Re: [OPE-L] New book: "Neoliberalism: a Critical Reader"

[Asfilho@xxxxxxx]

Jerry,

 

I haven't seen the Panitch et al volume, but the Socialist Register has been publishing outstanding papers on neoliberalism, globalisation and imperialism - some of the best Marxist analyses that I have seen in print.

 

The "Anti-Capitalism" targets an audience of UG and PG students, and activists, with a set of Marxian analyses of contemporary problems, always indicating that capitalism has contradictions that cannot be resolved. This is done not by repeating slogans, but by analysing concrete problems of our age. The idea is to make young people interested in Marxism, to cultivate their interest where it already exists, and to show them the relevance of Marxian analyses.

 

The new book, "Neoliberalism: a Critical Reader" targets the same public, but the message is broader - the basic idea is to look at neoliberalism from many different angles (there was an attempt to be as comprehensive as was practically possible), in order to show that this is an internally coherent power project, that it is stable, and that is needs to be confronted both in the terrain of ideas and in the terrain of (class) struggle. Having said this, the volume is not "Marxist". It includes contributions from colleagues that would identify themselves with the PK, Kaleckian, etc, schools, as well as Marxists. I think that this is a strength of this volume.

 

alfredo.

 

 

In a message dated 02/02/2005 18:09:34 GMT Standard Time, Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx writes:

Alfredo:

 

How does the content and emphasis of this book compare to

Saad-Filho ed. _Anti-Capitalism: A Marxist Introduction_

(Pluto, 2003) and Panitch, Leys, Zuege, Konings eds. _The

Globalization Decade: A Critical Reader_ ( Merline Press, 2004;

http://www.merlinpress.co.uk/merlin/New_titles/Globalisation.htm )?

 

In solidarity, Jerry