Neoliberalism, the State, and the Left: A Canadian Perspective

Abstract

An assessment of the left today must begin with an analysis of neoliberalism. For over the past two decades neoliberalism has come to dominate public discourse and the modalities of the state in one country after another. The ascendancy of neoliberalism has occurred through a series of interconnected transformations that began with the economic turmoil of the 1970s, the rise of New Right governments across the 1980s, and the deepening internationalization of the circuits of money and industrial capital, modes of communication, and governance structures in the 1990s. Neoliberalism has come to mark a historic turning-point in the balance of power, the social forms of economic and political power, and the patterns of everyday life. From the perspective of the renewal of the left in Canada, and indeed North America, it is critical that we record the importance of this point and its many implications.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.