Harvey’s main point is that the current global dominance of neoliberalism-a set of policies that includes free trade, low taxes, lax business regulation, reduced government services, and hostility to labor unions-was not the inevitable result of economic logic but was instead the product of a deliberate campaign by wealthy and powerful individuals to secure their class interests. David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism, a slender but dense volume, provides an explanation for that situation. But a key element is surely the rise of a political economy that allows a tiny international elite to garner unimaginable wealth and wield inordinate political power while the middle and working classes of the developed nations stagnate economically and writhe in political impotence. The roots of the anti-establishment mood that was so visible this year in the US presidential primaries and the Brexit vote in the UK are no doubt many and complex. A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey (Oxford University Press, 2005)
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