Neoliberalism Isn’t the Problem. Giant Companies Are.

The outline of contemporary history is already congealing in the minds of historians and historically minded journalists. It goes like this. The “age of neoliberalism” started in the 1970s, found its apostles in Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, was consolidated by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair and collapsed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. That age is now giving way to an “age of big government” in which governments intervene in the economy not only to provide for the poor but also to stimulate economic growth.

You can see this outline in influential works of history such as Gary Gerstle’s The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era and J. Bradford DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia. You can see it in the talking points of global conferences: I recently attended an Aspen Institute Italia Conference in Rome on “the future of capitalism” which stirred much talk of “the decline of the neoliberal order” and “the rise of state activism.” And you can see it all over the place in the media: The arrival of a new Labour government in Britain has been greeted with articles on the return of “Big State Britain.”