavior, and to reorder the world after empire as a space of competing states in which borders fulfill a necessary function.
Whyte, Jessica (2019).The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism.Verso Books. p. 8.ISBN978-1-78663-311-8.What distinguished the neoliberals of the twentieth century from their nineteenth-century precursors, I argue, was not a narrow understanding of the human ashomo economicus, but the belief that a functioning competitive market required an adequate moral and legal foundation.
Biebricher, Thomas (2018).The Political Theory of Neoliberalism.Stanford University Press. pp. 26–7.ISBN9781503607835.What all neoliberals share is the problem of how to identify the factors indispensable to the maintenance of functioning markets, since the option of simply leaving them to themselves is no longer on the table ... What exactly it is that ensures the functioning of markets is a matter of continued dispute between different neoliberal thinkers and varieties of neoliberal thought ... [N]eoliberalism must be understood as a discourse in political economy that explicitly addresses the noneconomic preconditions of functioning markets and the interactive effects between markets and their surroundings ... [A]ddressing these questions obviously and inevitably leads into genuinely political territory, which is the reason I have argued that the neoliberal problematic is an inherently political problematic
Mirowski & Plehwe (2009), p. 436: "A primary ambition of the neoliberal project is to redefine the shape and functions of the state, not to destroy it ... they are inclined to explore new formats of techno-managerial governance that protect their ideal market from what they perceive as unwarranted political interference ... One should not confuse marketization of government functions with shrinking the state, however: if anything, bureaucracies become more unwieldy under neoliberal regimes. In practice, 'deregulation' cashes out as 're-regulation', only under a different set of ukases."
^Peters, Charles (May 1983)."A Neoliberal's Manifesto"(PDF).Washington Monthly. pp. 8–18. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on March 4, 2009. RetrievedJanuary 2, 2025.
^Hickel, Jason (2018).The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.Windmill Books. p. 218.ISBN978-1786090034.People commonly think of neoliberalism as an ideology that promotes totally free markets, where the state retreats from the scene and abandons all interventionist policies. But if we step back a bit, it becomes clear that the extension of neoliberalism has entailed powerful new forms of state intervention. The creation of a global 'free market' required not only violent coups and dictatorships backed by Western governments, but also the invention of a totalizing global bureaucracy – the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO and bilateral free-trade agreements – with reams of new laws, backed up by the military power of the United States.
^van Otten, George."The End of Economic Liberalism".GEOG 597i: Critical Geospatial Thinking and Applications. Penn State Department of Geography. RetrievedJuly 6, 2019.
^Mirowski & Plehwe (2009), p. 5: "The Mont Pèlerin Society and related networks of neoliberal partisan think tanks can serve as a directory of organized neoliberalism"
^Erhard, Ludwig (1988)."Franz Oppenheimer, dem Lehrer und Freund" [Franz Oppenheimer, the teacher and friend]. InErhard, Ludwig (ed.).Gedanken aus fünf Jahrzehnten, Reden und Schriften [Thoughts from five decades, speeches and writings] (in German). Düsseldorf: Karl Hohmann. p. 861.ISBN9783430125390.Rede zu Oppenheimers 100. Geburtstag, gehalten in der Freien Universität Berlin (1964). [Speech on Oppenheimer's 100th birthday, held at the Freie Universität Berlin (1964).]
^Abelshauser, Werner (2011).Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte seit 1945 [German economic history since 1945] (in German). C.H. Beck. p. 192.ISBN978-3-406-510946.
^Drexl, Josef (1998). "Freiheitssicherung auch gegen den Sozialstaat" [Safeguarding freedom also against the welfare state].Die wirtschaftliche Selbstbestimmung des Verbrauchers [The economic self-determination of the consumer] (in German). J.C.B. Mohr. p. 144.ISBN3-16-146938-0.
^Ptak, Ralf (2004).Vom Ordoliberalismus zur Sozialen Marktwirtschaft: Stationen des Neoliberalismus in Deutschland [From Ordoliberalism to the Social Market economy: Stations of Neoliberalism in Germany] (in German). pp. 18–19.
^Kingstone, Peter (2018).The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again?) of Neoliberalism in Latin America.SAGE Publications Ltd.
^Otero, Gerardo (2012). "The neoliberal food regime in Latin America: state, agribusiness transnational corporations and biotechnology".Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du développement.33 (3). Informa UK Limited:282–294.doi:10.1080/02255189.2012.711747.ISSN0225-5189.OCLC4912306096.S2CID59042471.
^"CHILE: The Bloody End of a Marxist Dream".Time. Archived fromthe original on September 25, 2008.....Allende's downfall had implications that reached far beyond the borders of Chile. His had been the first democratically elected Marxist government in Latin America...
^abDrake, Paul W.; Johnson, John J.; Caviedes, César N.; Carmagnani, Marcello A."The military dictatorship, from 1973".Encyclopædia Britannica. RetrievedJuly 11, 2019.
^Hira, Anil (1998).Ideas and Economic Policy in Latin America. Praeger Publishers. p. 81.ISBN0-275-96269-5.
^Salazar, Gabriel;Pinto, Julio (2002).Historia contemporánea de Chile III. La economía: mercados empresarios y trabajadores [Contemporary history of Chile III. The economy: business and worker markets] (in Spanish). pp. 49–62.
^Pee, Robert (2018).The Reagan Administration, the Cold War, and the Transition to Democracy Promotion.Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 168–187.ISBN978-3319963815.
^abcBurt, Jo-Marie (September–October 1998). "Unsettled accounts: militarization and memory in postwar Peru".NACLA Report on the Americas.32 (2).Taylor & Francis:35–41.doi:10.1080/10714839.1998.11725657.the military's growing frustration over the limitations placed upon its counterinsurgency operations by democratic institutions, coupled with the growing inability of civilian politicians to deal with the spiraling economic crisis and the expansion of the Shining Path, prompted a group of military officers to devise a coup plan in the late 1980s. The plan called for the dissolution of Peru's civilian government, military control over the state, and total elimination of armed opposition groups. The plan, developed in a series of documents known as the "Plan Verde," outlined a strategy for carrying out a military coup in which the armed forces would govern for 15 to 20 years and radically restructure state-society relations along neoliberal lines.
^Gouge, Thomas (2003).Exodus from Capitalism: The End of Inflation and Debt. p. 363.
^Cameron, Maxwell A. (June 1998). "Latin American Autogolpes: Dangerous Undertows in the Third Wave of Democratisation".Third World Quarterly.19 (2).Taylor & Francis: 228.doi:10.1080/01436599814433.the outlines for Peru's presidential coup were first developed within the armed forces before the 1990 election. This Plan Verde was shown to President Fujimorti after the 1990 election before his inauguration. Thus, the president was able to prepare for an eventual self-coup during the first two years of his administration
^"Peru's Fujimori Weighs In On Behalf of Street Sellers Nation's informal economy is protected in president's economic plan".The Christian Science Monitor. March 4, 1991.
^Rendón, Silvio (2013).La intervención de los Estados Unidos en el Perú [The intervention of the United States in Peru] (in Spanish). Editorial Sur. pp. 150–152.ISBN9786124574139.
^Stokes, Susan (1997). "Are Parties What's Wrong with Democracy in Latin America?".XX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara, Mexico, April 17–19, 1997.CiteSeerX10.1.1.569.1490.
^Pee, Robert (2018).The Reagan Administration, the Cold War, and the Transition to Democracy Promotion.Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 187–188.ISBN978-3319963815.
^Denzau, Arthur T., and Ravi K. Roy,Fiscal Policy Convergence from Reagan to Blair: The Left Veers Right (Routledge, 2003).p. xvi.ISBN978-0415324137.
^Daniel Stedman Jones. Chapter 13: "The Neoliberal Origins of the Third Way: How Chicago, Virginia and Bloomington Shaped Clinton and Blair". In Damien Cahill et al. eds.The SAGE Handbook of Neoliberalism (2018): 167ff.doi:10.4135/9781526416001.n14
^Blinder, Alan S. (September 10, 2013)."Alan Blinder: Five Years Later, Financial Lessons Not Learned".Wall Street Journal.(Blinder summarizing causes of the "Great Recession": "Disgracefully bad mortgages created a problem. But wild and woolly customized derivatives—totally unregulated due to the odious Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000—blew the problem up into a catastrophe. Derivatives based on mortgages were a principal source of the reckless leverage that backfired so badly during the crisis, imposing huge losses on investors and many financial firms.")
^Miyake, Yoshitaka (2016). "Neoliberal Agricultural Policies and Farmers' Political Power in Japan".Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers.78 (1):216–239.doi:10.1353/pcg.2016.0012.S2CID157682364.
^Sisodia, N. S. (2014). "Economic Modernisation and the Growing Influence of Neoliberalism on India's Strategic Thought". In Bajpai, Kanti; Basit, Saira; Krishnappa, V. (eds.).Indian Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases. New Delhi:Routledge. pp. 176–199.
^Pusey, M. (2003).Economic rationalism in Canberra: A nation-building state changes its mind.Cambridge University Press.
^"Diversity helped Australia weather the resources bust".The Economist. October 25, 2018. RetrievedJuly 5, 2019.Building work had reached a nadir in the first quarter of 2012, when construction firms completed projects worth A$20bn. In the last quarter of 2017, that reached A$29bn. Foreigners accounted for a good share of their custom: the Foreign Investment Review Board approved A$72bn-worth of residential-property purchases in 2016, up from A$20bn in 2011. At its peak, foreign buying accounted for a quarter of residential-property sales in the two big cities.
^Foucault, Michel (1978).The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–79.Palgrave Macmillan. p. 79.ISBN978-1-4039-8654-2.What is the nature of today's liberal, or, as one says, neo-liberal program? You know that it is identified in two main forms...a series of persons, theories, and books pass between these two forms of neo-liberalism, the main ones referring to the Austrian school broadly speaking, to Austrian neo-marginalism, at any rate, to those who came from there; like von Mises, Hayek, and so on.
^Greenspan, Alan. "Hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services." U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services. Washington D.C.. 25 July 2000.
^abEmmet, Ross; et al. (2010).The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. p. 133.ISBN978-1840648744.
^abMoe-Lobeda, Cynthia; Spencer, Daniel (2009). "Free Trade Agreements and the Neo-Liberal Economic Paradigm: Economic, Ecological, and Moral Consequences".Political Theology.10 (4):685–716.doi:10.1558/poth.v10i4.685.S2CID154933948.The premise undergirding FTAs is that trade liberalization within the neo-liberal global economy produces economic growth and development among all parties, and reduces poverty in poor nations.
^Friedman, Milton; Friedman, Rose D. (October 30, 1997)."The Case for Free Trade".The Hoover Institute.Few measures that we could take would do more to promote the cause of freedom at home and abroad than complete free trade.
^Partington, Richard (August 13, 2018)."Is free trade always the answer?".The Guardian.Economists mostly agree higher tariffs are counterproductive. While they can protect jobs, they also tend to raise the price of goods for consumers and stifle innovation that could benefit the economy.
^abFriedman, Milton (1962).Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: TheUniversity of Chicago Press (published 1982). p. 39.ISBN0-226-26401-7.Tariffs and other restrictions on international trade...give individuals an incentive to misuse and misdirect resources, and distort the investment of new savings.
^Partington, Richard (August 13, 2018)."Is free trade always the answer?".The Guardian.Economists argue international competition stimulates greater innovation and productivity, while warning protectionism can hinder progress.
^Lincicome, Scott (May 2, 2019)."The Case for Free Trade".The Cato Institute.Protectionism invisibly propped up certain industries and workers at most Americans' expense and generated the aforementioned economic and geopolitical problems.
^McCallum, Bennett T."Monetarism".The Library of Economics and Liberty. RetrievedJuly 8, 2019.
^Giroux HA (April 24, 2008). "Beyond the biopolitics of disposability: rethinking neoliberalism in the New Gilded Age".Social Identities.14 (5):587–620.doi:10.1080/13504630802343432.
^Gwartney, James; Lawson, Robert (2003). "The concept and measurement of economic freedom".European Journal of Political Economy.19 (3):405–430.doi:10.1016/S0176-2680(03)00007-7.
^Katter, Bob (2012) 'An incredible race of people: a passionate history of Australia', (page numbers to be provided)
^Berger, Sebastian (2017).The social costs of neoliberalism : essays on the economics of K. William Kapp. Nottingham: Spokesman.ISBN9780851248646.OCLC985214685.
^Dean, Jodi (2012).The Communist Horizon.Verso Books. p. 123.ISBN978-1844679546.Pursued through policies of privatization, deregulation, and financialization, and buttressed by an ideology of private property, free markets, and free trade, neoliberalism has entailed cuts in taxes for the rich and cuts in protections and benefits for workers and the poor, resulting in an exponential increase in inequality.
^Jones, Parker & Bos (2005), p. 101; "Critics of neoliberalism have therefore looked at the evidence that documents the results of this great experiment of the past 30 years, in which many markets have been set free. Looking at the evidence, we can see that the total amount of global trade has increased significantly, but that global poverty has increased, with more today living in abject poverty than before neoliberalism."
^Howell, David R. and Mamadou Diallo. 2007. "Charting U.S. Economic Performance with Alternative Labor Market Indicators: The Importance of Accounting for Job Quality." SCEPA Working Paper 2007-6.
^Plokhy, Serhii (May 16, 2023).The Russo-Ukrainian War: From the bestselling author of Chernobyl.Penguin Books.ISBN978-1-80206-179-6.... If the collapse of the USSR was sudden and largely bloodless, growing strains between its two largest successors would develop into limited fighting in the Donbas in 2014 and then into all-out warfare in 2022, causing death, destruction, and a refugee crisis on a scale not seen in Europe since the Second World War.
^Glaze, Lauren E. (December 2011).Correctional Populations in the United States, 2010(PDF) (Report).US Bureau of Justice Statistics.NCJ236319. See page 2 for an explanation of the difference between the number of prisoners in custody and the number under jurisdiction. See appendix table 3 for "Estimated number of inmates held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails per 100,000 U.S. residents, by sex, race and Hispanic/Latino origin, and age, June 30, 2010". See appendix table 2 for "Inmates held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, December 31, 2000, and 2009–2010."
^Glaze, Lauren E.; Kaeble, Danielle (December 2014).Correctional Populations in the United States, 2013(PDF) (Report).U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.NCJ248479. See page 1 "HIGHLIGHTS" section for the "1 in ..." numbers. See table 1 on page 2 for adult numbers. See table 5 on page 6 for male and female numbers. See appendix table 5 on page 13, for "Estimated number of persons supervised by adult correctional systems, by correctional status, 2000–2013." See appendix table 2: "Inmates held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, 2000 and 2012–2013".
^Simpson, Bradley (2010).Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.–Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968.Stanford University Press. p. 193.ISBN978-0804771825.Washington did everything in its power to encourage and facilitate the army-led massacre of alleged PKI members, and U.S. officials worried only that the killing of the party's unarmed supporters might not go far enough, permitting Sukarno to return to power and frustrate the [Johnson] Administration's emerging plans for a post-Sukarno Indonesia. This was efficacious terror, an essential building block of the neoliberal policies that the West would attempt to impose on Indonesia after Sukarno's ouster
^abRowden, Rick (2009).The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS. London:Zed Books.ISBN978-1848132856.
^O'Leary, Naomi (November 26, 2013)."Pope attacks 'tyranny' of markets in manifesto for papacy". Business News.Reuters.Archived from the original on April 6, 2018. RetrievedApril 6, 2018.Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as 'a new tyranny' and beseeched global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality, in a document on Tuesday setting out a platform for his papacy and calling for a renewal of the Catholic Church.
^1. Dean A. Open Democracies: How Labor Repression Facilitates Trade Liberalization. In: Opening Up by Cracking Down: Labor Repression and Trade Liberalization in Democratic Developing Countries. Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions. Cambridge University Press; 2022:13-28.
^Cayla, David, ed. (2021).Populism and Neoliberalism.Routledge. p. 62.ISBN9781000366709 – viaGoogle Books.He demonstrates that the concept of "neoliberalism" did not emerge in the American context and that it was thereby not invented to distinguish Paul Krugman's left-wing liberalism from Milton Friedman's conservative liberalism.
Arac, Jonathan (2013). Hall, Peter A.; Lamont, Michèle (eds.).Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era. pp. xvi–xvii.The term is generally used by those who oppose it. People do not call themselves neoliberal; instead, they tag their enemies with the term.
Budd, John M. and Bart M. Harloe."Higher Learning and the American Academic Library in the Twilight Era of Neoliberalism."Progressive Librarian 46 Winter 2017/2018: 159–178.
Adams, Glenn; Estrada-Villalta, Sara; Sullivan, Daniel; Markus, Hazel Rose (2019). "The Psychology of Neoliberalism and the Neoliberalism of Psychology".Journal of Social Issues.75 (1):189–216.doi:10.1111/josi.12305.
Bettache, Karim; Chiu, Chi-Yue (2019). "The Invisible Hand is an Ideology: Toward a Social Psychology of Neoliberalism".Journal of Social Issues.75 (1):8–19.doi:10.1111/josi.12308.
Brady, David. 2008.Rich Democracies, Poor People: How Politics Explain Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brown, Wendy (2005). "Neoliberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy" inEdgework: critical essays on knowledge and politics Princeton University Press, ch 3.Abstract
Buschman, John.Libraries, Classrooms, and the Interests of Democracy: Marking the Limits of Neoliberalism. The Scarecrow Press. Rowman & Littlefield. 2012. 239 pp. notes. bibliog. index.ISBN978-0810885288.
Gill, Rosalind (2010). "Breaking the silence: the hidden injuries of the neoliberal university.". In Gill, Rosalind; Ryan-Flood, Róisín (eds.).Secrecy and silence in the research process: feminist reflections. London:Routledge. pp. 228–244.ISBN978-0415605175.
Navarro, Vicente, ed.Neoliberalism, Globalization, and Inequalities: Consequences for Health and Quality of Life (Policy, Politics, Health, and Medicine Series). Baywood Publishing Company, 2007.ISBN0895033380
Solty, Ingar (2012). "After Neoliberalism: Left versus right projects of leadership in the global crisis," inStephen Gill (Ed) (2012).Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leadership (Cambridge University Press), pp. 199–214.
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