Neoliberalism , livre ebook

Neoliberalism
NEOLIBERALISM A Critical Reader
Edited by
Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston
First published 2005 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston 2005 The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN    978 0 7453 2299 5    Hardback ISBN    978 0 7453 2298 8    Paperback ISBN    978 1 8496 4258 3    PDF eBook ISBN    978 1 7837 1496 4    Kindle eBook ISBN    978 1 7837 1495 7    EPUB eBook
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For John Weeks
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston
PART I: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
   1.
The Neoliberal (Counter-)Revolution  
Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy
   2.
From Keynesianism to Neoliberalism: Shifting Paradigms in Economics  
Thomas I. Palley
   3.
Mainstream Economics in the Neoliberal Era  
Costas Lapavitsas
   4.
The Economic Mythology of Neoliberalism  
Anwar Shaikh
   5.
The Neoliberal Theory of Society  
Simon Clarke
   6.
Neoliberalism and Politics, and the Politics of Neoliberalism  
Ronaldo Munck
   7.
Neoliberalism, Globalisation and International Relations  
Alejandro Colás
PART II: SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE
   8.
Neoliberalism and Primitive Accumulation in Less Developed Countries  
Terence J. Byres
   9.
Neoliberal Globalisation: Imperialism without Empires?  
Hugo Radice
10.
Neoliberalism in International Trade: Sound Economics or a Question of Faith?  
Sonali Deranyiagala
11.
‘A Haven of Familiar Monetary Practice’: The Neoliberal Dream in International Money and Finance  
Jan Toporowski
12.
From Washington to Post-Washington Consensus: Neoliberal Agendas for Economic Development  
Alfredo Saad-Filho
13.
Foreign Aid, Neoliberalism and US Imperialism  
Henry Veltmeyer and James Petras
14.
Sticks and Carrots for Farmers in Developing Countries: Agrarian Neoliberalism in Theory and Practice  
Carlos Oya
15.
Poverty and Distribution: Back on the Neoliberal Agenda?  
Deborah Johnston
16.
The Welfare State and Neoliberalism  
Susanne MacGregor
17.
Neoliberalism, the New Right and Sexual Politics  
Lesley Hoggart
18.
Neoliberal Agendas for Higher Education  
Les Levidow
19.
Neoliberalism and Civil Society: Project and Possibilities  
Subir Sinha
20.
Neoliberalism and Democracy: Market Power versus Democratic Power  
Arthur MacEwan
21.
Neoliberalism and the Third Way  
Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer
PART III: NEOLIBERAL EXPERIENCES
22.
The Birth of Neoliberalism in the United States: A Reorganisation of Capitalism  
Al Campbell
23.
The Neoliberal Experience of the United Kingdom  
Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer
24.
European Integration as a Vehicle of Neoliberal Hegemony  
John Milios
25.
Neoliberalism: The Eastern European Frontier  
Jan Toporowski
26.
The Political Economy of Neoliberalism in Latin America  
Alfredo Saad-Filho
27.
Neoliberalism in Sub-Saharan Africa: From Structural Adjustment to NEPAD  
Patrick Bond
28.
Neoliberalism and South Asia: The Case of a Narrowing Discourse  
Matthew McCartney
29.
Assessing Neoliberalism in Japan  
Makoto Itoh
30.
Neoliberal Restructuring of Capital Relations in East and South-East Asia  
Dae-oup Chang
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Elizabeth Wilson, who asked the question that inspired this book. Special thanks go to Anne Beech of Pluto Press and Costas Lapavitsas for all their support and encouragement in this project.
Introduction 1
Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston
 
 
We live in the age of neoliberalism. It strongly influences the lives of billions of people in every continent in such diverse areas as economics, politics, international relations, ideology, culture and so on. In less than one generation, neoliberalism has become so widespread and influential, and so deeply intermingled with critically important aspects of life, that it can be difficult to assess its nature and historical importance. Yet such an assessment is essential for both intellectual and political reasons.
This reader includes 30 chapters critically reviewing neoliberalism from widely different angles and outlining a research agenda for concerned activists, students and social scientists. These essays are divided into three groups, including theoretical, applied and historical chapters. The essays included in this reader share several important features. First, they examine the origins, nature and implications of neoliberalism from the perspective of radical political economy. Second, although they come from distinct traditions, including the Marxian, post-Keynesian and Kaleckian schools of thought, the essays are closely related to one another both in content and approach. These commonalities illustrate the vitality of contemporary political economy, the extent and depth of the dialogue taking place between its schools of thought, and the potential for cross-fertilisation between them. Third, these essays offer a radical critique of neoliberalism, that is, a critique going to the root of the matter. They show that neoliberalism is part of a hegemonic project concentrating power and wealth in elite groups around the world, benefiting especially the financial interests within each country, and US capital internationally. Therefore, globalisation and imperialism cannot be analysed separately from neoliberalism. These claims are explained briefly below.
APPROACHES TO NEOLIBERALISM
It is impossible to define neoliberalism purely theoretically, for several reasons. First, methodologically, although neoliberal experiences share important commonalities (explained in what follows), neoliberalism is not a mode of production. Consequently, these experiences do not necessarily include a clearly defined set of invariant features, as may be expected in studies of ‘feudalism’ or ‘capitalism’, for example. Neoliberalism straddles a wide range of social, political and economic phenomena at different levels of complexity. Some of these are highly abstract, for example the growing power of finance or the debasement of democracy, while others are relatively concrete, such as privatisation or the relationship between foreign states and local non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Nevertheless, it is not difficult to recognise the beast when it trespasses into new territories, tramples upon the poor, undermines rights and entitlements, and defeats resistance, through a combination of domestic political, economic, legal, ideological and media pressures, backed up by international blackmail and military force if necessary.
Second, as is argued in Chapters 7 and 9 , neoliberalism is inseparable from imperialism and globalisation. In the conventional (or mainstream) discourse, imperialism is either absent or, more recently, proudly presented as the ‘American Burden’: to civilise the world and bring to all the benediction of the Holy Trinity, the green-faced Lord Dollar and its deputies and occasional rivals, Holy Euro and Saint Yen. New converts win a refurbished international airport, one brand-new branch of McDonald’s, two luxury hotels, 3,000 NGOs and one US military base. This offer cannot be refused – or else. 2 In turn, globalisation is generally presented as an inescapable, inexorable and benevolent process leading to greater competition, welfare improvements and the spread of democracy around the world. In reality, however, the so-called process of globalisation – to the extent that it actually exists (see Saad-Filho 2003) – is merely the international face of neoliberalism: a worldwide strategy of accumulation and social discipline that doubles up as an imperialist project, spearheaded by the alliance between the US ruling class and locally dominant capitalist coalitions. This ambitious power project centred on neoliberalism at home and imperial globalism abroad is implemented by diverse social and economic political alliances in each country, but the interests of local finance and the US ruling class, itself dominated by finance, are normally hegemonic.
Third, historical analysis of neoliberalism requires a multi-level approach. The roots of neoliberalism are long and varied, and its emergence cannot be dated precisely. As Chapters 3 to 6 show, neoliberalism amalgamates insights from a range of sources, including Adam Smith, neoclassical economics, the Austrian critique of Keynesianism and Soviet-style socialism, monetarism and its new classical and ‘supply-side’ offspring. Their influence increased by leaps and bounds with the breakdown of the postwar order: the end of the ‘golden age’ of rapid worldwide growth in the late 1960s, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, the erosion of the so-called ‘Keynesian compromise’ in the rich countries in the mid 1970s, the meltdown of the Soviet bloc in the 1980s and the implosion of developmental alternatives in the poor countries, especially after balance of payments crises in the 1980s and 1990s. Chapters 1 and 2 show that the collapse of the alternatives provided space for the synthesis between conservative views and the interests of the US elite and their minions. The cauldron was provided by the aggressive populist conservatism of Ronald Reagan a