Neoliberalism: Free Market Fundamentalism or Corporate Power?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/11/neoliberalism-free-market-fundamentalism-or-corporate-power/
Date Written:  2019-01-11
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23373

The idea of "free market fundamentalism (FMF)" omits the fact that neoliberalism requires state intervention to run, so criticism of neoliberalsm based on FMF is ahistorical and self-defeating.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The idea that the "free market" is an accurate description of reality or a good basis for strategy has worn thin. What started as the less influential reading of the neoliberal critique is gaining ground. The market economy and the state changed over time into something quite different - something we might call Corporate Power. And that is a far cry from a fundamentalist return of the liberal free market of the 19th Century.

Instead, we confront a new form of capitalist order: the merger between the biggest corporations and the state. The corporate power dominates nations by hollowing out and commandeering the institutions that were supposed to represent people. Economic decisions are made behind closed doors at the Treasury Department or Federal Reserve where bankers rule and regular citizens dare not go. The same power operates on the global stage through international institutions and regulatory bodies that do not even pretend to be democratic such as WTO, IMF, and World Bank. Corporate power tends toward fascism by destroying democracy and imposing austerity - the very conditions that give fascism mass appeal.

The national and global institutions that have been so essential to the creation of the neoliberal order provide rich evidence that we can no longer tell where governments end and corporations begin.