ABSTRACT
Notwithstanding the challenges in defining neoliberalism, a good starting point seems to be Harvey's definition, which defines it as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade”. Language “makes infinite use of finite means”. However, not all language users or groups of users have the same influence over language. For semantization and re-semantization are implicated in power relations and, as George Orwell observed, they are underpinned by political and economic processes. Although Althusser criticized Marx on the grounds that the latter approached ideology as “a pure illusion, a pure dream, that is, as nothingness,” they both agreed that ideology needs to be linked to class society and class struggle. Although both books are important works in their own right, the one a person is holding is somewhat more eclectic than them.
