Before answering that question, this week’s guest, Professor Alfredo Saad Filho from the Department of Development Studies, SOAS, University of London, comments on what neoliberalism actually is. “Neoliberalism covers a whole range of political, social and economic domains. In one sentence; it is the current phase, or form of existence of global capitalism, a phase which we entered in the early 1980s…” Professor Filho said that this stage of capitalism is still evolving and changing. “Neoliberalism has had two very clear sub periods. One was in the 1980s-mid 1990s, which was a transition phase, the ‘shock’ phase. In country after country during that period; in Chile, in a number of other countries, particularly the United States, you had periods of transition which were based on economic, social and sometimes political shock. This was replicated in Latin America, in sub-saharan Africa, especially after the international debt crisis, which started in 1982. An international programme instigated by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank helped in bringing about such shock transitions. In Eastern Europe and the Soviet block, those transitions came about through the collapse of the Soviet Union… The second phase of neoliberalism comes after that; it is a phase of stabilisation, where the aggressive economic policies of the shock period are reversed and we try to stabilise society in which we can live according to the new social norms of neoliberalism. Norms which are based on competition. Of behaving in the political sphere to obtain maximum advantage to yourself…”
To the question: Is globalisation a process of dissemination of the neoliberal West?, Professor Professor Saad Filho commented: “…globalisation is the process of the integration of processes of production, of internationalisation, of standardisation of behaviour along neoliberal lines, and the globalisation process takes on different forms in different parts of the world…” The process of becoming more liberal tends to work on an individual level. Individuals become more competitive, and therefore, professor Saad Filho points out, “unable to come together and create ‘collective alternative choices’”.
To the question: Does neoliberalism have a structural fault, in that members of neoliberalist societies have to control themselves to conform, so much so that they cease to be very creative?, professor Saad Filho relied: “I believe it does have structural faults and this is one of them…. For the first time we have a generation of people born and bred in an era of neoliberalism, and this tends to be a generation of extraordinarily low expectations…”
Another problem with neoliberal societies is that they tend not to encourage state financing of R & D. Professor Saad Filho commented: “There is not a single case of a technological innovation in decades that has taken place without state funding. The internet was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. You see this across the board; microprocessors and laptop computers, medicines etc… this is well kept secret of neoliberalism.”
These are only a few of the points that Professor Saad Filho makes in this programme. To find out professor Saad Filho’s opinion on the future of our societies in regards to neoliberalism, please do listen to this radio programme.
