David Harvey

• Probably the most widely read geographer in and outside of geography

– Was the first person (circa 1970) to take some of Marx’s concepts for analyzing the economy and fully work out their spatial implications

• Works include: Limits to Capital, The Condition of Postmodernity, Brief History of Neoliberalism, and The New Imperialism.

Questions

Neoliberalism

1. What is neoliberlaism?

2. Why were those who devised neo-liberalism smart to choose “human dignity” and “individual freedom” as the “fundamental” values of their position (pg. 5)?

3. According to Harvey, what “freedoms” get embodied by the neoliberal state (pg. 7)?

Class

4. How has neoliberalization reconfigured the idea of the “upper class” (pg 31)?

5. What is the role of financialization under neoliebralism? What has happened to the power of stockholders? (pg 33)

6. Outside of finance, what other type of businesses have people used to become super-wealthy under neoliberalism? (pg. 34)

7. If the new ultra-wealthy do not “conspire as a class”, where do they have common ground (pg. 36)

Freedom

8. According to Harvey, what are Polyani’s two types of freedom? How are Polanyi’s ideas about how to maintain freedom different from those of neoliberalism? (pg 36-37)

9. According to Harvey, what have 30 years of neoliberal freedoms done? (pg. 38)

Neoliberal State

10. Despite what neoliberalism says about free markets, are financial institutions ever allowed to fail (whole section)?

11. What becomes the “watchword” of neoliberalism with respect to labor markets (pg. 75) What has been the outcome of this for workers? (pg. 76)

12. How does the state produce legislation and policy that advantages corporations (pg. 77)

13. What are the five contradictions of the neoliberal state (p. 79-81)

Neoliberalism on Trial

14. What has been the main substantive achievement of neoliberalism (pg 159)?

15. What is “accumulation by dispossession”? What are its four main features (pg 160-165)?

16. What is the “commodification of everything” and why is it key to neoliberalism? (pg 165-167)

17. How has neoliberalism impacted women (pg 170)

18. What have been some evnironmental impacts of neoliberalism?