ABSTRACT
This chapter explains what each of these terms means: 'system', 'global system' and 'crisis' thereof. The global system is the growing unification of life on earth, human and non-human, into a single planetary socio-natural system, particularly driven by the endless expansion of capitalism from Europe across the globe over the last 500-800 years and reaching ever new heights of integration. In recent years academic literature has sought to analyse and categorize neo-liberalism, and neoliberalisms, with ever-increasing detail and nuance, and hence also disagreement. Meanwhile, in the public sphere, 'neoliberalism' has, at worst, been reduced to a politically progressive swearword, often without substance. Science and innovation featured significantly in the historical emergence of neo-liberalism to political dominance. The popular distrust of science is paradoxically heightened further by the neoliberal instrumental deployment of science in the attempted depoliticization of political debate, instead leaving the field of political decision-making free for a seemingly 'objective' government by the market.
