After Neoliberalism — Ganesh Sitaraman

The last 10 years have seen the collapse of neoliberalism. The question now is, what comes next?

For 40 years, we have lived in a neoliberal era, an era defined in public policy by deregulation, liberalization, privatization, and austerity. Starting with the Thatcher and Reagan revolutions, neoliberal ideas spread to capture the center and even the left, ultimately becoming the reigning policy consensus by the mid-1990s.
But over the last decade, that neoliberal consensus has collapsed. We can now see that its results were disastrous....

The central question of our time is what comes after neoliberalism. New political paradigms emerge in response to the challenges and failures of the preceding era, and today, four possibilities for the future are emerging.

• The first possibility is reformed neoliberalism.…
• The second possibility is nationalist populism, which combines ethnic, religious, or cultural nationalism with economic populism.…
• The third possibility, which many refer to as authoritarianism, has gotten the most attention.… The better term for this third future is “nationalist oligarchy,” and Trumpism is its American variant..…
• The final possibility is that a new era of democracy will follow the age of neoliberalism.…

The neoliberal era has put us in this moment of crisis, and the central battle of our time is now between nationalist oligarchy and democracy. The fight for a great democracy will require boldness and creativity, courage and resolve. If we want to save democracy, we will first need to achieve democracy.

Insightful.

The Nation
After Neoliberalism
Ganesh Sitaraman | professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School