Polarizing Development: Alternatives To Neoliberalism And The Crisis

The global economic crisis has exposed the limits of neoliberalism and intensified social polarization. Amid increasing social resistance and opposition, however, neoliberalism prevails globally.

Within political economic debates, however, radical alternatives are rarely debated or are reduced to new Keynesian and new developmental agendas, which fail to address existing class divisions and imperialist relations of domination.

This unique collection of essays polarizes the debate between radical and reformist alternatives by exploring head-on the antagonistic structure of capitalist development in Latin America, Southern Asia, Europe, the US and the Middle East. The contributors ground the question of alternatives in an international, non-Eurocentric and avowedly Marxian analysis of the capitalist system and its crises. The collection's approach is also distinctive in arguing that social and labour movements are core determinants of development outcomes and progressive change.

This new generation of scholars has written accessible yet theoretically informed and empirically rich chapters elaborating radically different worldwide strategies for moving beyond neoliberalism, and beyond capitalism. The intent is to provoke critical reflection and positive action towards substantive change.

Lucia Pradella works at the University of Venice, Ca' Foscari, and is a Research Associate in the SOAS Department of Development Studies. She is conducting research on the working poor in Western Europe, globalisation, and the history of political economy. She is the author of Globalisation and the Critique of Political Economy (2014).

Thomas Marois is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies, SOAS, University of London. He works in the field of comparative political economy researching problems of finance, development, privatisation, and alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. He is the author of States, Banks and Crisis: Emerging Finance Capitalism in Mexico and Turkey (2012).