Neoliberalism

The Faux Scholarship Foundation of the Regulatory Rollback Movement

With the full participation and consent of Congress, President Trump has embarked upon a radical project to freeze and roll back federal regulations that protect public health, safety, the environment, and the economy. The principal justification for this project, publicly announced by both Congress and President Trump, is the claim that regulations are costing the […]

Flint: An American Failure

The story of Flint—the Michigan city in which people were harmed by drinking water that contained lead and lethal bacteria—is a warning to all struggling US communities that confront disinvestment, declining population, excessive financial focus, incompetent leadership, nontransparent government, and racism. Flint is also a tale of a persevering community, good doctors and scientists, and […]

How social democrats may become reluctant radicals: Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Wolfgang Streeck’s Buying Time

Abstract The continuing ramifications of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 have forced social scientists to raise fundamental questions about the relationship between capitalism, democracy and inequality. In particular, Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Wolfgang Streeck’s Buying Time focus on, respectively, the economic and the political contradictions of capitalistic societies. Piketty argues that capitalism naturally tends towards […]

Health Spending Growth: Still Facing A Triangle Of Painful Choices

In the four years immediately following the recession (2010 through 2013), health spending grew at a historically low average annual rate of 3.6 percent, about the same as gross domestic product (GDP). This era was interrupted in 2014 with the advent of expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—the newly insured used more care […]

Governing Health Care through Free Choice: Neoliberal Reforms in Denmark and the United States

We compare free choice reforms in Denmark and the United States to understand what ideas and political forces could generate such similar policy reforms in radically different political contexts. We analyze the two cases using our own interpretation of neoliberalism as having “two faces.” The first face seeks to expand private markets and shrink the […]