Leitura a não perder

David Harvey mostra-nos neste livro, de modo sucinto mas bem documentado, o que o neoliberalismo é, de onde vem e para onde nos levará se não soubermos combatê-lo. No pequeno excerto que se segue encontramos exposta a tese geral do livro:

We can, therefore, interpret neoliberalization either as a utopian project to realize a theoretical design for the reorganization of international capitalism or as a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites. In what follows I shall argue that the second of these objectives has in practice dominated. Neoliberalization has not been very effective in revitalizing global capital accumulation, but it has succeeded remarkably well in restoring, or in some instances (as in Russia and China) creating, the power of an economic elite. The theoretical utopianism of neoliberal argument has, I conclude, primarily worked as a system of justification and legitimation for whatever needed to be done to achieve this goal. The evidence suggests, moreover, that when neoliberal principles clash with the need to restore or sustain elite power, then the principles are either abandoned or become so twisted as to be unrecognizable. This in no way denies the power of ideas to act as a force for historical-geographical change. But it does point to a creative tension between the power of neoliberal ideas and the actual practices of neoliberalization that have transformed how global capitalism has been working over the last three decades.

É interessante que neste texto, como noutros de outros autores, comece a tomar forma a noção cada vez mais inescapável das relações entre as ideologias neoliberal e neoconservadora, bem como a relação entre estas e a etnocídio que está a ser a ocupação do Iraque.