Globalistas

In this first story of neoliberal globalism, Slobodian follows a group of thinkers from the ashes of the Habsburg Empire to the creation of the World Trade Organization, to show that neoliberalism did not arise to reduce government and abolish regulations, but to re-implement them globally. It all begins in Austria in the 1920s: empires were dissolving and nationalism, socialism and democratic self-determination threatened the stability of the global capitalist system. In response, Austrian intellectuals sought a new way of organizing the world. They and their successors in academia and government, from famous economists like Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises to lesser-known figures like Wilhelm Röpke and Michael Heilperin, used states and global institutions to insulate markets from state sovereignty, political changes and the turbulent democratic demands for equality and social justice. Far from ruling out the regulatory state, the neoliberals wanted to take advantage of it for their great project of protecting capitalism on a global scale. A project that changed the world, but was also undermined time and again by the inequality, relentless change, and social injustice that accompanied it.