Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism "reduces the state to a handmaiden of transnational capital. In pursuing the relentless privatization of the commons, its policies inevitably spark popular discontent." -Firoze Manji, Beautiful Trouble. Neoliberalism emerged as a set of global policies implemented by the Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US. 

How does neoliberalism work?

We are living through a period of unprecedented concentration and centralization of capital on a global scale, with a few hundred transnational corporations controlling almost every aspect of our economies. Capitalists have responded to the falling rate of profit in production by increasingly speculating in credit, property, and stock markets — the unproductive sectors of the economy. Under such conditions, accumulation by dispossession becomes the order of the day: privatizing public services and selling off state assets; eliminating jobs and suppressing wages; extracting natural resources; forcing open territories for exploitation. All of this results in governments being more accountable to corporations, banks, and financial institutions than they are to citizens — a political dispossession that only compounds the social and economic dispossession. This phenomenon has come to be known as neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism, in a word, is the attempt of capital to resolve its crises by subjecting all aspects of life, from health and education to arts, livelihoods, and democracy itself, to the ideology of the free market. When implemented in advanced capitalist countries, neoliberalism is referred to as “austerity measures,” whereas for Third World populations it has been called “structural adjustment” or, more recently, “poverty reduction strategy papers” (PRSPs).

If you have any suggested revisions or additional resources to share related to the above content, please email them to kenzie@lehub.ca.

Back to Homepage