Globalization, Financialization, and Neoliberalism: The Economic Order of the 1980s to 2010s

Chapter 14 shows how the world economic order has been increasingly shaped by a financialized mode of production since the mid-1970s, accompanied by a trend toward globalization and secured by neoliberal political programs and global economic institutions. The chapter outlines the characteristics and empirical basis of this market-creating order. It develops an understanding of globalization that focuses on its cyclical and political constitution and explains the key concepts of financialization and neoliberalism. It also shows how these trends are not just anchored in the centers of the triad (USA, Western Europe, Japan) but also in the countries of the Global South. The chapter concludes with a description of the erosion tendencies in the hitherto prevailing economic order, in particular increasing financial crises and shaking democratic norms.