ABSTRACT
Since the 1970s neoliberalism has been the dominant political-economic strategy on a world scale. Accordingly, it is the starting point for our consideration of strategies towards poverty. We have already discussed some important aspects of neoliberalism in earlier sections of the book: the transition from an era of social democracy to one of neoliberalism and some of the pressures which underlay this transition (Introduction; sections 1.3 and 4.5); and the effects of neoliberalism in the economy (section 4.4), in the welfare state (sections 5.4, 5.7, 5.8 and 5.9) and in social and cultural life (sections 6.5 to 6.11). In this chapter we outline the arguments for neoliberalism as a means of addressing poverty (section 9.2), summarise its failures and the immediate reasons for them (section 9.3), and locate these failings in the contradictions of neoliberalism (section 9.4).
