Globalization, Neoliberalism, and the State of Underdevelopment in the New Periphery

Capitalist World-Economy, Globalization, and Violence

“…Ogbor (2002) has referred to this phenomenon as the convergence thesis because "for all societies there is only one direction of significant change, culminating in the essentials of modern Western society, driven by technological imperatives, capitalist ethos, and increasingly, the imperatives of a market system" (p. 49). In fact, Nef and Robles (2000) claimed that the failure of alternatives to capitalism (i.e., communism and socialism in Europe) has reified capitalist modernization as the prevailing technology of development. In other words, there is no alternative to global capitalism.…”

“…The Great Depression, both World Wars, European reconstruction, and the Marshall Plan influenced international relations during the first half of the 20th century and set the stage for globalization in the second half. According to Nef and Robles (2000), the predominant framework and prescription for international development consisted of induced development strategies where developing countries could attain the Western standard of living by focusing on industrialization. Fourcade-Gourinchas and Babb (2002) concurred: "In Latin America, the guiding postwar paradigm was import-substituting industrialization (ISI), through which governments fostered economic development by protecting domestic industries from foreign competition" (p. 537).…”

“…However, economic liberalism also has a politically conservative agenda. Nef and Robles (2000) characterized neoliberalism as a counterrevolutionary project, suggesting that neoliberal economic policies in Europe were related to strategies and tactics used by the West during the Cold War. In Latin America, neoliberalism was a conservative response to the Cuban revolution.…”

Neoliberalism, urbanism and the education economy: producing Hyderabad as a ‘global city’

“…'Actually existing neoliberalism': a conceptual framework My study of education and new urbanisms takes from the extensive literature on neoliberalism as a distinctive policy regime that drives the present phase of capitalist globalization (Brenner & Theodore, 2002;Harvey, 2005;Nef & Robles, 2000;Ong, 2006). Rooted in neoclassical economics, neoliberalism is an economic doctrine that provides both a policy roadmap and the intellectual justification for the expansion of the capitalist classes within the nation and globally.…”

“…The fundamental premise of neoliberalism is that all societies, economies, institutions down to the level of the individual have to adapt, compete and abide by the objective laws of the market. Nef and Robles (2000) summarize the six-point program of neoliberalism: (1) re-establishing the rule of the market; (2) reducing public expenditure through cuts in subsidies, reduction in public services and Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 189 dismantling welfare programs; (3) reorganizing the tax base by reducing direct taxes such as income and wealth tax and increasing indirect taxes on goods and services that benefit the investor class and reduce public revenue; (4) deregulating the private sector; (5) privatizing the public sector; and (6) doing away with the concept of the commons and the public good. The scholarship on globalization generally marks the 1970s as the period when neoliberalism made significant inroads into state policy in the advanced capitalist countries endorsed by influential political leaders such as Reagan and Thatcher (Harvey, 2005).…”