political economy

Neoliberalism: Not Dead Yet

by Brett Christophers

The reassertion of state power over economies during the COVID pandemic shouldn't yet be taken as a sign of a turn away from the dominance of finance capital over the global economy and politics – market fundamentalism is only one part of the system. 

Do Any Critics of "Marxism" on the Right Actually Know What it Is?

by Ben Burgis

The most prominent public intellectuals on the right-wing internet love to attack a version of Marxism that bears little connection to reality. Even Marxists should want better critics. 

Review: Are Basic Income Programs Captive to the Power of the Market?

by Simon Torracinta

Two historians argue that the basic income is an idea that is circumscribed by the assumption that society will be organized around markets. A reviewer says the programs are the starting point for politics that escape that constraint. 

Quinn Slobodian: Can Democracy be Safe from the Market?

A new history of capitalist policy initiatives focuses on the "zone," a territory of radical deregulation where capital is free from constraint by democracy. A reviewer asks whether there can be a zone where democracy is insulated against the market. 

Gary Gerstle on the End of Neoliberalism and What's Next

Political "orders," rather than election cycles, are a key way to understand big political shifts, like the rise and dismantling of the New Deal in America. 

Review: The Right-Wing Abuse of Adam Smith

by Kim Phillips-Fein

Glory M. Liu's account of Adam Smith's reception in America explains how American politicians read selectively in Smith's capacious writings on political economy and public morality to construct a self-interested view of the market as a natural phenomenon, writes historian Kim Phillips-Fein. 

Clara Mattei on the History of Austerity Politics

A decade before the Great Depression, capital responded to a serious crisis of legitimacy by adopting measures that punished a restive working class through scarcity, argues a new economic history; maintaining hierarchy, not growing the economy, is the objective.

How the "Third Way" Made Neoliberal Politics Seem Inevitable

by Lily Geismer

The Third Way never presented a coherent case for what it stood for or how it might balance the roles of the market and the state. But it led to a generational reworking of the role if government and a sidelining of mass political movements. 

Libertarianism's Philosophers Come Out Worse For Wear

by Rebecca Brenner Graham

A fellowship at a leading libertarian institute convinced the author that the movement sees its luminaries as icons, not as historical figures. 

Virtue and Vice: Looking for the Real Adam Smith

by Glory Liu

Smith's work on political economy has long been seen in tension with his investigation of empathy and other moral sentiments. Paul Sagar's new book argues that scholars have mistaken Smith's intentions in order to falsely reconcile the market and morality. 

Review: Gerstle on Free Markets and Besieged Citizens

by Robert Kuttner

Gary Gerstle's new history aims to define the political order that began under Jimmy Carter and resulted in the overturning of New Deal liberalism for the empty promises of a market society, with the power of the state insulating capitalism from democracy.

Will Artificial Intelligence be the Agent of Capitalism's (and Humanity's) Creative Destruction?

by Jim Castagnera

Between science fiction and the political economy of the present, the author wonders if artificial intelligence will constitute humanity's successor species. 

Review Essay: Who Did Neoliberalism?

by Erik Baker

New books wrestle with the rise and collapse of the 1960s New Left and the gulf between its aspirations and achievements, and assess whether 1960s radical intellectuals are responsible for present-day neoliberalism. 

Gary Gerstle: Is the Neoliberal Era Over?

"Will new political movements emerge with the strength to compel a serious redistribution of wealth away from elites and toward the masses without reproducing the tyranny that became so intrinsic to communism? This is one of the key questions of our time."

We're Talking about Climate Change with Outdated Colonial Language

by Priya Satia

The dominant climate activist theme of sacrificing in the present to protect the future is rooted in the intellectual history of economics which has driven the profligate consumption and gross inequality that threatens the planet. 

America’s 40-Year Experiment With Big Business Is Over

by Nelson Lichtenstein

Biden's executive order returns to a longstanding American view of concentrated economic power as a threat to democracy. 

The Age of Neoliberalism is Ending in America. What will Replace It?

by Gary Gerstle

It will be difficult for the Biden administration to revive a (Green) New Deal Order, but making progress may be key to stopping the nation's slide toward authoritarian and racist forms of populism. 

The Growth Of Market-Oriented Urban Policy — A Review Of Neoliberal Cities

by Tracy Neumann

A new collection of essays seeks to develop a historical understanding and grounding for the often vague term "neoliberalism" through its transformation of urban space and politics. 

This Vanishing Moment and Our Vanishing Future: John Hersey, Hiroshima, and the End of World

Postwar prosperity depended on a truce between capitalist growth and democratic fairness. Is it possible to get it back?

How the Welfare State Became the Neoliberal Order (Review)

by Pablo Pryluka

Although the Tennessee Valley Authority was a pioneering public works project, its alumni worked in Latin America to advance redevelopment projects that elevated the authority of big business, a model now associated with the neoliberal turn in the developed world.