I also think Brown’s description is the best out there, mostly because she refuses to separate the “politics” from the “economics,” and talks of governmentality instead.

I think Brown mostly has the US in mind, but also Europe for sure. While the concept seems to have largely originated in the west, I’m not sure how one can talk about neoliberalism without including Asia and Latin America and Africa, considering the importance of capital flows, labor flows, currency differentials, etc. Which is another reason why talk about the decline of the nation-state is premature.

“highlighting that liberalism always contained the seeds of this”

This is definitely true in the US; probably also because it’s been, even if wrongly, paired with neoconservatism.

Thanks for your comment, ana.

I do like the way that ‘neoliberalism’ now connotes ‘capitalist oppression’ in leftist discourse - highlighting that liberalism always contained the seeds of this …

Though I’d never considered Brown’s definition to be too western - in that well, it IS a western concept founded in western political rationality; and Brown seems to be talking specifically about the US?

Anyway, I’m interested to follow this train of thought :)

And yes, the nostalgia is always present. It’s more implied in Brown, for instance, but Harvey is pretty blatantly nostalgic. Which is to say, as you do, social-democracy. Nostalgia is also the reason I have until recently been averse to the term “neoliberalism,” as in most usages it does carry an implied longing for Keynesian arrangements and for state intervention. But I’ve decided it’s good enough shorthand for real shifts over the last 30 years.

I guess I find this phrase too socialist (or social democratic) in what it bullies forward, or should I say, laments. As if the welfare state, once upon a time, actually provided, in some way that was not simultaneously marked by all sorts of really crappy shit or ‘universal’, protection.