Neoliberalism

Obituaries for neoliberalism have been coming thick and fast in recent years. Resurgent populist governments appealing to white, middle-class values, with rich subsidies for privileged sectors but austerity for others, might sound the death knell for the self-regulating markets, small government, and economising rationality commonly associated with contemporary neoliberalism. ‘That key voices on the right,’ economist Richard Denniss recently quipped regarding Australia, now ‘devote so much time to advocating the importance of Western culture and Australian values is proof that they have abandoned the fundamental neoliberal tenet that economic growth can solve all social and environmental problems’.

It may be far too early to begin writing obituaries for neo-liberalism; as with Mark Twain, reports of its demise constitute an exaggeration. With the growing critique of neo-liberalism, in which our own prime minister has joined, there is a pervasive assumption that it is something of an aberration, an errant change of course in the development of capitalism. That assumption is, I suggest, erroneous; the thirty-year phenomenon to which we give the name neo-liberalism is in reality capitalism qua capitalism; neo-liberalism is really capitalism unleashed with minimal regard for its social consequences. There is also a second myth that needs to be challenged in the emerging critique of neo-liberalism: the Keynesian consensus did not merely outlive its usefulness; it was undermined and sabotaged by a combination of US policy failures and opportunistic vested interests.