PostNeoliberalism

Neoliberalism is the view that human relations are best conducted through markets, that we all participate in those markets as capital or labour and that all goods, including public goods, such as health, education, public space and care, should be commodified. As a political economy, it gained traction in Latin America in the 1980s, leveraged by international organisations and the power of local economic and political elites in the context of weak democracies. Adopted in the midst of economic crisis, political instability and weak democracy, neoliberal policies in the region sought to institutionalise a narrow and limited role for state, accentuate private property rights and extend the commodification of the commons, including land. Such programmes increased vulnerabilities and accentuated inequalities of class, ethnicity, gender and place. It is not surprising, then, that the rise of a new left in Latin America in the early years of this century, in the context of a commodities boom, produced attempts across the region to renegotiate the state-market relationship, ‘re-nationalise’ large sections of the economy and of public provision and extend programmes of welfare-based citizenship. What did postneoliberal governance achieve and how successful was it? Drawing on examples from across Central and South America, we critically evaluate postneoliberalism and consider the extent to which it was able to disrupt marketized models of development and whether, as some critics have suggested, it consisted of little more than temporary ‘compensation for the poor’. We show that despite its success in reasserting the value of a mixed economy approach to development and achieving a reduction in socio-economic inequalities, postneoliberalism failed to address long-standing issues of weak democracy. The voices and views of critical social movements and communities were often excluded from policy-making. Moreover, the record of all postneoliberal governments in relation to the management of the region’s rich natural resources and stewardship of its environmental commons was poor. Finally, we ask whether the election of the left to government after 2018 suggests a return to postneoliberal governance.