ABSTRACT
The global financial crisis of 2008 and the related recession in the advanced economies have revitalized long-term analyses of capitalism and the role of power relations and cognitive frameworks in economic processes. This chapter argues that the global financial crisis, in the United States the neoliberal policy regime can still rely on a powerful coalition of interests where the financial industry is central, but by no means alone. The components of such a coalition are numerous and form a structure of concentric circles. The ICT revolution and global interdependence fostered a staggering growth of the GDP and improved living conditions in several emerging countries, but caused a growing asymmetry of power between capital and labour and between global market actors and national governments. The neoliberal policy regime has been dominant in the EU economy as well, although in the tempered version of the European variety of capitalism, and it has influenced the response to the 2008 global crisis.
