2012/01/01 by C. P. Chandrasekhar · 2 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Economic Theory and Policy #Global Financial Crisis and Policies #Indian Economic and Social Development
paper · doi:10.1057/9781137028303_8
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Over the last two decades or more, the developing world has shifted out of development strategies involving a highly interventionist and often developmentalist state to one that has been widely characterised as neoliberal. Neoliberalism is an ambiguous and loosely defined term, even when it is restricted to the economic sphere. So it would be useful to clarify the sense in which it is being used in this context. In what follows, neoliberal theory and practice are taken as referring to (1) the use of the rhetoric of market fundamentalism, in which the market – ostensibly “free economic exchange” – is presented as the most efficient mechanism to work the economic system, to pave the way for the increasingly unfettered functioning of private capital, both domestic and foreign; (2) the use of the notion of a minimalist state, to be realised by dismantling its developmentalist version, to legitimise the shift of various terms of trade and mechanisms of distribution in favour of the owners of capital and their functionaries and conceal the conversion of segments of the state apparatus into sites for primitive accumulation; and (3) the pursuit of a regime of accumulation where the home market and deficit-financed state expenditure are replaced by exports and debt-financed private expenditure as the principal stimuli to growth 1 . These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.