Introduction

Abstract

The dramatic transformative impacts of contemporary globalization, and all of its associated baggage on the lives of people worldwide, can hardly escape even the most cursory observer. The outcomes of the ensuing changes are neither smooth nor unilinear; rather, they are dialectical, dynamic, multifaceted, uneven, and sometimes chaotic, pointing in several different directions at once, and occurring at varying speeds and timescales in different parts of the world. And, as one might expect, the past, present, and foreseeable impacts of this transformation have elicited controversial responses that at once grab the analytical attention of both opponents (e.g., Klein 2000; Chomsky 2001; Hoogvelt 2001; Stiglitz 2003; Harvey 2007) and supporters (e.g., Sachs 2005; Norberg 2003; Wolf 2004) alike. At the heart of these controversies lies the ideology of neoliberalism, which seeks to further expand global capital accumulation through free trade, financial deregulation, privatization, and other tenets of the so-called Washington Consensus, spearheaded by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO), and kindred organizations (Harvey 2007; De Rivero 2001).