Notesale: Turn your study into money

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NEOLIBERALISM AND GLOBALIZATION
NEOLIBERALISM
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Neoliberalism is a term that is frequently used in the news media and in public
debate around the world to define the dominant narrative guiding Western
democracies and their economies for the last forty years
The word refers to an economic system in which on entity known as ‘free enterprise’
or the ‘free market’ has expanded to reach every part of our public and personal
worlds

WHAT IS NEOLIBERALISM?
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‘Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that
human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial
freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private
property rights, free markers and free trade’
• D
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Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005, 2

RELATED TO ECONOMICS AND GOVERNMENT POLICY
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Economics
• A broad discipline that often involves issues like wealth and finance, but it
also encompasses the interpretation of historical trends in order to make
prognoses about the future
Sociology
• The scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social
interaction and culture
Free Enterprise
• An economic and political doctrine that maintains that a capitalist economy
can regulate itself in a freely competitive market through the relationship of
supply and demand with a minimum of governmental intervention and
regulation

KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS
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John Maynard Keynes
• British Economic
• 1883 – 1946

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Major Work
• The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
• 1931
Advocated massive government spending in a time of economic crisis to create new
jobs and lift consumer spending
A sharp contrast to classical liberalism in that it believes in government intervention

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HAYEK’S MAJOR WORK PUBLISHED 1994
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Hayek’s contribution to the foundations of neoliberal thought is the assumption that
the market provides all necessary protection against the one real political danger:
totarialism
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Neoliberalism usually appeals to the very wealthy

NEOLIBERAL CONCEPTS
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Economic rationales should be applied to social programs, now including education:
competition, cost-benefits analysis, measurable outcomes
The economy will prosper if left alone, and the main focus of government is a
prosperous economy and economic management rather than social justice issues
Governments should not encourage dependence on social welfare programmes and
individuals are responsible for their own poverty rather than social systems and
policies
UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was famous for coining ideological slogans
such as ‘there is no alternative’ to her neoliberal agenda
Politically, neoliberalism became a global force under Ronald Reagan and Margaret
Thatcher around 1980

DEREGULATION
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Involves removing government legislation and laws in a particular market
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The rich persuade themselves that they
acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages, such as education,
inheritance and class, that may have helped to secure it
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Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is
maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident
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However,
this increase in wealth has been highly concentrated
Since the late 1970s, CEO’s have gone from making twenty-five times more than
their average employee to 400 times more
The income gap between rich countries and poor countries has grown dramatically
Neoliberalism promotes an ever smaller state and a poorer, less able employee pool
and nods through corporate and super-rich tax evasion on an industrial scale

NEOLIBERALISM AND EDUCATION
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The purpose of education from the neoliberal perspective is to service the economy
through the production of human capital…In other words, education is re-

constructed as ultimately being about the production of workers with the skills and
the dispositions necessary to compete the global economy

COLONIALISM, GLOBALIZATION AND POLITICS
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Many of the contemporary political boundaries we see on the map today are the
direct result of political negotiations and the use of force that occurred during the
colonial era
The impact of this arbitrary division of the worlds surface into nation-states
continues to be felt today: ethnic conflict, immigration, nationalist movements and
terrorism
At a base level we can say that when we make reference to neoliberalism, we are
generally referring to the new political, economic and social arrangements within
society that emphasize market regulations, re-tasking the role of the state, and
individual responsibility

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