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"While it is widely agreed that neoliberalism arose in the wake of the global economic crisis of the 1970s, there remains much debate about how to understand its significance and even how to define it. Is it best seen as an ideology of free market fundamentalism, a series of policy decisions gutting the public sector and breaking unions, or as an era of capitalist development with its own logic. Bringing his considerable intellectual breadth and characteristic generosity to bear on this question, Neil Davidson shows that to truly appreciate what is unique about neoliberalism, and what marks it out as a continuation of capitalism more generally, it is necessary to examine its social dimensions. What Was Neoliberalism? holds fast to Davidson's conviction that thoroughly understanding the past means being better prepared for the struggles of the future"--
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
History
Chapter 1: Intellectual antecedents and material origins
Chapter 2: Vanguard neoliberalism: regimes of reorientation, 1973-1991
Chapter 3: Social neoliberalism: regimes of consolidation, 1992-2007
Structure
Chapter 4: Boom economies?
Chapter 5: Broken societies?
Chapter 6: Market states?
Conclusion: A new phase of capitalist development or a "Third Period" of neoliberalism?
About the author
Neil Davidson (1957-2020) lectured in Sociology at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Glasgow. He authored The Origins of Scottish Nationhood, Discovering the Scottish Revolution, for which he was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize, How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? (2012), Holding Fast to an Image of the Past (2014) and We Cannot Escape History (2015). Davidson was on the editorial boards of rs21 and the Scottish Left Project website, and was a member of the Radical Independence Campaign.
Summary
Eminent scholar-activist Neil Davidson’s brilliance is on full display in this posthumous work, a timely and prescient introduction to the neoliberal era.
While it is widely agreed that neoliberalism arose in the wake of the global economic crisis of the 1970s, there remains much debate about how to understand its significance and even how to define it. Is it best seen as an ideology of free market fundamentalism, a series of policy decisions gutting the public sector and breaking unions, or as an era of capitalist development with its own logic
Bringing his considerable intellectual breadth and characteristic generosity to bear on this question, Neil Davidson shows that to truly appreciate what is unique about neoliberalism, and what marks it out as a continuation of capitalism more generally, it is necessary to examine its social dimensions. What Was Neoliberalism? holds fast to Davidson’s conviction that thoroughly understanding the past means being better prepared for the struggles of the future.
Foreword
- Promotion targeting left leaning publications like the Nation, Jacobin, Dissent.
- Direct marketing to activist groups and core Haymarket audience.
- Social media publicity campaign.
