The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism - Professor Colin Crouch

Prof Colin Crouch, Governance & Public Management Fellow, Warwick Business School, talks at The University of Warwick's Critical Governance conference about his forthcoming book 'The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism'.

[@david8157]

The notions that price and the maximisation of personal gain inherently serve the general good are fundamentally inadequate. Certainly they have a limited applicability in the microeconomic and personal domains; but the general good extends far beyond the personal gain of individuals and requires a different set of principles and procedures.
The general good requires democracy and representation and government; what we call the public sector. The market must be subservient to the public sector if it is to truly serve the general good.
The problem today is the ascendancy of market ideology; and the notion that it is an adequate basis for social organisation and the general good; and the belief that the function of government is to organise society for the benefit of the private individuals who dominate the market.

[@benanderson6108]

The funny thing is, all the rich have to do is institute a floor below which nobody in society drops. Free healthcare, housing, food, transportation. Then you're done. Become as rich as you want, I don't care. But they're too greedy for even this. Well, we'll burn them down in a few decades then, their loss.

[@lesleymartin7552]

Although Professor Crouch doesn't structure his delivery terribly well and we do need to work at listening, his points really hit home: the profoundly anti-democratic form of "governance" enacted by big corporations; the unspoken background of what goes on in sub-contracting public services; the challenge to taken-for-granted notions of what "the market" actually constitutes. It would be interesting to review his commentary on CSR as primarily a PR strategy now in 2023 where "responsible business", the triple bottom line, stakeholder capitalism etc. are, theoretically at least, in the ascendancy. His argument that corporate scandals end up turning into party political spats which allow corporations to escape the finger of blame, do seem all too relevant today. Meanwhile the Professor's argument about the blurring of state/market/corporation boundaries are surely convincing, even in the face of the persistent notion of a private/public divide. It would have been useful for the talk to have concluded by returning to the theme of the book: the strange "non-death" of neoliberalism.

[@malamati007]

Crouch isn't good as a speaker. He dithers, and doesn't use any visuals or speak from an organized outline, so is both vague and 'circular', talking around his points so much that you have a hard time getting what those points are. You have to go to his books for his ideas.

[@lesleymartin7552]

Yes and it's a shame as the topic is super-interesting, the talk is somewhat wrecked by persistent coughing too