nav-icons nav-icons
Progress in Political Economy (PPE) Progress in Political Economy (PPE)
LOGIN REGISTER
LOGIN
REGISTER
linklink
  • Home
  • About
  • Manchester University Press Book Series
  • Past & Present Reading Group
  • A Political Economy of Australian Capitalism
  • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • JAPE Issues
    • JAPE Submission Guidelines
    • JAPE Young Scholar Award
  • Australian IPE Network (AIPEN)
  • Forums
    • Forums
    • Debating Anatomies of Revolution
    • Debating Debtfare States
    • Debating Economic Ideas in Political Time
    • Debating Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India
    • Debating Social Movements in Latin America
    • Debating The Making of Modern Finance
    • Debating War and Social Change in Modern Europe
    • Feminist Global “Secureconomy”
    • Gendered Circuits of Labour and Violence in Global Crises
    • Scandalous Economics
    • The Military Roots of Neoliberal Governance
    • Politicising artistic pedagogies
  • Literary Geographies of Political Economy
  • Pedagogy
    • Five Minute Honours Theses
    • Piketty Forum
    • Radical Economics Pedagogy
    • Unconventional Wisdom
    • Journal Club
    • Marxism Reading Group
  • Wheelwright Lecture
  • Events
  • Contributors
  • Links
    • Political Economy At Sydney
    • PHD in Political Economy
    • Master of Political Economy
    • Centre for Future Work
    • Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ)
    • Climate Justice Research Centre (UTS)
Piketty Digest #10: Inequality of Labour Income
Previous
From Mumbai to Melbourne (via Detroit): what future for ‘post-industrial’ society?
Next

PPE writers speaking on Neoliberalism at APSA

by Elizabeth Humphrys on September 28, 2014

PPE writers speaking on Neoliberalism at APSA

Elizabeth Humphrys | September 28, 2014

Tags: neoliberalism
neoliberalism
| 0 257

This week, Political Economy Department members Elizabeth Humphrys and Damien Cahill are speaking at the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) Annual Conference at the University of Sydney. They are presenting a joint paper on Labour and the Neoliberal Revolution.

Elizabeth and Damien argue that explanations of neoliberalism have been modelled on paradigmatic cases in Chile, the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK). Such accounts largely posit neoliberalism as a project of governments of the New Right, imposed coercively on civil society by states and those convinced of neoliberal ideology, and only subsequently adopted by social democratic parties. That is, they contend that neoliberalism arose in Chile, the US and UK, and was then exported elsewhere.

In accepting this dominant narrative explanations of the development of neoliberalism in other locations have been obscured. This is particularly clear when we look at Australia, where neoliberalism was introduced while the Australian Labour Party was in power and during a consensual social contract with the trade unions. The dominant narrative has narrowed our understanding of neoliberalism, and created an ideal type. Neoliberalism in other locations has then been measured against these ideal types, rather than understood as a diverse and global process from the start.

Of particular interest to Elizabeth and Damien is the role demarcated for the labour movement within such accounts. Labour is typically viewed as the object of neoliberalism, with the state (and New Right governments) assigned agency. Emphasis is placed on the suppression of trade union organising and the intensified exploitation of labour. Their paper asks, suggestively, about the active role of labour in the construction of neoliberalism. It asks how labour agency might be ‘written in’ to the present narrative in order to provide a more nuanced account of the transformations since the end of the long post-WWII boom. They ask about the relationship between neoliberalism and labour in Australia, but also about the organisational leadership of labour in the US and UK — most particularly prior to the elections of Thatcher and Reagan.

The session is taking place in the New Law School Room 340, Tuesday September 30, 2.00-3.30.

Also speaking in the session are political economists Ben Spies-Butcher  (Macquarie) and Jean Parker (UTS). Ben is speaking on the Australian welfare state during the neoliberal era, and Jean on the Rudd Labor Government’s response to the GFC.

Can’t make it to the session but want to read more on neoliberalism?

  • Elizabeth explores the form of neoliberalism’s dominant narrative in greater detail on her blog.
  • An interview with Damien on his blog explores the embeddedness and persistence of neoliberalism, as well as how we might move beyond it.
  • Ben writes frequently on political economy for The Conversation.
  • Jean has recently written about the home insulation package component of the Rudd stimulus package, in particular the outsourcing of risk, in a number of places.

Share this post

  • Tweet
  • Share Post:

Author: Elizabeth Humphrys

Elizabeth Humphrys is a political economist of labour based at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She is a member of the UTS Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC), leading their work on the impacts of climate change on workers, and an Associate of the independent think tank the Centre for Future Work. Her first book, How Labour Built Neoliberalism (2019 Bill/Haymarket), has been read widely by scholars and labour activists, and was described in the Sydney Review of Books as a ‘tremendously important’ contribution to understanding economic change in Australia.

Related Posts

 

Futilitarianism and the Futilitarian Condition

My recent book Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness, which is published as part of the Political Economy Research Centre (PERC) Series with Goldsmiths P...

 

For a Progressive Arts and Cultural Policy Agenda in Australia

ARTS AND CULTURAL POLICY is in a deep crisis in Australia. And it’s not just because of the pandemic or years of cuts. The fundamental basis of this crisis is generally accepted ...

 

Does the Kishida cabinet mean the death of neoliberalism in Japan?

The ascendency of Prime minister Kishida and his new focus on economic inequality has many wondering whether Japan has reached the final death knell of ‘economic reform’ – a ...

 

What Can Neoliberalism Tell Us About The Iranian State?

The Iranian theocratic state for long has been conceptualised as an ‘exceptional’ entity. Two sets of theorisation have hugely contributed to this understanding. Because the 19...

Comments

Leave a Response Cancel reply


Join our mailing list

© Progress in Political Economy (PPE)

Privacy | Designed by Nucleo | Terms and Conditions

  • Home
  • About
  • Manchester University Press Book Series
  • Past & Present Reading Group
  • A Political Economy of Australian Capitalism
  • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • JAPE Issues
    • JAPE Submission Guidelines
    • JAPE Young Scholar Award
  • Australian IPE Network (AIPEN)
  • Forums
    • Forums
    • Debating Anatomies of Revolution
    • Debating Debtfare States
    • Debating Economic Ideas in Political Time
    • Debating Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India
    • Debating Social Movements in Latin America
    • Debating The Making of Modern Finance
    • Debating War and Social Change in Modern Europe
    • Feminist Global “Secureconomy”
    • Gendered Circuits of Labour and Violence in Global Crises
    • Scandalous Economics
    • The Military Roots of Neoliberal Governance
    • Politicising artistic pedagogies
  • Literary Geographies of Political Economy
  • Pedagogy
    • Five Minute Honours Theses
    • Piketty Forum
    • Radical Economics Pedagogy
    • Unconventional Wisdom
    • Journal Club
    • Marxism Reading Group
  • Wheelwright Lecture
  • Events
  • Contributors
  • Links
    • Political Economy At Sydney
    • PHD in Political Economy
    • Master of Political Economy
    • Centre for Future Work
    • Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ)
    • Climate Justice Research Centre (UTS)
 

Loading Comments...