Introduction -- Bohemia, counterculture and rebellion against the organisation -- Neoconservative backlash and capitalist nihilism -- Bohemia and moral economy of neoliberalism -- The image of libidinal capitalism from the protestant ethic to the ecstasy of the entrepreneur -- The politics of transgression and liberty the alt right and techno capitalism -- Bohemia, post-capitalism and dreaming with our eyes open an outline of a post-neoliberal politics
"The financial crisis of 2008-9 seemed to present a fundamental challenge to neo-liberalism, the body of ideas that have constituted the political orthodoxy of most advanced economies in recent decades ... Colin Crouch argues that neoliberalism will shrug off this challenge. The reason is that although it seems to be about free markets, in practice neoliberalism is concerned with the dominance over public life of the giant corporation. This has been intensified, not checked, by the financial crisis and by an acceptance that certain financial corporations are 'too big to fail'. Although much political debate remains preoccupied with conflicts between the market and the state, the impact of the corporation on both [of] these is far more important today"--Back cover
Policy discourse around 'community cohesion' has displaced liberal multiculturalist and anti-racist approaches with a much narrower focus on the promotion of 'British values' and, for minority communities, through a 'faith' agenda. We argue that these developments derive from the predominance of the doctrine of communitarianism within the contemporary policy terrain, influencing both New Labour and the Conservatives. The convergence of this with neoliberal social and economic imperatives has created a discourse of 'conditional citizenship' for Muslim communities particularly. There is a major policy contradiction where faith based approaches are promoted on one hand, but, in the context of transnational Islamist terror, lead to whole Muslim communities being pathologised as 'insufficiently British' on the other. We discuss the 'Trojan Horse schools' affair in Birmingham in 2014 as an example of this. We conclude in calling for an urgent refocussing of the debate toward secular approaches in policy, alongside looking at the specific economic and social conditions that we argue are the root cause of breakdowns in community cohesion.
This article examines the impact of a decade of neoliberal policies on poverty and income distribution in Brazil. It demonstrates that while trade and market reform contributed towards the attainment of price stability and accelerated capital inflows, little was achieved by way of reducing income inequality and poverty. The article concludes by outlining the policy options which might be adopted to tackle this critical problem.
