1st Edition

Liberalism, Neoliberalism, Social Democracy Thin Communitarian Perspectives on Political Philosophy and Education

By Mark Olssen Copyright 2010
    296 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    308 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    The Credit Crunch of 2008 has exposed the fallacies of neoliberalism and its thesis of the self-regulating market, which has been ascendant in both economic theory and policy over the last 30 years. In moving beyond neoliberalism, social democratic arguments are once again coming to the fore; however, in the context of the 21st century, they will need to be theorized in relation to new global concerns. This book critically revisits the core theses of liberalism and neoliberalism that have provided philosophical support to free market economics - as enunciated in the writings of liberal political philosophers such as Friedrich von Hayek, Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin - and seeks to expose the deficiencies of their beliefs that became hegemonic from the 1970s until the first decades of the present century. In moving beyond the formulas and mantras of liberalism, the book seeks to re-theorize social democracy and articulate a new vision of the political arrangements needed for the 21st century by reconsidering issues such as liberty, autonomy, social dependence and multiculturalism.

    Part One: The Poverty of Liberalism Restated

    Chapter One: Liberalism and the Enlightenment: The Metaphysic of Reason

    Chapter Two: Reason, Autonomy and Morality

    Chapter Three: The Alternative Conception of Anti-Rationalism: David Hume and Friedrich Hayek.

    Chapter Four: The Thin Community: Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Quentin Skinner and James Tully.

    Part Two: Towards the ‘Thin’ Community.

    Chapter Five: Thinking the Subject of Democracy

    Chapter Six: Democracy and the Good: Foucault and Power Relations

    Chapter Seven: Reasonable Equality

    Chapter Eight: Nietzsche and the Charge of Elitism

    Chapter Nine: The Common Good and Liberal Detractors.

    Chapter Ten: Nussbaum and Foucault on Historicism, Relativism and the Good.

    Chapter Eleven: Freedom and the Foucauldian world.

    Chapter Twelve: Conclusions

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Index

    Biography

    Mark Olssen is Professor of Political Theory and Education at the University of Surrey. He is the author of Michel Foucault: Materialism and Education; co-author of Education Policy: Globalization, Citizenship, Democracy; and co-editor of Futures of Critical Theory.