Thirteen Things You Need to Know about Neoliberalism

This paper examines the theories and practices of neoliberalism drawing upon five case studies of housing and water across Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey and the United Kingdom. This examination ranges across thirteen aspects of (‘things you need to know about’) neoliberalism. They include the argument that neoliberalism is not reducible to a cogent ideology or a change in economic or social policies, nor is it primarily about a shift in the relationship between the state and the market or between workers and capital in general, or finance in particular. Instead, neoliberalism is a stage in the development of capitalism underpinned by financialisation. Neoliberalism is highly diversified in its features, impact and outcomes, reflecting specific combinations of scholarship, ideology, policy and practice. In turn, these are attached to distinctive material cultures giving rise to the (variegated) neoliberalisation of everyday life and, at a further remove, to specific modalities of economic growth, volatility and crisis. Finally, this paper argues that there are alternatives, both within and beyond neoliberalism itself.