Market-Driven Politics Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest [Paperback]

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 Politicsis 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 everyone…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.“... a book of enormous importance. Elegantly written, clearly structured, and powerfully argued, Market-Driven Politics documents the dangers inherent in the increasing commodification of public services and the growing subordination of national policy to global market forces. Colin Leys has written, at one and the same time, a powerful introduction to the forces shaping modern UK politics and a much needed wake-up call to the British Left.”—David Coates

“... a powerful indictment of the invasion of the public sphere by the market. Closely argued and backed by detailed case studies of health and the media this book is the most searching examination yet published of trends that are becominl&