Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the United States, the reconstructed 'war-torn' economies of Europe
and a rebuilt Japan. Keynesian capitalism favoured governmental
intervention in many economic sectors, so that both social welfare
safety nets and public subsidization programmes were common part-
ners to private enterprise in the global North and global South.
During the post-1980 era of globalization, neoliberal capitalism and
its championing of deregulation, the efficiency of the free market and
the opening of new markets for trade and commerce would replace the
Keynesian model as a development generator. Many pundits and
believers in the financial power of free-market economics touted this
'neoliberal turn' as a new global economic cycle of unparalleled promise.
Predictably, a global recession in 2007-2011 would bring the promised
good times to a calamitous end. Contrary to the history of business-cycle
dynamics, however, this recession would not presage the formation of a
different capitalist solution to the financial and economic crisis.
Instead, the world's systems of production and commerce appear to be
continuing unchanged and unchallenged as a thinly-disguised, neolib-
eral rebirth (Murray and Overton, 2011). In short, modernity continues
apace, and there is no 'after-modernity'.
65
Modernity and Modernism: European
Philosophical Origins of the 'Modern Age of
Development' in the Post-1945 Era
In the mid-eighteenth century, the ideological notion of modernity was
conceived as a distinct opposite to 'traditionalism', and as a logical evo-
lutionary replacement for 'backward' social traits. It was born on the
back of optimism that the new urban industrial regime that was under-
way would be able to bring order and reason to the many social disor-
ders of the time that appeared to be hindering progress and development.
Enlightenment thinking (see Chapter 1.1) among European
free-thinking 'men of letters' was a new framework of ideas and rational
'truths' about the relationships between humanity, society and nature.
It sought to challenge existing traditional worldviews dominated by
Christianity. Accordingly, modern traits, methods, institutions and
means could be expected to deliver progress and change, as the existing
resistant traditions were overcome, replaced and rendered ineffective.
