DAVID Harvey: A brief history of neoliberalism notes:
CHAPTER ONE FRREDOM’S JUST ANOTHER WORD
Introduction:
Volcker (Commander of the US fed reserve in 1979) – changed monetary policy due to
inflation + unemployment
Margaret Thatcher elected as Prime Minister of Britain in May 1979 = wanted to curb trade
union power and put an end to inflationary stagnation
1980 – Ronald Reagan – elected president – wanted to curb power of labour, deregulate
industry, agriculture and resource extraction and liberate the powers of finance
Led to the new economic configuration – often subsumed under the term globalization
Deng Zaioing – saw wealth in Asia and sought to mobilize market socialism
Thatcher + Volcker = used neoliberalism’ = became guiding principle of economic thought
and management
Harvey interested in its origins, rise & implications
Neoliberalism – is a theory of political economic practises that proposes that human well-
being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills
within an institutional framework characterised by: strong private property right, free
markets and free trade.
The roles of the state is reduced to: military, defence, police and legal structures and
functions required to secure private property rights and to guarantee by force if need be the
proper function of markets
If there are no markets (in land, water, education, health care, social security, or
environmental pollution) = must be created
STATE INTERVENTION IN MARKETS = MINIMUM – state does not have enough info to second
guess market signals (prices) ad because powerful interest groups will inevitably distort the
state intervention
All countries turn towards neoliberalism in political-economic practices since 1970s
Deregulation, privatization and withdrawal of the state from areas of social provision –
common
Neoliberal way of thinking occupies education and international institutions
Neoliberalism has become a hegemonic
Neoliberalism has caused ‘creative destruction’ to institutional frameworks, power, labour,
social relations, welfare, technology, way of life, thought, & attachments to the value and
habits
It guides all human action –
New technology necessary for the maximising the reach and frequency of market
transactions = makes people believe that there is an ‘information’ society
Harvey wants to: helps us understand the political-economic story of where
neoliberalisation came, how it proliferated
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