ABSTRACT
Some of the key concepts in the monograph are developed in this chapter. The origins of new urban poverty (middle-class impoverishment) and their downward mobility as a consequence of neoliberalism and processes of structural adjustment of its “losers,” following the Washington Consensus Reforms in the 1990s are discussed with reference to European and North America, as well as Latin American and Argentina. Other manifestations of it, either following the 2008 global crises, as a characteristic of the transition economies from communism to capitalism, or in post-Apartheid societies are also observed. Cross-national comparisons are made between the how the middle class resisted crisis and hardship in Russia (1990s transition to capitalism and 1998 financial crisis), South Africa (post-Apartheid), Argentina (post-2001 crisis), Iceland, Greece and Spain (post-2008 crisis) during the past three decades, and whether citizens coped privately or participated in collective protests as a consequence are examined. The chapter ends by articulating the book’s Gramscian theoretical framework and how his concepts of “hegemony,” “ideology” and “false consciousness” will be adopted to help to account for how proletarianized citizens responded to their social descent in Argentina since the 1990s.
