ABSTRACT
A key component in the implementation of neoliberal policies is to frame development problems as repairable by technocrats so that development policies are formulated in an a-political and often a-spatial framework. Although the economic crisis deepened the crisis of political legitimacy, aggressive individualism and collective punishment – among the cornerstones of neoliberal Newspeak – are dominant. Social capital in Putman's work and its influence on the "Third Way" literature is highly questionable. Attaching the adjective "social" to the economic term "capital" suggests, at least in the "Third Way" approaches, that along with non-social forms of capital, there exists a social variant of capital. The chapter discusses the socio-spatial injustices derived from inequalities at the Eurozone scale and at the national/regional scale in SE countries. The precarity regime becomes a performative force for legitimising state violence, unemployment, poverty and the reduction of health standards.
