Market-Driven Politics Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest

by LEYS, COLIN

• ISBN13: 9781859844977
• ISBN10: 1859844979
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-17
• Publisher: Verso

Summary

With the globalisation of the capitalist economy the economic role of national governments is now largely confined to controlling inflation and facilitating home-grown market performance. This represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between politics and economics; it has been particularly marked in Britain, but is relevant to many other contexts. Market-Driven Politics is a multi-level study, moving between an analysis of global economic forces through national politics to the changes occurring week by week in two fields of public life that are both fundamentally important and familiar to everyonehellip;television broadcasting and health care. Public services like these play an important role, because they both affect the legitimacy of the government and are targets for global capital. This book provides an original analysis of the key processes of commodification of public services, the conversion of public-service workforces into employees motivated to generate profit, and the role of the state in absorbing risk. Understanding the dynamics of each of these trends becomes critical not just for the analysis of market-driven politics but also for the longer-term defence of democracy and the collective values on which it depends.

Author Biography

Colin Leys is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University, Canada

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
1. Introduction	1	(7)
2. The global economy and national politics	8	(30)
The formation of a global economy	8	(5)
The new global economy	13	(8)
Global market forces and national policy-making	21	(5)
The options for national governments	26	(3)
Explaining national responses	29	(3)
The case of Britain	32	(3)
The long-run impact of the global economy on national politics	35	(3)
3. British politics in a global economy	38	(43)
British governments and economic globalisation, 1975-2000	40	(5)
Market forces, social structure and ideology	45	(13)
Interlude: the 'Big Bang' and its fallout	58	(11)
Party politics 63 Institutional and constitutional change	69	(5)
The social costs of market-driven politics	74	(2)
Problems of 'third way' politics	76	(3)
Conclusion	79	(2)
4. Markets, commodities and commodification	81	(27)
Real markets and politics	81	(6)
The private lives of commodities	87	(3)
Services as commodities	90	(5)
The specificity of commodities: television	95	(5)
The specificity of commodities: health care	100	(8)
5. Public service television	108	(57)
Public service broadcasting in Britain	110	(2)
The transition to market-driven broadcasting	112	(10)
The television market, 1999-2000	122	(10)
Restructuring	132	(4)
How television became a field of capital accumulation	136	(13)
Commodification and public service television	149	(13)
Conclusion	162	(3)
6. The National Health Service	165	(46)
The National Health Service, 1948-79	166	(1)
The transition to commodified health services	167	(10)
The NHS quasi-market and other health-care markets, 1999-2000	177	(12)
The commodification of health care	189	(12)
Effects	201	(2)
The NHS Plan and the Concordat with the private sector	203	(4)
Global market forces and the NHS	207	(4)
7. Market-driven politics versus the public interest	211	(14)
The argument recapitulated	211	(5)
Is the UK an 'outlier'?	216	(1)
Does it matter that politics are market-driven?	217	(2)
Why has there been so little resistance?	219	(1)
Do public services matter?	220	(2)
On what basis can public services flourish?	222	(2)
Is this relevant?	224	(1)
Notes	225	(42)
Index	267