Review of Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, New York, Verso, 1st edition, 2013, ISBN: 978-1-781-68079-7, 384 pages
By Serban Brebenel. Journal of Philosophical Economics, 2015
429 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Philip Mirowski’s work is an important contribution to the post-2008 crisis economic literature. The book aims to show how Neoliberalism (or the Neoliberal Thought Collective – NTC, as it is referred to here) took over aspects of society beyond the economy and became integrated in everyday societal life, to the degree to which neoliberal thinkers were able to manipulate evidence and realities. One of the great themes of the book is the concept of ‘Russian dolls’. In order to explain how Neoliberalism became so influential, Mirowski introduces the ‘Russian dolls’ as a concept, essentially agents of influence in favor of Neoliberalism that operate at the societal level in the United States, from think-tanks, to politicians to the media. The doll in the very core of this interlocking system is represented by the Mont Pelerin Society, a Neoliberal laboratory of ideas. This innermost doll was subsequently wrapped in a favorable rhetorical campaign aimed to promote Neoliberalism. The theory and ideas were there, the next phase, as Mirowski shows, was to make them acceptable for the masses as a mainstream current. To Mirowski, the acceptance and embrace of Neoliberalism came as a result of its resonance with basic American principles, such as the laissez-faire. Neoliberalism relied on ideas such as promoting entrepreneurship and reduced government to resonate with many of the Americans for whom all these were principles of successful leadership. To the degree to which this was initially an economic current and a public
Subfields: Finance
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Citations in the corpus
- The Handbook of Neoliberalism (2016, background): “Most scholars tend to agree that neoliberalism is broadly defined as the extension of competitive markets into all areas of life, including the economy, politics, and society (see Amable 2011; Bourdieu 1998; Cerny 2008; Crouch 2011; Davies 2014; Dean 2012; Harvey 2005; Mirowski 2013; Mudge 2008; Sty”
- Critical accounting research and neoliberalism (2017, background): “…debt crisis in developed countries, and reforms had begun, many observers noted the incredible resilience of (neo)liberal ideas (see, for example, Mirowski (2013) and Streeck (2014) for recent expressions of this diagnosis, which are themselves embedded in extensive historical narratives, or…”