Economic Growth, Poverty Mitigation, and Social Policy in our Neoliberal Era: A Polanyian Perspective

This research examines the limits of neoliberal economic growth in poverty mitigation and spotlights the role of social policy in mediating social and economic objectives. Based on double movement, fictitious commodities, and social embeddedness of plural markets, with a Polanyian perspective on Bolivia’s Water Wars case, it disenchants the marketism legacy in our contemporary neoliberalism materialised in growth-poverty dynamics. The findings indicate that economic growth is accessible but insufficient to mitigate multi-layered poverty around societal demands and structures. The research argues for a holistic, contextualised anti-poverty framework with protective social policy and mediated socio-economic development embedded in social relations during the neoliberal era.