Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
2.3 NEOLIBERALISM
AND GLOBALIZATION
This chapter documents the ascendency of neoliberalism as a new, neo-
conservative economic model for the post-1980s era of globalization
that would become the dominant ideology and 'new faith' of global
capitalism (Cox, 1999): in short, capitalism's 'latest reincarnation'
(Harvey 2005). First, neoliberalism's ideological pedigree is detailed
and its ascendency explained. As the latest version of capitalism to
dominate a new global geo-economic system (see Chapter 2.1), it was
anything but coordinated and led purposefully by the world's economic
giants, as earlier capitalist business cycles were. Rather, a 'new inter-
national economic (dis)order' emerged in which multiple players took
part, and where crises and struggles periodically arose to make the
system's growth and transformation volatile and unpredictable (Thrift,
1986; Conway and Heynen, 2005).
Globalization's emergence and deepening complexity is then detailed,
in which multiple dimensions of global-to-local interaction and interrela-
tionships come to the fore to partner, and in some cases dominate,
political-economic forces. In many unforeseen ways, globalization's con-
tradictory, destructive and productive forces play out across multiple
scales of society: globally, nationally, regionally and locally. Also, the
time-space compression of globalization's transitionary changes to many
spheres of people's lives, makes this era's trends and processes particu-
larly unpredictable.
Neoliberalism's Ascendency
Following the 1979-83 global recession, neoliberal capitalism replaced
Keynesian models that had been the basis of post-World War II rebuild-
ing and economic growth in advanced capitalist nations. Keynesian argu-
ments could be considered 'socialist' or 'leftist' by persuasion because this
post-World War II model favoured governmental safety nets to provide
public services where the private sector could not visualize them as
