The Ethics Of Neoliberalism

The 21st century is the age of "neo-liberalism" – a time when the free market is spreading to all areas of economic, political and social life. Yet how is this changing our individual and collective ethics? Is capitalism also becoming our new morality? From the growing popular demand for corporate social responsibility to personal desire for "work-life balance" it would appear that non-market ideals are not only surviving but also thriving. Why then does it seem that capitalism remains as strong as ever? The Ethics of Neoliberalism boldly proposes that neoliberalism strategically co-opts traditional ethics to ideologically and structurally strengthen capitalism. It produces "the ethical capitalist subject" who is personally responsible for making their society, workplace and even their lives "more ethical" in the face of an immoral but seemingly permanent free market. Rather than altering our morality, neoliberalism "individualizes" ethics, making us personally responsible for dealing with and resolving its moral failings. In doing so, individuals end up perpetuating the very market system that they morally oppose and feel powerless to ultimately change. This analysis reveals the complex and paradoxical way capitalism is currently shaping us as "ethical subjects". People are increasingly asked to ethically "save" capitalism both collectively and personally. This can range from the "moral responsibility" to politically accept austerity following the financial crisis to the willingness of employees to sacrifice their time and energy to make their neoliberal organizations more "humane" to the efforts by individuals to contribute to their family and communities despite the pressures of a franetic global business environment. Neoliberalism, thus, uses our ethics against us, relying on our "good nature" and sense of personal responsibility to reduce its human cost in practice. Ironically

Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism and its focus on the bottom line, but in The Moral Neoliberal morality is shown as the opposite: an indispensible tool for capitalist transformation. Set within the shifting landscape of neoliberal welfare reform in the Lombardy region of Italy, Andrea Muehlebach tracks the phenomenal rise of voluntarism in the wake of the state’s withdrawal of social service programs. Using anthropological tools, she shows how socialist volunteers are interpreting their unwaged labor as an expression of social solidarity, with Catholic volunteers thinking of theirs as an expression of charity and love. Such interpretations pave the way for a mass mobilization of an ethical citizenry that is put to work by the state. Visiting several sites across the region, from Milanese high schools to the offices of state social workers to the homes of the needy, Muehlebach mounts a powerful argument that the neoliberal state nurtures selflessness in order to cement some of its most controversial reforms. At the same time, she also shows how the insertion of such an anticapitalist narrative into the heart of neoliberalization can have unintended consequences.

Neoliberalism - the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action - has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Its spread has depended upon a reconstitution of state powers such that privatization, finance, and market processes are emphasized. State interventions in the economy are minimized, while the obligations of the state to provide for the welfare of its citizens are diminished. David Harvey, author of 'The New Imperialism' and 'The Condition of Postmodernity', here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. While Thatcher and Reagan are often cited as primary authors of this neoliberal turn, Harvey shows how a complex of forces, from Chile to China and from New York City to Mexico City, have also played their part. In addition he explores the continuities and contrasts between neoliberalism of the Clinton sort and the recent turn towards neoconservative imperialism of George W. Bush. Finally, through critical engagement with this history, Harvey constructs a framework not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.

.".. We [have] come to have a delimited and skewed view on debt and its economy ... In this book, I argue, a more holistic social ethics of debt is established by reintegrating these two essential elements of debt: logic and story. From the perspective of a more holistic ethics of debt, neoliberal concept of debt is problematic because by neglecting the story aspect of debt, it has enervated the moral ethos of debt rendering it as a matter of mere contract and mechanical calculation"--Introduction.

An ethical critique of existing approaches to sustainable development and international environmental cooperation, this book detailes the tensions, normative shifts and contradictions that currently characterize it.

There is evidence that economic fraud has, in recent years, become routine activity in the economies of both high- and low-income countries. Many business sectors in today's global economy are rife with economic crime. Neoliberalism and the Moral Economy of Fraud shows how neoliberal policies, reforms, ideas, social relations and practices have engendered a type of sociocultural change across the globe which is facilitating widespread fraud. This book investigates the moral worlds of fraud in different social and geographical settings, and shows how contemporary fraud is not the outcome of just a few ‘bad apples’. Authors from a range of disciplines including sociology, anthropology and political science, social policy and economics, employ case studies from the Global North and Global South to explore how particular values, morals and standards of behaviour rendered dominant by neoliberalism are encouraging the proliferation of fraud. This book will be indispensable for those who are interested in political economy, development studies, economics, anthropology, sociology and criminology.

This collection examines the relationships between a globalising neoliberal capitalism, a post-GFC environment of recession and austerity, and the moral economies of young people’s health and well-being. Contributors explore how in the second decade of the 21st century, many young people in the OECD/EU economies and in the developing economies of Asia, Africa and Central and South America continue to be carrying a particularly heavy burden for many of the downstream effects of the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis. The authors explore the ways in which increasing local and global inequalities often have profound consequences for large populations of young people. These consequences are not just related to marginalisation from education, training and work. They also include obstacles to their active participation in the civic life of their communities, to their transitions, to their sense of belonging. The book examines the choices that are made, or not made by governments, businesses and individuals in relation to young people’s education, training, work, health and well-being, sexualities, diets and bodies, in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism and of austerity.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus spoke frequently and unabashedly on the now-taboo subject of money. With nothing good to say to the rich, the New Testament—indeed the entire Bible—is far from positive towards the topic of personal wealth. And yet, we all seek material prosperity and comfort. How are Christians to square the words of their savior with the balances of their bank accounts, or more accurately, with their unquenchable desire for financial security? While the church has developed diverse responses to the problems of poverty, it is often silent on what seems almost as straightforward a biblical principle: that wealth, too, is a problem. By considering the particular context of the recent economic history of Ireland, this book explores how the parables of Jesus can be the key to unlocking what it might mean to follow Christ as wealthy people without diluting our dilemma or denying the tension. Through an engagement with contemporary economic and political thought, aided by the work of Karl Barth and William T. Cavanaugh, this book represents a unique and innovative intervention to a discussion that applies to every Christian in the Western world.