Neoliberalism From Below

In Neoliberalism from Below—first published in Argentina in 2014—Verónica Gago examines how Latin American neoliberalism is propelled not just from above by international finance, corporations, and government, but also by the activities of migrant workers, vendors, sweatshop workers, and other marginalized groups. Using the massive illegal market La Salada in Buenos Aires as a point of departure, Gago shows how alternative economic practices, such as the sale of counterfeit goods produced in illegal textile factories, resist neoliberalism while simultaneously succumbing to its models of exploitative labor and production. Gago demonstrates how La Salada's economic dynamics mirror those found throughout urban Latin America. In so doing, she provides a new theory of neoliberalism and a nuanced view of the tense mix of calculation and freedom, obedience and resistance, individualism and community, and legality and illegality that fuels the increasingly powerful popular economies of the global South's large cities.

As bearers of their own emancipation, the political agency of the subaltern classes is a vexed question, a time-honoured one at that. Why do the subalterns endure injustices without revolting most of the time, but revolt sometimes against some injustices? The euphoria of ’globalisation-from-below’, this book argues, skirts responsibility of addressing this question by presuming a groundswell of resistance across the world against neoliberal globalisation. In contrast to this oeuvre, Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below engages this question squarely by using the socio-historical approach to explain why the subalterns resist neoliberal globalisation in Bolivia and not in Ghana. The author urges scholars of critical political economy to pay greater attention to why the subalterns resist, rather than how they resist, or what the ideal end of their resistance should be. Such refocusing of the research and political lens will yield a more realistic picture of what is politically possible in the social context of peripheral capitalism regarding an anti-capitalist revolution. The author further argues that this refocusing will cure many of the romantic anti-capitalist claims and banal wishful thinking of a socialist revolution in peripheral capitalist regions such as Latin American, The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Sub-Saharan Africa. Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below will be of interest to students and scholars of African politics, neoliberalism, globalisation, political economy and subaltern politics.

Tales of neoliberalism’s death are serially overstated. Following the financial crisis of 2008, neoliberalism was proclaimed a “zombie,” a disgraced ideology that staggered on like an undead monster. After the political ruptures of 2016, commentators were quick to announce “the end” of neoliberalism yet again, pointing to both the global rise of far-right forces and the reinvigoration of democratic socialist politics. But do new political forces sound neoliberalism’s death knell or will they instead catalyze new mutations in its dynamic development? Mutant Neoliberalism brings together leading scholars of neoliberalism—political theorists, historians, philosophers, anthropologists and sociologists—to rethink transformations in market rule and their relation to ongoing political ruptures. The chapters show how years of neoliberal governance, policy, and depoliticization created the conditions for thriving reactionary forces, while also reflecting on whether recent trends will challenge, reconfigure, or extend neoliberalism’s reach. The contributors reconsider neoliberalism’s relationship with its assumed adversaries and map mutations in financialized capitalism and governance across time and space—from Europe and the United States to China and India. Taken together, the volume recasts the stakes of contemporary debate and reorients critique and resistance within a rapidly changing landscape. Contributors: Étienne Balibar, Sören Brandes, Wendy Brown, Melinda Cooper, Julia Elyachar, Michel Feher, Megan Moodie, Christopher Newfield, Dieter Plehwe, Lisa Rofel, Leslie Salzinger, Quinn Slobodian

In its heyday in the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm. But the global financial crisis of 2008-9 fundamentally shocked a globalized economy built on neoliberal assumptions. This VSI examines the origins, core claims, and considerable variations of neoliberalism with examples from around the world.

In recent years, social movements on the left have increasingly begun to make themselves felt in referendums. This has been seen throughout Europe: in votes regarding independence in Scotland and Catalonia, on water rights in Italy, on debt repayment in Iceland, and on the financial proposals of the troika in Greece. This book presents case studies of those referendums and more to analyze the ways that social movements formed in the wake of the 2008 crash have affected referendums' development and outcomes. Looking at general issues of democracy, as well as the political effects of neoliberalism, this book is ideally suited to help us understand some of the issues around Brexit and will be read by a wide audience interested in social movements, referendums, and democratic innovation.

We are living in the twilight of neoliberalism: the ruling classes can no longer rule as before, and ordinary people are no longer willing to be ruled in the old way. Pursued by global elites since the 1970s, neoliberalism is defined by dispossession and inequality. The refusal to continue to be ruled like this - "ya basta" - appears in an arc of resistance stretching from rural India to the cities of the global North. From this movement of movements, new visions emerge of a future beyond neoliberalism. We Make Our Own World responds to this experience. The first systematic Marxist analysis of social movements, it reclaims Marxism as the theory born from activist experience and practice. It shows how movements can develop from local conflicts to global struggles; how neoliberalism operates as collective action from above, and how popular struggles can create new worlds from below.

Neoliberalism changed the face of Latin America and left average citizens struggling to cope in many ways. Popular sectors were especially hard hit as wages declined and unemployment increased. The backlash to neoliberalism in the form of popular protest and electoral mobilization opened space for leftist governments to emerge. The turn to left governments raised popular expectations for a second wave of incorporation. Although a growing literature has analyzed many aspects of left governments, there is no study of how the redefinition of the organized popular sectors, their allies, and their struggles have reshaped the political arena to include their interests—until now. This volume examines the role played in the second wave of incorporation by political parties, trade unions, and social movements in five cases: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The cases shed new light on a subject critical to understanding the change in the distribution of political power related to popular sectors and their interests—a key issue in the study of postneoliberalism.

The puzzling resilience of neoliberalism -- Explaining the resilience of neoliberalism -- Neoliberal policies and supporting actors -- Neoliberal resilience and the crafting of social blocs -- Creating support : privatization and business power -- Blocking opposition : political representation and limited democracy -- Locking-in neoliberalism : independent central banks and fiscal spending rules -- Lessons. Neoliberal resilience and the future of democracy.