The Consumer, Credit and Neoliberalism : Governing the Modern Economy

ISBN-13: 9780415680110 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 248 str.

Christopher Payne

Opis

This book is an investigation into the economic policy formulation and practice of neoliberalism in Britain from the 1950s through to the financial crisis and economic downturn that began in 2007-8. It demonstrates that influential economists, such as F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, authors at key British think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies, and important political figures of the Thatcher and New Labour governments shared a similar conception of the consumer. For neoliberals, the idea that consumers were weak in the face of businesses and large corporations was almost offensive. Instead, consumers were imagined to be sovereign agents in the economy, whose consumption decisions played a central role in the construction of their human capital and in the enabling of their aspirations. Consumption, just like production, came to be viewed as an enterprising and entrepreneurial activity. Consequently, from the early 1980s

Spis treści

1. Introduction: Neoliberalism and Governmentality  2. Constructing the Consumer  3. Diagnosing the British Economy  4. How to Govern the Economy  5. Governing for the Consumer  6. Misidentification and Crisis  7. The American Sub-Prime Homeowner Consumer  8. Conclusion: Problematising the Consumer

O autorze

Christopher Payne is currently a senior economist at Bloomberg Government in Washington D.C., USA.