Economic Geography 82(4): 449451, 2006.

2006 Clark University. http://www.clarku.edu/econgeography

Book Review
A Brief History of Neoliberalism. By David
Harvey. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005.

neoliberalism. These contributions

encourage social scientists to distinguish
between neoliberalism as an ideological
project and neoliberalization as a political
process. They underline the historically
and geographically specific nature of
neoliberalism in different places and at
different scales. They help emphasize the
hybrid features of actually existing
neoliberalism, the ways in which neoliberalism articulates with other political
projects like neoconservatism. The need
to delineate carefully between processes,
such as deregulation, commodification,
marketization, and privatization, has been
stressed. And feminist geographers have
highlighted the racialized and gendered
consequences of neoliberalism. So what
does Harveys book contribute to our
disciplinary discussions?
To answer this question, it is useful to
begin by focusing on Harveys explanation
of neoliberalism. Rejecting the idea that
neoliberalism is simply the most recent
manifestation of U.S. imperial power,
Harvey emphasizes that the story of
neoliberalism is one of multiple determinations and not a little chaos and confusion. But ultimately he sees two valid
competing explanations for neoliberalism;
it is either a theoretical design for the
reorganization of international capitalism
or a political project aimed at reestablishing conditions for the accumulation of
capital and the restoration of the power
of economic elites (p. 19). In light of the
evidence, Harvey concludes the latter:
neoliberalism is a political project that is
designed to restore class power. This is
not the capitalist class of the embedded
liberalism of the postwar period; rather,
it is a more nebulous transnational class
structure in which access to finance capital
figures large.
Why have the rest of us acquiesced to
this state of affairs? Drawing from

How do we make sense of the rise of

neoliberalism over the past three decades?
By what means was a political-economic
transformation of this scope and depth
able to occur? What prospects remain for
more socially just forms of governance?
David Harvey sets out to answer these
important questions in this book. He does
so by tracing the emphatic turn to neoliberalism by a wide range of governments
since the 1970s, pointing out that not only
has neoliberalism become a hegemonic
political program, but that it has also been
incorporated into the commonsense way
that many of us interpret, live in, and
understand the world. The 200-odd pages
of this book take us on a whirlwind global
tour, from the theories of Hayek and his
contemporaries; through the various
experiments with neoliberal state formation in the 1970s and 1980s; to the uneven
geographic development of neoliberalism
in the following two decades, including
the rise of China and the commodification of everything. Harvey concludes with
a call to arms that alerts us to the perils
of neoconservatism and argues for more
democratic forms of governance that
would underpin economic, political, and
cultural equality and justice.
There is no doubt that this book, like
all of Harveys intellectual contributions,
will be enormously influential. It is already
on the reading lists of many geography
departments and, even more significantly,
on activist blogs and listservs. But what,
as geographers, should we take from
Harveys intervention in the debates on
neoliberalism? We do not start from a
blank slate; our discipline has already
made significant contributions to debates
about the nature and consequences of
449

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ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

Gramsci, Harvey argues that while the

process of structural adjustment explains
how neoliberalism was forced on developing countries with the assistance of
domestic elites, wider acceptance of
neoliberalism can be explained by changes
in our everyday experiences. Developing
arguments that are familiar to the readers
of The Condition of Postmodernity (2000),
he claims that neoliberalism required the
construction of a market-based populist
culture of differentiated consumerism and
growing individual libertarianism (p.
42). One consequence of this new
emphasis on individual freedom is that
social movements that are premised on
identity politicswhich should have been
oppositional to neoliberalismhave been
diverted. As Harvey argues, Any political
movement that holds individual freedoms
to be sacrosanct is vulnerable to incorporation into the neoliberal fold (p.
41). This problem is compounded because
oppositional movements now mobilize in
civil society, explaining why alternative social forms, such as advocacy groups,
nongovernmental organizations, and other
grassroots organizations, are filling the
void left by the shift in state powers and
the decline in forms of political representation, such as unions and parties.
Although Harvey acknowledges that some
of these civil society organizations do valuable work, he claims that they are too
often elitist, unaccountable, and distant
from those they seek to protect.
While these arguments may be politically unpalatable, they have an important
and uneasy ring of truth about them.
Feminists, civil rights activists, indigenous
peoples, environmentalists, and workers
in the community and voluntary sector are
all too familiar with debates over representation, accountability, mandates, and
appropriate forms of political action. They
are also aware that they are at risk of
becoming little fingers of the state as
they try to advance social justice claims in
a wide range of forums. But does this
really mean they have become trojan
horses for global neoliberalism (p. 177)?

OCTOBER 2006

It is here, I think, that the analysis

becomes problematic. As Harvey himself
acknowledges, there is a tension between
the abstract theory of neoliberalism, which
is premised on a model of unfettered
market activity and freely choosing
subjects, and the actual process of neoliberalization, which involves multiply determined, geographically uneven, political
projects. Because geographersincluding
Harveyare ultimately more concerned
with explaining the latter than the former,
it is important to recognize that oppositional activities are inevitably part of these
political processes. While the political
formation that we call neoliberalism has
indeed reinforced the power of finance
capital and increased social polarization,
what is equally important is that it has
been shaped by the mainstreaming
albeit in a compromised fashion and
with unexpected outcomesof a wide
range of social movement claims.
This recognition requires us to think
much more carefully about the narratives
of neoliberalism that we deploy. The theoretical and political architects of neoliberalism do not name themselves in this
way. Indeed, the concept of neoliberalism
is overwhelmingly mobilized and deployed
by left-wing academics and political
activists. Castree (2006, 4) is right to voice
his fear to the geographic left that the
neoliberalism depicted over and over
again is a pure archetype: something
unreal that has no consequences or existence in itself. But if our focus is the
contested processes that are associated
with neoliberalization, then we are also
forced to rethink Harveys claim that the
neoliberal state is an inherently unstable
political form because it reflects only
the chaos of individual interests. If this
new political formation is shaped by oppositional claims, then it isas all state
forms arean uneasy political compromise.
Finally, this recognition underlines the
point that there are multiple forms of
neoliberalism, an emerging discussion
captured in recent claims about social

VOL. 82 NO. 4

BOOK REVIEW

neoliberalism. So while there may well

be a risk that the moral discourses of
cultural nationalism, Christianity, and
family values are seen as providing a
new basis for social solidarity in the
United States, elsewhere there are countervailing trends. In Latin America, for
example, important variants of a developmental state that are based on a partnering ethos are emerging in the wake
of more market neoliberalism. While
these new political experiments will
inevitably involve imperfect trade-offs,
starting from the recognition that contemporary political formations are multiple
and inherently contested, rather than

451

assuming that we live in a monolithic

neoliberal world, may well prove to be a
more politically empowering way of
assessing contemporary political conditions and potentialities.
Wendy Larner
University of Bristol

References
Castree, N. 2006. From neoliberalism to
neoliberalisation: Consolations, confusions and
necessary illusions. Environment and Planning
A 38:16.
Harvey, D. 2000. The condition of postmodernity. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

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