The ICT revolution and neo-liberalism: Its major pathologies and a Polanyian second movement

Why are we in the entangled chaos in the advanced world, in particularin the US and UK? It is argued that neo-liberalism is at the core of the explanation,but in a complex way. Some major «liberalizing» framework change was needed inthe 1980s and 1990s to loosen the protective hold of large Fordist corporations andestablished financial institutions to enable the changes the ICT revolution held out totake place; this was Thatcher’s strategy and bitterly opposed by much of the Britishcapitalist elite. The paper focusses on the US (and the UK in minor key) as thedriver of radical innovation. Over time major problematic pathologies have emergedin the neoliberal agenda. It is argued that these pathologies are responsible, directlyand indirectly, for most of our contemporary problems: for deep segregation in Britishand American society, especially between large successful cities and smaller urbanareas, between graduates and non-graduates, and in public services; in the growth ofinequality; for the steep slowdown in innovation, productivity and real wage growth(especially in the UK); for development of populism; and for the current nervousnessover AI. The core problems, it is posited, stem from the withdrawal of the stateand the over-reliance on markets. Examining the different aspects of the neoliberalagenda, the possibility of a Polanyian double movement is discussed; and in thiscontext the (ambivalent) role that democracy may play is discussed.