Neoliberal Period Research Articles

La apropiación de las rentas del suelo en la ciudad neoliberal española

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The Ethics of Success: Paradoxes of the Suffering Neoliberal Self in the Andean Peruvian Music Industry

In this essay I examine the effects and limit of neoliberal logics in the commercial huayno music industry in Peru. Commercial huayno is a mass-mediated musical genre which combines folkloric and popular elements and is performed and listened to nationally, especially in the Andes and among Andean migrants. I begin by outlining transformations in the industry during Peru's neoliberal period before focusing on the agency that a neoliberal notion of the subject and attendant ideas about ‘success’ have on the discourse and practice of commercial huayno pop stars. However, I seek to contextualise and complicate understandings of these neoliberal logics and identify their limits by highlighting alternative sources of ethical subject formation, which have the potential to endorse, contradict and mediate the ideal type of the neoliberal subject in practice. Thus, in the second section, I consider how the discourse of suffering associated with huayno music and huayno stars – itself connected to Catholic moral philosophy – complicates any straightforward mapping of a neoliberal subjectivity on to huayno performers.

The neoliberal firm and nested subsumption: Labour process transformations in the NYC taxi industry

In this paper I use New York’s taxi industry and the struggle around GPS technologies to articulate some essential aspects of a new regime of labour subsumption that is taking shape, most evidently in cities. I argue that these new aspects of labour subsumption may be useful in understanding changes in labour regimes across industries in the neoliberal period. Finally, I attempt to demonstrate connections between theories of labour subsumption and practices of labour organising. I contend that labour subsumption theory and specific forms of labour organisation show a clear relationship in the past and thus, if we are able to discern significant developments in the modes by which capital subsumes labour in the present neoliberal period, this could offer new insights in the domain of labour organising strategies.

Accumulation by Dispossession and Socio‐Environmental Conflicts Caused by the Expansion of Agribusiness in Argentina

Drawing upon the concept of ‘accumulation by dispossession’, this paper analyses the expansion of agrarian capital in Argentina. A case study illustrates the social and environmental impacts of the expansion of agribusiness in central Argentina and the social struggle – both rural and urban – that has arisen to resist this process. Although government policies after the 2001 crisis differ in many ways from those of the 1990s, current agrarian policies are not significantly distinct from those followed during the pre‐crisis neoliberal period. Rather than ‘post‐neoliberal’, the new model could thus be better described as ‘neo‐extractivist’. With the connivance of the state, agribusiness is producing the largest‐ever transformation of natural capital into economic capital in the history of the region. Moreover, the latest policy developments suggest that Argentina is on the threshold of a new and deeper stage of agrarian capital expansion and wealth concentration, this time operating at a much larger scale.

Economic Crisis, Poverty and Social Policy in Mexico

This article describes the structural characteristics and socioeconomic effects of the neoliberal model that was implemented in Mexico at the beginning of the 1980s. Employment conditions, informal and precarious labor, and poverty generated by neoliberalism are analyzed. The article examines how the economic crisis has been dealt with through macroeconomic policies and social development by the Mexican Government. The characteristics of the public welfare system and the social policies that have been used during this neoliberal period are scrutinized. The program Oportunidades (Opportunities) as the primary national effort made by the government to combat extreme poverty is examined in detail. It has a social policy focus and is assistance-based which has yielded public financing at a high cost with limited poverty reduction. It is proposed that there are intrinsic limitations to these kinds of policy, leading to an increase in fragmented and ineffectual programs.

Between private property rights and national preferences: the Bank of Israel's early years

The history of the Bank of Israel is often told as a story that leads from servitude to independence. According to this conception, the bank was a weak and marginal institution during the developmental period of the state, and it turned into an independent actor in the neoliberal period. This article argues that the portrayal of the bank as marginal during the developing period fails to recognize the essential role it played in contributing to the capacity of the state to allocate credit more effectively. It maintains that that Bank of Israel provided the state with market compatible instruments in order to govern the banking system and depoliticized the allocation of credit. The establishment of the bank had two effects on Israel's political economy: it enabled the government to weaken its dependence on the Histadrut as an agent of development and it allowed it to nurture linkages with the private sector.

Knowledge Production in a Cooperative Economy

Knowledge here means something similar to but broader than science — it is reliable but not necessarily as systematic or explicit. A cooperative economy is contrasted with the competitive economy that has dominated political thinking almost everywhere for about half a century — the neo-liberal period. It is argued that the neo-liberal ideology and its economic ideas and practices are unjust and unsustainable. A model for a cooperative economy is described which would be more just and sustainable. Three main features of the model are outlined — basic income, asset and income limits, and a concept of work that counts all activity useful to human well-being rather than counting monetary profit. Knowledge in such an economy is considered in four main stages: production, review, dissemination and use. It is argued that, in the described cooperative economy, these stages would proceed more efficiently and lead to human well-being.

Why Shareholders Shouldn't Vote: A Marxist‐progressive Critique of Shareholder Empowerment

This paper argues that liquidity, short‐termism and low involvement in corporate governance are fundamental ingredients of shareholders’ value maximisation strategies. Neither shareholders nor their representatives will voluntarily adopt restrictions which inhibit their ability to pursue these strategies, such as those presented by the Stewardship Codes. Utilising Marxist and progressive theory this paper evidences the tendency for all capital (including shares) to seek liquidity. It presents historical evidence which shows that political policy can either restrict this tendency, as it did in the progressive and post war period, or facilitate it, as it did in nineteenth century England and in the current neoliberal period. The shareholder empowerment initiatives examined in this paper are therefore best understood as strategies to justify shareholder claims in the current crisis and to thereby protect the neoliberal status quo.

The Classical Agrarian Question: Myth, Reality and Relevance Today

This article traces a particular view of the classical agrarian question in Marxian political economy which has sustained the myth of industrialization as the basic objective of transformation. The idea was born in the late nineteenth century among the European vanguard, then consolidated as an axiom during the Cold War, only to be resurrected in the neoliberal period by a professionalized discipline of ‘agrarian studies’. This article argues that such a view fails to acknowledge the historic importance of the national question and its land and peasant components, which are irreducible to industrialization. The article restores national sovereignty to its proper place in the classical agrarian question and argues that it remains the cornerstone of all other dimensions of the agrarian question, including gender equity and ecological sustainability.

The Reserve Army of Labor in the Postwar U. S. Economy

The reserve army of labor is a structural necessity of capitalism. By constantly keeping a part of the labor force unemployed or under-employed but potentially available for capital to draw on if needed, the reserve army of labor maintains the viability of capital accumulation by inflicting enormous costs on the working class. In the postwar U. S. economy, the reserve army has increased from about 5–6 million in the early 1950s to around 25–30 million in the late 2000s. Average size of the reserve army, as a share of the labor force, was substantially higher in the neoliberal period (1980–2011) compared to its size in the regulated period (1948–1980). Patterns in the data suggest that the relocation of production to the low-cost global periphery might be joining labor saving technical change as another important mechanism for recruiting the reserve army and disciplining labor under neoliberal capitalism.

The Political Economy of Foreign Investment in Latin America

Examination of foreign investment inflows, stock, and outgoing profit flows from Latin America in the neoliberal period shows that the basic tenet of the dependency thesis still holds: there is a huge and underreported transfer of surplus value out of the continent. European capital has overtaken U.S. capital as a source of investment, and within the Andean region there are two distinct groups of countries with regard to investment regime: the Andean nations of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela), which have succeeded in increasing the proportion of surplus profits retained in their national economies against that part captured by international capital, and their non-ALBA neighbors. A new dialectic of domination and dependency is at work, with the focus on contesting bilateral free-trade agreements and investment treaties. Un análisis de la inversión extranjera, las acciones y el flujo de beneficios externos producidos en América Latina durante el período neoliberal muestra que aún se mantiene el principio básico de la tesis de la dependencia: hay una enorme transferencia de plusvalía fuera del continente, una buena parte de la cual no se reporta. El capital europeo ha superado al capital estadounidense como fuente de inversión y, dentro de la región andina, hay dos grupos de países con distintas estrategias en relación al régimen de inversiones: en el primero están los miembros de la Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Bolivia, Ecuador y Venezuela), que han logrado aumentar la proporción de excedentes retenidos en sus economías nacionales en relación a la parte capturada por el capital internacional; en el segundo, sus vecinos que no pertenecen a ALBA. Aquí se está desarrollando una nueva dialéctica de dominación y dependencia centrada en la disputa alrededor de acuerdos bilaterales de libre comercio y tratados de inversión.

Sense of place and place-based activism in the neoliberal city

The past decade has witnessed an outpouring of scholarship on the neoliberal city. Most of the widely read work on this topic has been theoretical, critical and tends to explore the larger political and economic mechanisms that structure urban space, foster social injustice and incite activism. However, missing from this body of literature is a recent critical study that examines the role of place theory and place-based resistance to neoliberal globalization in an urban context. This study draws from empirical research in North America to reveal the creative, complex and often contradictory ways some urban communities actualize a local sense of place in reaction to pervasive neoliberal forces. This paper suggests that employing a sense of place perspective may shed light on the ways local activists are prioritizing the local scale in an attempt to negotiate the complex and even contradictory policies evident in the current neoliberal period.

GOBIERNOS Y POLÍTICAS: TRANSFORMACIONES EN ARGENTINA Y AMÉRICA LATINA EN LA PRIMERA DÉCADA DEL SIGLO XXI

En años recientes comenzaron a gestarse en América Latina, procesos políticos nacionales en cuyo marco se observa la aparición de novedosas formas de organización, prácticas sociales y gobiernos que ponen en cuestión el orden neoliberal. En este trabajo se propone discutir las condiciones de surgimiento y las características de estos nuevos gobiernos, presentar sus políticas en términos de la cercanía/distancia con las del periodo neoliberal, así como, las transformaciones ocurridas y las tensiones que enfrentan.

El rol de los actores con poder de veto informal en la determinación del gasto social en la Argentina post-neoliberal (2002-2008)

El presente trabajo analiza la importancia de los actores con poder de veto informal para la determinación de algunas políticas públicas en Argentina luego de la crisis del modelo neoliberal. En particular, se realiza una relectura de los modelos estándar de actores con poder de veto para incorporar a los movimientos de desocupados que surgieron en Argentina en el período de consolidación y crisis del neoliberalismo. Asimismo, se analiza empíricamente la capacidad de estas nuevas organizaciones para modificar el statu quo de las políticas de gasto público social.

The State and Modes of Regulation in Greece from the Post-War Period to the 2009 Financial Crisis

Mainstream views attribute the causes of the recent crisis in Greece to endogenous factors—for example, profligacy, corruption and rent-seeking—and describe the country as a ‘special case’. In contrast to such approaches, this paper discusses the alternating modes of regulation in Greece from the post-war period until the recent crisis and argues that, despite the ruptures, lags and deviations, an alignment with wider international developments emerges. Four phases are distinguished: a post-Civil War period of growth under an authoritarian rule; a short Keynesian period of stagnation; a period of growth and neo-liberalization; and the current crisis. It is also argued that the crisis provided an opportunity to deepen certain neo-liberalization processes across the European Union (EU), further denationalize economic policy and impose fiscal discipline at the expense of the social state, even through constitutionalization. These developments advocate the view that Greece is rather a ‘test case’ than a ‘special case’.

Class struggle and economic fluctuations: VAR analysis of the post-war US economy

Building on Marx’s insights in Chapter 25, Volume I of Capital, an augmented version of the cyclical profit squeeze (CPS) theory offers a plausible explanation of macroeconomic fluctuations under capitalism. The pattern of dynamic interactions that emerges from a 3-variable (profit share, unemployment rate and nonresidential fixed investment) vector autoregression estimated with quarterly data for the postwar U.S. economy is consistent with the CPS theory for the regulated (1949Q4--1975Q1) as well as for the neoliberal periods (starting in 1980 or in 1985). Hence, the CPS mechanism seems to be in operation even under neoliberalism.

The Efficacy of a Program Promoting Rice Self-Sufficiency in Ghana during a Period of Neoliberalism*

The number of the world's food insecure rose at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Despite these negative developments, however, a 2010 United Nations report argues that food security could be improved if development efforts are supported by government programs that target smallholder farmers. This report is significant because it challenges the neoliberal perspective, which tends to promote a private-enterprise market system and favor large-scale producers. These competing visions for agricultural development frame our evaluation of the impact of the Africa Rice Center's (AfricaRice) efforts to promote new rice varieties among smallholder farmers to narrow the rice consumption-production gap in Ghana. We begin by distinguishing the outreach efforts to help farmers increase production and the political-economic conditions that limit the longevity of that outreach effort. We reviewed program documents revealing expenditures and yields among the smallholder farmers, and we conducted intensive interviews with the farmers. Although we find that the program succeeded in mobilizing farmers to increase rice production, we question the sustainability of the program's impact because state funding for the program has ended.

The Peasant Question and Contemporary Capitalism: Some Reflections with Reference to India

An economic policy regime under the sway of neoliberalism, or laissezfaire, puts tremendous pressure on peasant agriculture. This article argues, with a special focus on India, that during the current phase of capitalism, this is exactly what is happening in the developing world. During the dirigiste phase of India’s development, which spanned from decolonization to the end of the 1980s, the nationalist development project gave a boost to the agricultural sector and ushered in capitalist development in the countryside. However, as the pursuit of an autonomous capitalist development has been compromised in the neoliberal period, the Indian peasantry has come under severe strain and, in many ways, this is reminiscent of the colonial rule when policies similar to neoliberalism prevailed.

Technology and Development in Latin America: Urgent Challenges for the 21st Century

Abstract Capitalist globalization has accelerated technological development but the result has been to intensify global inequalities and reproduce the structures of underdevelopment in entire world regions. In Latin America, the era of Keynesian developmentalism sought to overcome foreign domination that prevailed in modernization-style development regimes. Advances made in that era were halted and later reversed through the imposition of neoliberalism throughout the region. Neoliberal development increased developing country dependency upon foreign technologies and reproduces the structures of underdevelopment. Anti-neoliberal alternatives are possible even under conditions of severe economic crisis as illustrated by the Cuban socialist model. Other countries will likewise need to pursue more endogenously oriented technology policies if they are to overcome the crippling impact of the neoliberal period.

The role of the individual producer in driving land change: the case of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 1986–2006

The “neoliberal period” witnessed some of the largest forest clearing in Latin America, particularly in the relatively untouched eastern lowlands of sub-tropical Bolivia. This paper shows through the use of satellite imagery analysis that ~10,000 km2 of forest were cleared during this time period (1986–2006) from an area of forest measuring ~55,000 km2. It also shows through the use of semi-structured interviews that the role and the rationale of the individual producer was equally if not more important than structural adjustment policies and their accompanying effects in driving these changes. Producers decisions of how to use the land are influenced by their background and knowledge of production systems (“tradition”), physical and climatic factors, crops which require relatively little input and are easy to cultivate, soil and tillage factors, concerns over quantity of production, and government policies. The importance of this study lies in the fact that the factors which play an important role in land-use and land-cover change are complex and multivariable and include individual decisions of the producer which are sometimes external to the market and other outside influences. This study could possibly serve as an exemplar and a warning that conservationists and policy-makers should take heed of in the future. By focusing solely on macro-economic policies, we can often overlook the individual producer and their decision-making capacity to alter the landscape.