David Harvey's "A Brief History of Neoliberalsim"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that David Harvey's "A Brief History of Neoliberalsim" states that neoliberalism is a means to restore power to the rich and make the poor poorer. The author points out that Harvey believes that, when neoliberal principles conflict with the need to restore power, then its principles are either abandoned or so warped as to become unrecognizable. The paper relates that Harvey believes that the main achievement of neoliberalism has been to redistribute wealth and income through the processes of privatization and commoditization, financialization, the management and manipulation of crises and state redistributions. The paper states that Harvey concludes that neo-conservatism is consistent with the neoliberal idea of elite governance, mistrust of democracy and the upholding of market freedoms; however, it differs in that neo-conservatism tries to create order in the chaos of individual interests and external and internal dangers.

From the Paper:

"The manipulation of crises has advanced into the redistribution of wealth from the poor countries to the rich countries. For example, the U.S. loaned money to Mexico and then increased the interest rate so that Mexico had to declare bankruptcy. The U.S. then manipulated the situation so that they could offer to bail them out as long as Mexico took up neoliberal reforms or the liberalization of capital markets, such as privatization and the reorganization of the financial system so that it was more consistent with foreign interests. They also had to open their internal markets to foreign capital, lower their tariff barriers, and create a more flexible labor market."

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