The Crisis in South Africa : Neoliberalism, Financialization and Uneven and Combined Development

Introduction: It is now widely accepted that neoliberalism has entailed a global class project to shift the balance of economic and social power in favour of capital and away from labour. Neoliberalism is complex and uneven, ranging across economic, social and political dimensions, raising doubts over whether it is a legitimate term analytically or strategically. It has varied in time, space and issue, yet perpetuated its own economic and social mythologies – a truly variegated capitalism with corresponding varieties of neoliberalism. Its ascendancy within nation-states (particularly Britain and the US) and international institutions is rooted in the collapse of the postwar boom and ensuing economic crisis of the 1970s, but its establishment as the dominant ideology and policy practice was only possible as part of a broader conjuncture including the collapse of the former USSR, alternative development projects in the South, and retreats by labour and social democracy. In spite of this multi-dimensionality, we would suggest that the nature of neoliberalism cannot be understood without an examination of the processes and influences of what is now commonly, and increasingly, referred to as ‘financialization’. Finance has been a critical, even definitive, component and mechanism underpinning and perpetuating neoliberalism....

• View at Worldcat