I bought David Harvey’s book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, recently. I’ve been listening to his podcast for a while. My intention is to read Capital in the future and use his companion podcast as a guide.

David talks a lot about Neoliberalism. It turns out he, quite literally, wrote the book on it. For quite some time, I had no idea what Neoliberalism was. I had concepts, based on an inaccurate interpretation of the word itself.

I now understand Neoliberalism to be a coordinated movement to save the ruling elite’s declining percentage of society’s total wealth. From what I understand, it started dropping in the 1970’s. Neoliberalism was the response, intended to reverse the decline.

The other concept that sticks out to me in these early days of understanding is the one of self-sufficiency. The way I understand it, the Neoliberal movement advanced the concept that individuals are “on our own” in society and that if they can’t “make it”, i.e. it’s their own fault. This feels like a convenient way to justify that “have’s” having so much and the “have not’s” having so little.

I look forward to learning more as I work through the book.