Conclusion

Abstract

A core objective of this book has been to demonstrate that neoliberalism is not really about markets; rather, it is about power. There is an over-emphasis on the role of markets and marketisation more generally in contemporary understandings of neoliberalisation processes. We do not disagree with the many scholars who have pointed to the tendency for the neoliberal project to enhance the power of corporations and economic elites more generally. However, the argument assumes rather consistently that so-called ‘free markets’ are the conduit for such outcomes. We find that this is not accurate enough. For sure, neoliberalisation embodies elements of market principles and marketisation, but regulatory and institutional change along market lines is far from being the only part of the neoliberalisation story. While our research does indeed demonstrate the utilisation of marketisation principles to consolidate and enhance power, we also point to strategies that can be considered to be more or less anti-market in the furthering of the same ends. Examples of the latter are wide-ranging but our analysis has pointed to the state rescue and nationalisation of the banking system, the expansion of intellectual property rights and patents, as well as taxation schemes among others — all of which are profoundly anti-competitive and anti-market but are nevertheless rolled out in support of corporate and economic elites.