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Book Reviews 383
Damien Cahill and Martijn Konings
Neoliberalism, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017; 185 pp.: ISBN 9780745695532, $22.95
Reviewed by Dillon Wamsley,
York University, Canada
Perhaps no other concept within critical approaches in the social sciences is as widely
deployed and as vigorously contested as neoliberalism. In their book, Damien Cahill and
Martijn Konings provide a concise overview of neoliberalism’s complex historical under-
pinnings and its theoretical parameters within critical social-scientific literature.
Recognising the limitations of attributing a singular concept to a wide array of variegated
political and economic formations since the late 1970s, the authors nonetheless seek to
illustrate how neoliberalism provides a ‘useful entry point’ that is indispensable for
understanding the distinctiveness of contemporary global capitalism (p. 6).
Cahill and Konings’ book is comprised of six chapters, focusing on salient institu-
tional features of neoliberalism in areas such as finance and welfare, and key political
questions relating to power, democracy and crisis. Many of the most penetrating theo-
retical insights in the book, however, appear in the introduction. Providing a concise
literature review of prevailing theoretical understandings of neoliberalism, Cahill and
Konings offer a synthesis of five approaches: ‘classic’, ideational, institutionalist, Marxist
and Foucauldian. After outlining some of the limitations of these approaches, Cahill and
Konings advance their central arguments. Contrary to ‘classic’ accounts, which portray
neoliberalism as a reversion to market fundamentalism, Cahill and Konings seek to
explain the numerous contradictions between neoliberal theory and practice by pointing
to the ‘constructivist impulse’ that lies at its centre (p. 19). Rather than simply entailing
a process of market dis-embedding, the authors illustrate how neoliberalism has involved
a ‘reflexive engagement with the limits of free markets’, and a conscious attempt to ‘pro-
duce its own legitimacy’ in ways that often directly contradict some of its central ideo-
logical precepts (p. 17). Cahill and Konings also seek to contest common portrayals of
neoliberalism as a crisis-bound political project imposed by intellectual and political
elites from the top-down. Indeed, central to their book is an attempt to explain the
‘unexpected resilience’ of neoliberalism not only in its ‘remarkable ability to bounce
back’ from the crises that it produces, but also in its capacity to ‘organically connect to
sources of popular enthusiasm’ and generate political support (pp. 17, 142). In order to
understand its vitality and dynamism, the authors maintain that neoliberalism ought to
be understood as a product of historical experimentation, compromise and political crea-
tivity, rather than a purely anti-democratic project.
The subsequent chapter provides a deeper analysis of neoliberalism’s origins. As they
outline the historical forces behind neoliberalism, the authors refrain from focusing
exclusively on the elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, a common ten-
dency within both critical and mainstream literature. While noting the significance of
this period, Cahill and Konings argue neoliberalism is a ‘complex and multifaceted polit-
ical phenomenon’, emerging from the post-war period, the structural dependency of
populations on Keynesian capitalism and the ensuing struggles of the 1960s (pp. 26,
384 Capital & Class 43(2)
118). This historically grounded approach enables Cahill and Konings to recognise the
central role played not only by far-right politicians, but also centre-left political figures
such as Jimmy Carter and James Callaghan in experimenting with neoliberal policies.
The authors are also cautious not to insinuate neoliberalism’s historical inevitability.
Indeed, the authors’ contention that neoliberalism was as much ‘the product of experi-
mentation and institutionalized compromises in the context of crisis’ throughout the
1970s as it was the outcome of a clandestine, far-right plan is an important intervention
into neoliberal historiography (p. 35).
The next three chapters of the book trace key political and economic developments
in finance, labour markets and welfare policies, and corporate governance over the past
40 years. Financialisation, they argue, is one of the central characteristics of neoliberal-
ism. In addition to reminding readers of the durability of financialisation, perhaps one
of the most important takeaways from their analysis is their critique of scholarship that
fetishises international high finance to the detriment of national and sub-national insti-
tutions, which are ‘being transformed, from the inside out, on the basis of financial cri-
teria and principles’ (p. 66). As opposed to being overly technical and asocial, Cahill and
Konings explain the ways in which finance has infiltrated into daily life, moulding neo-
liberal subjectivities on the basis of market principles. The restructuring of global labour
markets and welfare provisioning policies also occupy a central position in the authors’
analysis. Drawing attention to the interrelation between flexible labour markets and
residualised social support mechanisms, the authors locate these developments – albeit
with disproportionate attention on the Global North – as part of a class project to reduce
real unit labour costs and stifle working-class power. The shift from welfare to ‘workfare’,
Cahill and Konings maintain, has also been underwritten by a set of racialised and gen-
dered ‘political choices and morally charged discourses’, which have brought neoliberals
and neoconservatives into ‘similar conceptual territory’ (p. 71).
After a brief analysis of transformations in corporate governance and corporate influ-
ence over states, the authors situate their analysis within questions of power, democracy
and crisis. Here, Cahill and Konings briefly situate neoliberalism within capitalism’s
broader historical trajectory. After providing an analysis of the dialectic of formal inclu-
sion and substantive inequality inherent to capitalist democracy, the authors re-assert
their hypothesis of neoliberalism. Acknowledging the gradual erosion of democratic con-
trol over economic and political processes under neoliberalism, they maintain that it is
‘hard to deny that liberal democracy has flourished’ (p. 119). Thus, rather than attribut-
ing the hegemonic ascendance of neoliberalism exclusively to elite machinations, the
authors conclude that scholars, activists and all those ‘who have an interest in unmaking
neoliberalism’ have much to gain from taking seriously its adaptive and resilient features,
which have allowed it to persist to the present day (p. 147).
Neoliberalism brings together an impressive array of literature from a variety of differ-
ent theoretical traditions, distilling many of neoliberalism’s central policies, political
forces and historical features in a concise and readable overview. The authors not only
provide clarity for existing theoretical debates about neoliberalism, but also a strong
defence of its conceptual import, particularly at a time when its usefulness has been dis-
puted (Dunn 2017). Cahill and Konings advance numerous insightful arguments about
neoliberalism, leaving behind much of the hyperbole and ahistoricism within different
popular and academic accounts. Particularly important is their attempt to counter
Book Reviews 385
portrayals of neoliberalism that underestimate its resilience and vitality, and to unpack
the abounding contradictions between neoliberal thought and practice that continues to
dominate contemporary politics.
While the book is an admirable attempt to encapsulate a concept that underpins so
many contemporary political issues, several important dynamics are missing from the
book. For instance, while the authors consider how welfare reform and financialisation
have differentially impacted marginalised populations, a deeper analysis of the ways in
which patterns of accumulation have directly undermined the means of subsistence and
reproduction of different communities is necessary to encapsulate the totality of neolib-
eralism. The authors’ chapter on welfare includes little concrete analysis of the varie-
gated crises of social reproduction generated around the world under neoliberalism and
the longitudinal and gendered effects of austerity and public-sector retrenchment on
care labour and social services, particularly in the post-2008 period. Similarly, while the
authors give a small gesture to acknowledge the significance of prison expansion over
the past 40 years, the possibility that carceral expansion, state violence and expropria-
tion have been central features of neoliberalism (LeBaron & Roberts 2010; Wacquant
2009) remains unexamined. Such considerations ought to figure centrally in contem-
porary theorizations of neoliberalism when border securitization, hyper-incarceration,
the dispossession of Indigenous populations and ongoing migrant crises remain at the
forefront of capitalism’s unfolding political crises. Finally, while Cahill and Konings’
scepticism of neoliberalism as a ‘post-democratic’ project is welcome, the recent global
drift towards authoritarianism – from China, to Turkey, and Brazil, as well as more
recently across the West – may necessitate a more serious engagement with literature
contending that latent authoritarian tendencies under neoliberalism have been signifi-
cantly extended in the post-2008 period (Boffo et al. 2018; Bruff 2014; Tansel 2017).
Cahill and Konings nonetheless provide a critical contribution to current theoretical
and political understandings of neoliberalism, which should be read by everyone inter-
ested in understanding and contesting it.
References
Boffo M, Saad-Fihlo A and Fine B (2018) Neoliberal capitalism: The authoritarian turn. In: Albo
G and Panitch L (eds) A World Turned Upside Down? Socialist Register 2019. London: The
Merlin Press, pp. 247–271.
Bruff I (2014) The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism. Rethinking Marxism 26(1): 118–129.
Dunn B (2017) Against neoliberalism as a concept. Capital & Class 41(3): 435–454.
LeBaron G and Roberts A (2010) Towards a feminist political economy of capitalism and
Carcerality. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society 36(1): 19–44.
Tansel CB (ed.) (2017) States of Discipline: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Contested
Reproduction of Capitalist Order. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Wacquant L (2009) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Author biography
Dillon Wamsley is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics at York University in Toronto,
Canada.
