Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown
At the onset of the Great Recession, as house prices sank and joblessness soared, many commentators concluded that the economic convictions behind the disaster would now be consigned to history. And yet, in the harsh light of a new day, we've awoken to a second nightmare more ghastly than the first: a political class still blaming government intervention, a global drive for austerity, stagflation, and an international sovereign debt crisis.
Philip Mirowski finds an apt comparison to this situation in classic studies of cognitive dissonance. He concludes that neoliberal thought has become so pervasive that any countervailing evidence serves only to further convince disciples of its ultimate truth. Once neoliberalism became a Theory of Everything, providing a revolutionary account of self, knowledge, information, markets, and government, it could no longer be falsified by anything as trifling as data from the “real” economy.
In this sharp, witty and deeply informed account, Mirowski—taking no prisoners in his pursuit of “zombie” economists—surveys the wreckage of what passes for economic thought, finally providing the basis for an anti-neoliberal assessment of the current crisis and our future prospects.
Philip Mirowski finds an apt comparison to this situation in classic studies of cognitive dissonance. He concludes that neoliberal thought has become so pervasive that any countervailing evidence serves only to further convince disciples of its ultimate truth. Once neoliberalism became a Theory of Everything, providing a revolutionary account of self, knowledge, information, markets, and government, it could no longer be falsified by anything as trifling as data from the “real” economy.
In this sharp, witty and deeply informed account, Mirowski—taking no prisoners in his pursuit of “zombie” economists—surveys the wreckage of what passes for economic thought, finally providing the basis for an anti-neoliberal assessment of the current crisis and our future prospects.
Where Do Neoliberals Go After The Market? Podcast with Philip Mirowski
After the one-day conference 'Where Do Neoliberals Go After The Market', CIM's Will Davies and Nate Tkacz sat down with Professor Philip Mirowski to talk more about some of the main themes of the conference. Mirowski talks more about his recent research, including the developments that led to his new book Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste. The podcast also includes discussions of the reemergence of openness; the position of Popper within the Mont Pelerin Society; Wikipedia and Facebook; Neo-positivism and Big Data; and the limits of Social Studies of Finance in relation to Neoliberal political strategy.
You can listen to the podcast here:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/news/cim_podcast_with_philip_m
You can listen to the podcast here:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/news/cim_podcast_with_philip_m
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