Bringing in the ‘neoliberal model of development’

Abstract

This article brings in the concept of the ‘neoliberal model of development’ as a corrective to the prevailing emphasis in the literature that usefully describes neoliberalism as a nationally diverging phenomenon but does not adequately examine the mid-range trans-national/global regulatory connection or the logics of national convergence. By extending the concept of regulation and specifying the national trans-national connection, this article revises the original Parisian French Regulation School conception of a ‘model of development’ and makes it applicable to the contemporary neoliberal era. It then applies this revised conception to help explain contemporary patterns of national convergence and divergence. In particular, with reference to Marx’s theory of the ‘relative surplus population’, this article explores capitalism’s uneven development as a form of national variation intensified by the neoliberal model of development. This revisionist analysis of model of development also demonstrates how its praxis dimension is significant for explaining past and present mid-range variations of capitalism, and more importantly for making a mid-range counter-hegemonic future.

Beyond Regressive Nationalism and the Neoliberal Model of Development

“…In volume 1 of Capital , Marx does present the (economic) beginnings of a midrange account by examining capitalism’s boombust cycle and by distinguishing economic stages of its development. However, in his effort to reveal capitalism’s deep forward structural logic, that is, the mode of “extended reproduction” of its essential social relations, Marx abstracts out the overdetermining forces of politics and ideology (Neilson 2018a, 2020a, 2020b). With the benefit of hindsight, the FRS developed an explicitly midrange political economy that periodizes recent eras of capitalism according to the prevailing regulatory framework’s form of overdetermination.…”

Epistemic violence in the time of coronavirus: From the legacy of the western limits of Spivak’s ‘can the subaltern speak’ to an alternative to the ‘neoliberal model of development’

“…Similarly, exponents of French Regulation School (FRS) mid-range political economy who produced innovative work on the post WWII "Fordist model of development" are constrained in the present by their "attachment" to first generation assumptions and analysis. That is, they view the present as "after-Fordist" and without "regulation" or a "model of development", thus reflecting their "attachment" to the past and, correspondingly, their resistance to revising their most potent concepts for deployment in the vastly different contemporary world driven by the neoliberal project, and beyond (see Neilson, 2012Neilson, , 2020. In addition, although paying "homage" to Gramsci's pioneering work on "Fordism", the FRS seem unaware of the disjuncture between French post structural thinking, especially as driven by Althusser's seminal Marxist version, and Gramsci's (1971) view of Marxism as the "Philosophy of Praxis".…”

“…All these limits are reflected in an inadequate reading of the latest and most devastating version of epistemic violence that has been imposed on the world by western capitalist reasoning that takes the form of the "neoliberal model of development" (Neilson, 2012(Neilson, , 2020. By pushing its intentionally designed national regulatory template on to the countries of the entire planet, the agents of the neoliberal project have effectively created a single global market regulatory architecture for the capitalist mode of production.…”

“…Further, in this world of zero-sum competition due to the growing scarcity of capital implied by the growth of a "relative surplus population", nation states have been transformed into "competition states" (Marx, 1976, Neilson & Stubbs, 2011, Neilson, 2012. Generated by this aggressively global form of capitalism's "coercive whip of competition" (Marx, 1976) amongst "warring siblings" (Marx, 1969) are not only global market dependence, recurring economic crises, a zero-sum competition logic of intensifying uneven development, impending ecocatastrophe, and "regressive nationalism" (Neilson, 2020(Neilson, , 2020c. Inscribed in its logic is also the virus that is spreading to the four corners of the planet as I write.…”

“…Such a model of development resonates with Sub Commandant Marcos' vision of "a world within which many worlds can fit". It also expresses a project of "glocalisation" where "thinking globally" means the democratic socialisation of cosmopolitan knowledge, and "acting locally" means the establishment of locally selfsustaining systems of production and distribution (Neilson, 2020(Neilson, , 2020a(Neilson, , 2020b(Neilson, , 2020c.…”