A Critical Reading of Neoliberalism from the Perspective of David Harvey

Subject Areas : علوم سیاسی

Seyed Ebrahim  Alavi ¹ (Department of Political Science, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran)
جلال  درخشه ² (Department of Political Science, Faculty of Islamic Studies and Political Science, Imam Sadegh (AS) University, Tehran, Iran)
hasan  majidi ³ (Associate Professor of Political Science and member of the Faculty of Islamic Studies and Political Science at Imam Sadiq University)

Received: 2023-08-04 Accepted : 2023-08-04 Published : 2022-10-01

Keywords: Critical Reading, Neoliberalism, David Harvey, Economic Globalization,

Abstract :

By discrediting the Keynesian versions, it gave way to return to the fundamental principles of liberalism and spurred economists who wanted to revive liberalism. Friedrich von Hayek played a special role in this way. Milton Friedman, the American economist of the Chicago school, accompanied Hayek on this path. Unlike Keynes, both of them believed in reducing the role of the government in the economy and evaluated the market-oriented economy as the only way to achieve political and economic freedom. After some time, neoliberalism inspired by the theories of Hayek and Friedman was criticized by the opponents. As the critics of economic globalization see neoliberalism as responsible for the creation of a world that has brought a minority to fabulous wealth and has plunged a large part of human society into misery; And they think that neoliberalism shows itself all over the world with components such as the difficulty of living, the intensification of the class gap, the intensification of exploitation, etc. trends such as the class division of education and the deprivation of many people from health. As one of the most prominent critics of neoliberalism, David Harvey tried to show the important differences between liberal and neoliberal policies. He introduces neoliberalism as a deviant path to free employers, governments, and capitalists from the constraints on which liberalism was formed. Harvey emphasizes that neoliberalism is a political project that was keyed by the capitalist class in the late 60s and early 70s to curb the power of the working class, at a time when it felt strongly threatened by this class both politically and economically.