A Brief History of Neoliberalism
by David Harvey
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Book Summary Information
Author: David HarveyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-01-18
ISBN: 0199283273
Number of pages: 254
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of A Brief History of Neoliberalism
Book Review: Great arguments, but thought is not as black or white
Summary: 5 Stars
Even though outdated because of its obsession with the George Bush presidency and the war in Iraq, this beautifully written, skillfully argued book is a great read, with a few downsides.
David Harvey first presents the historical context during which neoliberalism replaced embedded liberalism. Embedded liberalism was the period when most governments - throughout the world - offered safety nets and social programs to their citizens. By the 1970s, public budgets were scorching the bottom of their barrels and thus provoking anger on the part of labor unions: Enter neoliberal thought as defined by Austrian academic Fredrick Augustus Von Hayek and his disciples, such as Milton Friedman and the "boys of Chicago" - economists trained by the University of Chicago.
The neoliberal school argued that privatizing the public sector, dismantling labor unions and liberalizing markets were reforms needed to reverse the economic ailments of the 1970s. The neoliberals put their ideology to test first in Chile in 1973 and later to solve the crisis of the bankrupt city of New York.
Despite some initial success, we now know that neoliberalism has continuously resulted in economic disasters, first and foremost in the United States (such as in 2008, after this book was written).
To win popular support for the spread of their ideology, neoliberals split the most popular movement of 1968 when labor unions and student movement waged street battles against governments. According to Harvey, the fusion of the social welfare demands of the labor unions and individual freedoms of the student movement was no easy task, a lesson not lost on the neoliberals who capitalized on this difference, and eventually caused a split between the two by endorsing individual freedom as one of their scared principles.
Harvey writes: "A contradiction arises between a seductive but alienating possessive individualism on the one hand and the desire for a meaningful collective life on the other. While individuals are supposedly free to choose, they are not supposed to choose to construct strong collective institutions (such as trade unions) as opposed to weak voluntary associations (like charitable organizations)."
He heavily criticizes the tools of neoliberalism namely the IMF, World Bank, the US Federal Reserve (all unelected institutions) and the US Treasury, saying that the IMF, the World Bank and Washington have imposed their neoliberal ideas on countries like Mexico and Argentina, giving capital owners worldwide a chance to expand their wealth through financial games with the troubled countries and eventually causing economic havoc for these countries and colossal fortunes for themselves.
Harvey brilliantly highlights the failure of neoliberalism even within the United States. He argued (before the 2008 financial crisis) that neoliberals had de-industrialized America and transformed the economy base into finance. There, brokerage and speculating against the market - among other games - generated virtual wealth for the country at large, while actual fortunes were being accumulated for the finance dealers only (and even those had to be bailed out by government as evident in the US in 2008 and 2009). When America's bubbles burst, the poor usually find themselves poorer and the rich, much richer.
Harvey also writes in details about the Chinese style of neoliberalism.
Harvey argues that democracy is undermined when manipulated by the overwhelming power of affluent citizens and their ability to outspend everybody else on lobbying and other activities. Money gives a few the powers to decide on issues that affect the lives of the many.
Finally, Harvey - who implicitly calls for the restoration of a Keynesian state - commits grave errors through his sweeping generalizations of schools of thoughts and economic classes. Because of his opposition to neoliberalism, Harvey writes against the concept of individual freedoms, saying they account for little without social justice and economic rights. He even argues that if nations choose dictatorships, they should be allowed to do so.
As such, Harvey unintentionally aligns freedom and neoliberalism, on one side, vs. social justice and tyranny on the other. There is no reason why individual freedom and social justice cannot mix.
Summary of A Brief History of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.Economics Books
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