2018/03/29 by Kevin Farnsworth, Zoë Irving
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism #Political and Economic history of UK and US #Social Policy and Reform Studies
paper · doi:10.1177/0261018318762451
openalex publication_date 2018/03/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The 2008 global economic crisis paved the way for the construction of a new, elite-driven, capital-centric, shrunken welfare state project founded on ideology disguised as pragmatism and objective ‘truths’. Today, welfare states exist in a context in which a new politics of austerity sets the parameters of the debate. Austerity incorporates the neoliberal desire to shrink the (social welfare) state, deregulate labour markets and emphasise private markets as the drivers of growth, enabling a reconfiguration of the interests of capital, the needs of people and the role of the state. The new politics of austerity looks like a ‘dream come true’ for neoliberals. Or is it? There is also a powerful counter-narrative that suggests that the global crisis exposed the fundamental weaknesses and limitations of neoliberalism and forced policy makers to question core principles and change direction. Focusing on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), perhaps the pre-eminent global neoliberal interlocutor, and using quantitative textual analysis, the article locates some evidence of movement, but little to suggest that the fundamental assumptions of neoliberalism have been displaced.