The Disenchantment of Politics: Neoliberalism, Sovereignty and
Economics
The Promise and Paradox of Competition: Markets, Competitive Agency
and Authority
The Liberal Spirit of Economics: Competition, Anti-Trust and the
Chicago Critique of Law
The Violent Threat of Management: Competitiveness, Strategy and the
Audit of Political Decision
Contingent Neoliberalism: Financial Crisis and beyond
Afterword: Critique in and of Neoliberalism
William Davies is a Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of
London, where he is Co-Director of the Political Economy Research
Centre.
He is author of The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big
Business Sold Us Wellbeing (Verso, 2015) and The Limits of
Neoliberalism: Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition
(SAGE, 2014). His writing is available
at www.potlatch.org.uk.
Some books describe the neoliberal project using the neoliberals’
own terms; others promote more profound understanding by bringing
in other intellectual resources. Will Davies is one of the best of
the latter. In this fascinating book he inverts the conventional
neoliberal practice of treating politics as if it were mere
epiphenomenon of market theory, demonstrating that their version of
economics is far better understood as the pursuit of politics by
other means.
*Professor Philip Mirowski*
Writing with clarity and precision and drawing on a rich array of
sources, Will Davies takes the sociological discussion of
neo-liberalism, its past and possible futures, to newer and richer
intellectual realms. A substantial, original, and welcome
contribution to the burgeoning literature on neo-liberal thought
and rule.
*Professor Paul du Gay*
This is a sparkling, original, and provocative analysis of
neoliberalism. It offers a distinctive account of the diverse,
sometimes contradictory, conventions and justifications that lend
authority to the cumulative extension of competitive market
principles and the spirit of competitiveness to all spheres of
social life and that provide it with room for manoeuvre and
reinvention in the face of resistance and crisis. It also
demonstrates the importance of the sovereign authority of the
national state to the spread of neoliberalism and, equally, to
exceptional rescue measures in those states of economic emergency
that only sovereign states can declare. Combining philosophical
reflection, principles of grounded critique, political theory,
intellectual history, the theory of conventions, reflections on law
and economics, and a sociological analysis of competitiveness, this
book breaks new ground, offers new modes of critique, and points to
post-neoliberal futures.
*Professor Bob Jessop*
In a world that seems to lurch from one financial crisis to the
next, this book questions both the sovereignty of markets and the
principles of competition and competitiveness that lie at the heart
of the neoliberal project. This is a brilliant piece of work and is
essential reading for anyone interested in the politics and
economics of contemporary capitalism.
*Professor Nicholas Gane*
Highlights the role of financial experts, management gurus and
other economic and political elites within neo-liberalism’s
post-crisis re-legitimation project. By interviewing US, UK and EC
government officials and advisors, and by studying a series of
relevant policy reports, Davies provides an evidence-based,
conceptually rich and experientially grounded account of how,
as he puts it, ‘the economic critique of the state can be employed
precisely so as to legitimate, empower and expand the state’.
*Stephen Dunne*
With The Limits to Neoliberalism William Davies has made a
substantial contribution to the study of neoliberal doctrine and
policy-making
*Johan Pries*
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