Political Economy of State Intervention

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Both the exponents and critics of neoliberalism assert the dominance of market forces in western nations. The Political Economy of State Intervention calls this into question. Through a re-examination of state intervention in the USA and Britain over the course of the "long depression" (1970-to date), this book argues that the state has performed an increasingly significant role in conserving capital, propping up an economic and social order that has lost its productive dynamism. The specific forms of capital’s dependency on the state may vary, however the underlying weaknesses of mature western economies have prompted new forms of state intervention narrowly aimed at conserving capital, especially in the wake of the financial crisis. The chapters consider factors which are usually posited as explanations for the long depression such as oil price shocks, domestic conditions and technological innovation. The work argues that the consensus view of neoliberalism has served to underplay the significance of the state’s role in failing to lift this long depression in several ways: it has lent a greater ideological coherence to the policies pursued by successive governments than they dese

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