Understanding Neoliberalism

Forty years after Mrs Thatcher’s first election victory, the term ‘neoliberal’ remains the basic shorthand term for the new form of capitalism that replaced the post-1945 settlement in all parts of the world. When the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, for a brief period it seemed that this new form might be challenged, but the threat to international trade and finance was headed off by a coordinated effort in which the major powers, joined in the G20 by a wider group of states, intervened on a massive scale in the money markets.

Their success in re-establishing order, and even resuming economic growth, was however aimed at propping up the world of high finance and global corporations, with the costs imposed on the rest of us. In this guest post, Hugo Radice reflects on the following two questions: 

- First, why did so few experts predict such a devastating breakdown in financial markets? 

- Second, why were our rulers able to re-establish business as usual with such ease?