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Market-Driven Politics
Market-Driven Politics is a multi-level study, moving between an analysis of global economic forces through national politics to the changes occurring week by week in two fields of public life that are both fundamentally important and familiar to everyonetelevision broadcasting and health care. Public services like these play an important role, because they both affect the legitimacy of the government and are targets for global capital. This book provides an original analysis of the key processes of commodification of public services, the conversion of public-service workforces into employees motivated to generate profit, and the role of the state in absorbing risk. Understanding the dynamics of each of these trends becomes critical not just for the analysis of market-driven politics but also for the longer-term defense of democracy and the collective values on which it depends.
- GenresNonfiction
256 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 11, 2013
NEOLIBERALISM AND DEMOCRACY
I was aware of Colin Leys from his fine indictment (along with Stewart Player) of the on-going dismemberment of the NHS by "our" governments over the last decade or two - "The Plot Against the NHS" - and so had no hesitation about reading his account of the effect that the Neo-Liberal era has had on our democracy and our democratic institutions.
The first two parts of the book ("The Global Economy and National Politics" & "British politics in a Global Economy") are succinct and quite brilliant expositions of the development of the post-World War 2 Global Economy, in particular its post Bretton Woods mutation, and the particular experiences of Britain during that period, and the effect that it has had on State Institutions, Political Parties and participation in Politics. The third part "Markets, Commodities and commodification" looks at the relationships between actually existing markets (as opposed to the fairy tale varieties one finds in Economic textbooks) and politics, and at the process/implications of the commodification of services, specifically at how this relates to two parts of the service sector that have been regarded as public services in the UK: Broadcasting and Health.
The fourth and fifth parts go into these two examples in greater detail, looking at the experience of Public Service Television and the National Health Service in the post war 2 era. The accounts of the sectors experiences, initially in the public domain, gradually being prised open to private interests, are clear and give an excellent idea of how the process of small openings inexorably leads to greater and greater opportunities to eat further and further into areas that were once regarded as off limits to private capital seeking out profits. Also made clear is the effect that turning over services from the public domain to the private sector has in terms of access, cost, the degree of democratic control, and the quality and quantity of employment. Finally in "Market-Driven Politics and the Public Interest" Leys recapitulates the arguments and asks a number of questions about the implications of the Neo-Liberal era for the Public Domain, Public Institutions, Democracy and the Public Interest.
To call this book essential understates its importance. "Market-Driven Politics" is a clearly written and precisely argued account of the dynamic process by which Private capital has inexorably refashioned politics and the state in its own interests at the expense of the public's interest. Though initially published in 2003 it is still enormously relevant and easily the best account of the implications of the Neo-Liberal era at the national political level.
I was aware of Colin Leys from his fine indictment (along with Stewart Player) of the on-going dismemberment of the NHS by "our" governments over the last decade or two - "The Plot Against the NHS" - and so had no hesitation about reading his account of the effect that the Neo-Liberal era has had on our democracy and our democratic institutions.
The first two parts of the book ("The Global Economy and National Politics" & "British politics in a Global Economy") are succinct and quite brilliant expositions of the development of the post-World War 2 Global Economy, in particular its post Bretton Woods mutation, and the particular experiences of Britain during that period, and the effect that it has had on State Institutions, Political Parties and participation in Politics. The third part "Markets, Commodities and commodification" looks at the relationships between actually existing markets (as opposed to the fairy tale varieties one finds in Economic textbooks) and politics, and at the process/implications of the commodification of services, specifically at how this relates to two parts of the service sector that have been regarded as public services in the UK: Broadcasting and Health.
The fourth and fifth parts go into these two examples in greater detail, looking at the experience of Public Service Television and the National Health Service in the post war 2 era. The accounts of the sectors experiences, initially in the public domain, gradually being prised open to private interests, are clear and give an excellent idea of how the process of small openings inexorably leads to greater and greater opportunities to eat further and further into areas that were once regarded as off limits to private capital seeking out profits. Also made clear is the effect that turning over services from the public domain to the private sector has in terms of access, cost, the degree of democratic control, and the quality and quantity of employment. Finally in "Market-Driven Politics and the Public Interest" Leys recapitulates the arguments and asks a number of questions about the implications of the Neo-Liberal era for the Public Domain, Public Institutions, Democracy and the Public Interest.
To call this book essential understates its importance. "Market-Driven Politics" is a clearly written and precisely argued account of the dynamic process by which Private capital has inexorably refashioned politics and the state in its own interests at the expense of the public's interest. Though initially published in 2003 it is still enormously relevant and easily the best account of the implications of the Neo-Liberal era at the national political level.
January 2, 2012
very clear and well-researched analysis of nhs privatisation, going back decades.
read and be terrified (but, in a constructive let's save the nhs kind of way)
read and be terrified (but, in a constructive let's save the nhs kind of way)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews