SOC 451GLOBALIZATION OF COMMUNICATION AND CULTUREAsst. Prof. Fatma Altınbaş Sarıgül

NEO-LIBERALISM• The most important theory in the field of globalization. • Key factor in the emergence of the global age.

• Neo-Liberalism: Liberal commitment to individual liberty, a belief in the free market and opposition to state intervention in it.

• Liberal ideas had to be revitalized and transformed because of the need to counter the interventionism and the collectivism that dominated much thinking and many political systems in the early 20th century.

NEO-LIBERALISM• Neo-Liberalism’s intellectual leaders: Friedrich van Hayek

and Ludwig von Mises.• An organization devoted to liberal ideas – the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS)• MPS members were alarmed by the expansion of the

collectivist socialism ( of the Soviet Union) and the aggressive intervention by liberal governments in the market (Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ )

• The famous and influential Chicago economist, Milton Friedman, played a key role to protect traditional liberal ideas, to develop neo-liberal theory and to sponsor their utilization by countries throughout the world.

NEO-LIBERALISM• A key development in the history of neo-liberalism is the

election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile in 1970.• Allende was a Marxist and an American supported military

coup killed Allende and replaced him with Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

• Neo-Liberal economists- called Chicago boys- were given the opportunity to implement Friedman’s neo-liberal ideas in Chile- ‘Shock Doctrine’.

• Privatization of industry, the deregulation of economy, reductions in a nation’s spending on social wlefare programs.

NEO-LIBERALISM• Much of the world came to accept, or was coerced into

accepting, neo-liberalism.• Major forces: IMF and World Bank.• Shock therapy, known as structural adjustment.• In order to receive aid from these organizations, nations

had to restructure their economies and societies in line with neo-liberal theory.

• Absent was any concern for equity, redistribution, social issues and the environment.

• The result is reality of inequality, corruption and environmental degradation.

NEO-LIBERALISM• Neo-liberalism began to collapse in late 1990s- owith the financial shocks in Mexico in 1994-1998oAsian financial crisis 0f 1997-1998oThe collapse of economy in Argentina, 2001.oThe scandals of Enron and WorldCom

• Different groups- workers, environmentalists, farmers and peasents, those in poor and less developed nations- came together in opposition to neo-liberal applications.

How is neo-liberalism global?1. Neo-liberalism become an economic and political system

that characterizes a wide range of societies throughout the world.

2. It is an idea system that has flowed around the world.3. IMF, WTO, the World Bank are dominated by neo-liberal

ideas and these were restructuring world nations.

If neo-liberalism is unfavorable what then?Many sociologists favor a system where limited freedoms of the market and profit are replaced by a broader set of freedoms, more open democracy, greater social equality and greater justice in the economic, political and cultural realms.