![]() ![]() It also includes the commodification of natural and public resources like water, housing, education, health care, that is, opening them up to private companies to convert everything into a commercial product that can be bought and sold for profit. Neoliberal policies include introducing market competition into all aspects of the economy and society (such as de-regulating the financial sector and opening up economies to foreign investment and capital flows, changing the role of the state to act primarily in the interests of private corporations and enforce markets (reducing worker and environmental protections seen as a barrier to profit and enterprise) also privatisation, public spending cuts, and limiting borrowing. Neoliberalism was first implemented in Chile in the 1970s through the brutal regime of General Pinochet (which the IMF conveniently fails to mention) and then advocated for by ‘free’ market economists such as Friedman and Hayek and was implemented savagely in other developing world countries under the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the World Bank and IMF, and under Reagan and Thatcher. Neoliberal policies, known as “the neoliberal agenda” or the “Washington Consensus” are essentially policies that promote a free market or laissez faire form of capitalism. The private creche scandal revealed by RTE is the most recent example this sort of name-calling, and it happens even though no political party, grouping or individual in Ireland describes itself/himself/herself as “neoliberal”. “Reactionaries on the left of the political spectrum increasingly describe others very critically as “neoliberals” and policy proposals that are not state-led as forms of “neoliberalism”. Take, for example Dan O Brien, who wrote in the Irish Times in 2013: In fact, most mainstream economists have, up to this point, denied even the existence of neoliberalism and have tried to de-legitimise any debate of the subject. ![]() Such a discussion of neoliberalism, up to this point, has been marginal to mainstream economic and political debates. It accepts that the main economic policies of neoliberalism and austerity that the organisation has been forcing governments around the world since the 1970s to implement (including Ireland as part of our recent Troika bailout) do not actually work.īut even more importantly, the use of the term ‘neoliberalism’ by the IMF creates a wider public space and legitimacy for discussion of what neoliberalism actually is (and how austerity is part of the neoliberal policy agenda), who is promoting it and who it benefits. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a new report entitled, Neoliberalism Oversold (read here)? for the first time, officially names neoliberalism as a coherent set of economic policy objectives. ![]() This statement is nothing new to progressives but it is very significant that the IMF has come out in recent weeks and identified these failings in neoliberalism. Furthermore, increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth. Rory Hearne: Neoliberal policies have resulted in increased inequality and have failed to achieve economic growth. ![]()
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