The neoliberal revolution

Abstract

Stuart Hall The neoliberal revolution The present situation is another unresolved crisis within the conjuncture that we can define as 'the long march of the Neoliberal Revolution'. Each crisis since the 1970s has looked different, arising from specific historical circumstances. However, they also seem to share some consistent underlying features, to be connected in their general thrust and direction of travel. In ambition, depth, degree of break with the past, variety of sites being colonised, impact on common sense, shift in the social architecture, neoliberalism does constitute a hegemonic project. Paradoxically, such apparently opposed political regimes as Thatcherism and New Labour have contributed in different ways to expanding this project. Hegemony has constantly to be 'worked on', maintained, renewed, revised. Excluded social forces, whose consent has not been won, whose interests have not been taken into account, form the basis of counter−movements, resistance, alternative strategies and visions ... and the struggle over a hegemonic system starts anew. Now the Coalition is taking up the same cause.