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The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era

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The most sweeping account of how neoliberalism came to dominate American politics for nearly a half century before crashing against the forces of Trumpism on the right and a new progressivism on the left. The epochal shift toward neoliberalism--a web of related policies that, broadly speaking, reduced the footprint of government in society and reassigned economic power to private market forces--that began in the United States and Great Britain in the late 1970s fundamentally changed the world. Today, the word "neoliberal" is often used to condemn a broad swath of policies, from prizing free market principles over people to advancing privatization programs in developing nations around the world. To be sure, neoliberalism has contributed to a number of alarming trends, not least of which has been a massive growth in income inequality. Yet as the eminent historian Gary Gerstle argues in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, these indictments fail to reckon with the full contours of what neoliberalism was and why its worldview had such persuasive hold on both the right and the left for three decades. As he shows, the neoliberal order that emerged in America in the 1970s fused ideas of deregulation with personal freedoms, open borders with cosmopolitanism, and globalization with the promise of increased prosperity for all. Along with tracing how this worldview emerged in America and grew to dominate the world, Gerstle explores the previously unrecognized extent to which its triumph was facilitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist allies. He is also the first to chart the story of the neoliberal order's fall, originating in the failed reconstruction of Iraq and Great Recession of the Bush years and culminating in the rise of Trump and a reinvigorated Bernie Sanders-led American left in the 2010s. An indispensable and sweeping re- interpretation of the last fifty years, this book illuminates how the ideology of neoliberalism became so infused in the daily life of an era, while probing what remains of that ideology and its political programs as America enters an uncertain future. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (April 5, 2022)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0197519644


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 46


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.52 x 1.42 x 6.55 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #363,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #45 in Political History (Books) #1,201 in History & Theory of Politics #10,141 in Unknown


#45 in Political History (Books):


#1,201 in History & Theory of Politics:


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Top Amazon Reviews


  • An excellent overview of the cyclicality of neoliberalism over the last 100 years
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal order is a must read to get the full historical context of the competing perspectives on the utility of liberal ideals in guiding political economy goals over the last century. In such fractured times it is important to understand why certain political ideas have emerged as well as the background that led to the confidence that such ideas were solutions to relevant problems. As things have changed so dramatically since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal order is a much needed refresher on why liberalism became such a prevalent hammer to all problems and why in the aftermath of the depression the same ideas were dismissed. The author starts with the social contract reconstruction that took place during the depression and through the post WWII period up until the Reagan presidency. The world was witnessing the consequences of monetary market failures and the lack of ability of labor markets to naturally clear when aggregate demand was low. The policy makers of the time moved decisively away from the social darwinism/ free market capitalism policy ideas, especially with the growth of interest in socialism by large portions of the labor force and there was increasingly popular support for social programs that created safety nets for the population. With the rollout of FDR New Deal in response to the Depression, there was a tailwind of a more cooperative social contract that was being promoted. This continued in the aftermath of the war which saw the sacrifice of the many and the strength of the US economy relatively led to a strong sense of achievement within the country that continued to propel New Deal like logic in the countries overall political economy calculations. The peak of this over reliance on the new deal type political economy was likely around the Vietnam War and the subsequent burdens of running such a model as the US economic model started to lose its industrial competitiveness with resurgent Western Europe and Japan. The loss in Vietnam and the stagflationary 70's led to much self doubt about the New Deal order and competing ideas started to surface to a more open audience. As the US started to realize its relative decline its internal politics started to listen more to neo-liberal/libertarian ideas with the likes of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. It had a champion in Ronald Reagan and from the 80s the US incrementally started to dismantle its New Deal order and embrace a more libertarian economic model where the state was the source of all inefficiency. This was not coupled to lowering deficits of course but the starve the beast type attitude took hold and the country enacted more policies for the benefits of corporations as the political winds changed and the benefits of globalization became more embraced. Overall from an economic pie the US was a beneficiary of this trend but the consequences to inequality started to be felt as early as the 90s. The author spends time on how the democrats embraced neo-liberalism under Clinton and thus both parties became advocates of the benefits of expansive corporate rights at the expense of labor. This of course eventually backfired substantially with the growth of Trumpism in the aftermath of the GFC. Thus the author takes the reader on a full tour of the intellectual cyclicality that led to the growth and decline of the welfare state and the decline and growth of the neoliberal order. There are no uniform solutions to solving the problem of allocating scare resources. Each concept of a political economy has so implicit preferences it is using to determine the solution to such a problem and some systems ending up being more equal in allocation yet more inefficient in productivity growth, others focus on the latter at the expense of the former. The benefits and deficiencies of any system are contextual and the Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal order is an excellent overview of the benefits and deficiencies of the system as times have changed. The author does not focus on what the new order should be or what it is expected to look like, it is much more a work of reflection. It is very much worth reading to understand how we got here and the legacies behind the debates. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2023 by A. Menon

  • Wherever You May Fall on the Political Spectrum...
Gerstle offers a highly-readable, general account of neoliberalism within the realm of American political history. Although he primarily focuses on the last four decades beginning with the Reagan administration, he provides an overview of the history of the American economy, dedicating several chapters to the New Deal. Until reading this book, I had the impression that neoliberalism was entirely a project of Ronald Reagan, the Republican party, and free-market conservatives. But according to Gerstle, while Reagan gave voice to neoliberalism, it actually flourished under the presidency of Bill Clinton for two major reasons. First, the fall of the Soviet Union opened up the world to an aggressive, free-market capitalism. And second, because Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council adopted the Republican Party's neoliberal playbook, they created a climate in which both parties readily endorsed neoliberal policies. And among Americans in general, not only did conservatives embrace neoliberalism, so did liberals who gravitated to its innovative spirit, cosmopolitanism, and multiculturalism. Once there was a broad consensus that neoliberalism would lead to universal prosperity, the "culture wars" became the battleground between the right and the left, which allowed the government's neoliberal policies to go unchallenged. Three decades of neoliberalism has led to the greatest growth in economic inequality in more than a century. This explains why certain factions on the left are so critical of those they perceive to be prioritizing identity politics over class politics. According to Gerstle, the emergence of two totally new national political figures in the 2016 presidential election, populist Donald Trump and socialist Bernie Sanders, signaled the end of the neoliberal order. What's next is yet to be determined. Wherever you may fall on the political spectrum, Gerstle's book will no doubt give you a better understanding of how we arrived at this political moment--one that can feel completely incomprehensible. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2024 by Tanya Smolinsky

  • Good but trails off at the end.
Needs offer the reader more substantial speculation on how a new order might develop and what it might look like.
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2023 by E. Spencer Wellhofer

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