Forum: Rejuvenating the Renewal of Political Economy: The International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE)

Abstract

First paragraphFollowing the global economic meltdown of September 2008 and the ensuing economic depression, we are now experiencing what is arguably the third phase of the crisis, that of the eurozone and national debt, with a variety of countries within the eurozone facing the threat of default. In the global North, economic policies have neither ended the neoliberal agenda nor curbed the demands of a resurgent financial sector. Instead, after a pseudo-Keynesian moment centred on ›quantitative easing‹ the governments of the richest countries have launched a new set of neoliberal assaults characterised by the harshest of austerity measures. From 2009 onwards, this resurgent neoliberal wave has spread progressively from peripheral European countries to the UK, the eurozone, and now the USA. Along with rocketing unemployment, particularly among the young, this economic onslaught, on those who are in no way perceived as accountable for the crisis and slump, promises a period of major social disruption in welfare provision and institutions, pressures on wages and working conditions and, in response across a growing number of countries, multitudes of spontaneous and, occasionally, mass actions as macroeconomic prospects deteriorate.