Introduction

The chapters in this part propose alternatives to the current neoliberal economic order by reframing poverty as a consequence of the values and practices of market fundamentalism, where all aspects of human life are reduced to exchange value and competitive individualism reigns supreme. David Harvey writes: “Neoliberalism is a theory of political economic practice, that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedom and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (2005:3). Like so, the neoliberal state’s function is not to intervene in markets but to create markets and guarantee their proper functioning, which according to Harvey is to promote the “process of neoliberalization.” This is a process that, says Harvey, entails much “‘creative destruction,’ not only of prior institutional frameworks and powers but also of the division of labour, social relations, welfare provisions, technological mixtures, ways of life and thought, reproductive activities, attachments to the land and habits of heart” (2005:3). The values driving neoliberalism are market-driven ethics or, as Harvey points out, “neoliberalism values market exchange as an ethics in itself, capable of acting as a guide to all human action” (2005:3). Neoliberalization diminishes all human value to market exchange value, replacing previously held ethical beliefs and social relation with the contractual relations of the marketplace (2005:3). Harvey states, for example, that “[neoliberalization] holds that the social good will be maximized by maximizing the reach and frequency of market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market” (2005:3). In doing so, the market-driven ethics of neoliberalism undercut the nature of social obligation in civil society.