This document discusses neo-liberalism as the dominant theory in globalization. It describes neo-liberalism as promoting individual liberty and free markets with limited state intervention. The document outlines key thinkers in neo-liberalism like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. It also discusses how neo-liberal policies were implemented in Chile in the 1970s and then spread globally through organizations like the IMF and World Bank, though with negative consequences like inequality. The document closes by noting the decline of neo-liberalism since the late 1990s financial crises and rise of opposition movements.

1. SOC 451
GLOBALIZATION OF
COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE
Asst. Prof. Fatma Altınbaş Sarıgül

2. NEO-LIBERALISM
• The most important theory in the field of globalization.
• Key factor in the emergence of the global age.
• Neo-Liberalism: Liberal commitment to individual liberty, a
belief in the free market and opposition to state
intervention in it.
• Liberal ideas had to be revitalized and transformed
because of the need to counter the interventionism and
the collectivism that dominated much thinking and many
political systems in the early 20th century.

3. NEO-LIBERALISM
• Neo-Liberalism’s intellectual leaders: Friedrich van Hayek
and Ludwig von Mises.
• An organization devoted to liberal ideas –
the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS)
• MPS members were alarmed by the expansion of the
collectivist socialism ( of the Soviet Union) and the
aggressive intervention by liberal governments in the
market (Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ )
• The famous and influential Chicago economist,
Milton Friedman, played a key role to protect traditional
liberal ideas, to develop neo-liberal theory and to sponsor
their utilization by countries throughout the world.

4. NEO-LIBERALISM
• A key development in the history of neo-liberalism is the
election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile in 1970.
• Allende was a Marxist and an American supported military
coup killed Allende and replaced him with Augusto
Pinochet in 1973.
• Neo-Liberal economists- called Chicago boys- were given
the opportunity to implement Friedman’s neo-liberal ideas
in Chile- ‘Shock Doctrine’.
• Privatization of industry, the deregulation of economy,
reductions in a nation’s spending on social wlefare
programs.

5. NEO-LIBERALISM
• Much of the world came to accept, or was coerced into
accepting, neo-liberalism.
• Major forces: IMF and World Bank.
• Shock therapy, known as structural adjustment.
• In order to receive aid from these organizations, nations
had to restructure their economies and societies in line
with neo-liberal theory.
• Absent was any concern for equity, redistribution, social
issues and the environment.
• The result is reality of inequality, corruption and
environmental degradation.

6. NEO-LIBERALISM
• Neo-liberalism began to collapse in late 1990s-
owith the financial shocks in Mexico in 1994-1998
oAsian financial crisis 0f 1997-1998
oThe collapse of economy in Argentina, 2001.
oThe scandals of Enron and WorldCom
• Different groups- workers, environmentalists, farmers and
peasents, those in poor and less developed nations-
came together in opposition to neo-liberal applications.

7. How is neo-liberalism global?
1. Neo-liberalism become an economic and political
system that characterizes a wide range of societies
throughout the world.
2. It is an idea system that has flowed around the world.
3. IMF, WTO, the World Bank are dominated by neo-liberal
ideas and these were restructuring world nations.
If neo-liberalism is unfavorable what then?
Many sociologists favor a system where limited freedoms
of the market and profit are replaced by a broader set of
freedoms, more open democracy, greater social equality
and greater justice in the economic, political and cultural
realms.