History of Neoliberalism Flashcards
When did Neoliberalism begin?
Deng Ziaoping 1978 step towards liberalization
Deng Xiaoping ideology:
Liberalization of its communist-ruled ec.onomy - transformed from closed backwater to open centre of capitalist dynamism with sustained growth rates.
What coincided in the west with Deng Xiaoping?
Paul Volcker commanding US federal reserve in July 1979 - dramatically changed monetary policies fighting inflation. Reagan elected US President, supporting Bolckers moves, curbing labor power, deregulating industry, agirculture, and resource extraction, liberate powers of finance internally and globally.
What was happening in the UK?
Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister may 1979 - curb trade union power, end inflationary stagnation.
How did 70=80’s neoliberal politicians revitalise it?
Republican Party Barry Goldwater early 60’s, Deng the rising wealth in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, mobilising market socialism to protect/advance chinese state, Thatcher neoliberal as principle economic thought and management.
Idea of Neoliberalism:
Human well-being advancedd by individual entrepreneurial freeomds within institution characterized by private property rights, free markets, and free trade
What is the neoliberal role of state?
Maintaining instituional framework appropriate to such practices: securing functions to maintain private property rights, or state action creation of private industries.
Why is there distrust in the state?
State cannot second-guess market signals(prices) and powerful interest groups inevitably distort and bias state interventions
The progress of NL:
Fall of soviet union, its adoption either voluntarily or involuntarily in almost all nations: China headed in this direction?
Influence of spread of NL:
Presence in key institutions like education (Universities), media, corporate boardrooms, state institutuions(treasury, central banks) IMG, World Bank, WTO, regulating global finance and trade.
Neoliberalism through process:
Creative destruction, and powers, and divisions of labor, social relations, even reproduction, habits.
Neoliberalism and social goods:
Social good maximised by maximising reach and frequency of market interactions, bringing human social life into market domain.
Why does neoliberalism intensively pursue information technology?
To integrate human social life, information creation and capacity to accumulate, store, transfer, analyse, and use massive databases.
How does a way of thought become dominant?
A conceptual apparatus that appeals to our intuitions, values, desires, as well as what’s possible.
What values did NL appeal to?
Human dignity and individual freedom - idealised as threatened by fascism, dictatorships, and communism, most importantly state intervention
How individual freedom and dignity have empowered other movements,
Eastern European and Soviet Union before end of cold war as well as Tiananmen Square students.
End justififcation for Iraq war:
Bush ‘Freedom is the greatest poower on earth and we have an obligation to spread it’
Bush imposition of force on Iraq:
Full privatization of public sector, ownership rights by foreign firms on iraqi business, repatriation of foreign profits, elimination of trade barriers.
How did the U.S legalise this despite Hague and Geneva violations?
Appointing a sovreign government in 2004 following application of free-market fundamentalist laws in minute detail to thereon proliferate.
NL and wellbeing:
Bremer in Iraq laws as necessary for wealth ‘thus’ well-being; market freedom required for individual freedom
Neoliberal State:
US imposition on Iraq foreign and domestic capital accumulation: it’s embodied freedoms reflect private corporations and financial capital
First experiment of neoliberal state:
Chile Pinochet coup against Salvador Allende promoted by domestic business elites, backed by CIA and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: violent repression of social movements and poltical organization.
Impact of Pinochet coup in Chile:
Freed labour market from regulatory or institutional restraints(trade union power)
Trade Union Power:
Where workers, through unions, negotiate better wages or working conditions by shifting balance of power.
