A Brief History of Neoliberalism

In the UK, at least when I lived there, 'neoliberalism' wasn't just a vague term meant to cover whatever someone doesn't like (as it tends to be in the US). Harvey does a stellar job here of explaining what it means in the context of the past 50 years, how it was carefully constructed to rebuild elite class power in reaction to social democratic gains after WWII, and what the cost has been to the rest of the world.

Despite writing in 2005, Harvey essentially predicts the economic disaster of 2008, and he warns about the possible rise of authoritarian-leaning neoconservative populism in reaction to neoliberalism's failures. In the last chapter he looks at the various ways people have been fighting back; he has no real suggestion for getting so many different 'movements' coordinated enough to make a difference, but he does suggest that it would help if we all actually understood what was going on.

"US leaders have, with considerable domestic public support, projected upon the world the idea that American neoliberal values of freedom are universal and supreme, and that such values are to die for. The world is in a position to reject that imperialist gesture and refract back into the heartland of neoliberal and neoconservative capitalism a completely different set of values: those of an open democracy dedicated to the achievement of social equality coupled with economic, political, and cultural justice. Roosevelt's arguments are one place to start. Within the US an alliance has to be built to regain popular control of the state apparatus and to thereby advance the deepening rather than the evisceration of democratic practices and values under the juggernaut of market power."

This is as clear and concise an account of how neoliberalism has developed and taken hold of our political and economic landscape from the 1970s to the present as any could ask for. David Harvey is such a clear and compelling writer that the ideas in this book come across effortlessly without becoming overly simplistic.

This book actually prefigures our economic collapse (it was written in 2005) and yet it describes our current state with pinpoint accuracy:

"On the one hand [US nationalism] presumes that it is the God-given (and the religious invocation is deliberate) manifest destiny of the US to be the greatest power on earth (if not number one in everything from baseball to the Olympics) and that, as a beacon of freedom, liberty, and progress, it has been and continues to be universally admired and considered worthy of emulation. Everyone, it is said, wants to either live in or be like the US. The US therefore benevolently and generously gives freely of its resources and its values and culture to the rest of the world, in the cause of conferring the privilege of Americanization and American values on all and sundry. But US nationalism also has a darker side in which paranoia about fearful threats from enemies and evil forces from outside take over. The fear is of foreigners and of immigrants, of outside agitators, and now, of course, of 'terrorists'. This leads to the internal circling of wagons and the closing down of civil liberties and freedoms in episodes like the persecution of anarchists in the 1920s, the McCarthyism of the 1950s directed against communists and their sympathizers, the paranoid style of Richard Nixon towards opponents of the Vietnam War and, since 9/11, the tendency to characterize all critics of administration policies as aiding and abetting the enemy. This kind of nationalism easily fuses with racism (most particularly now towards Arabs), the restriction of civil liberties (the Patriot Act), the curbing of press freedoms (the gaoling of journalists for not revealing their sources), and the embrace of incarceration and the death penalty to deal with malfeasance."

Sorry for the long quotes. Needless to say I find this book to be quotable and, quite honestly, important for everyone to read.

Everyone should read this book and engage with Harvey's ideas. The fate of our society depends on it.