"...[P]olitics everywhere are now market-driven. It is not just that governments can no longer 'manage' their national economies; to survive in office they must increasingly 'manage' national politics in such a way as to adapt them to the pressures of transnational market forces." Market-driven Politics is an empirical examination of the extent to which politics and policy are conditioned, or even determined, by global economic forces. It is a multi-level study which moves between an analysis of those global forces, through national politics, to the changes occurring week by week in two fields of public life that are both fundamentally important and familiar to everyone - television broadcasting and healthcare. The focus is Britain, but the arguments apply in many other contexts. Public services like health care and broadcasting play an important role, because they affect the legitimacy of the government of the day; in market-driven politics such domains become political flashpoints because they are also targets for global capital. Colin leys agues lucidly that we are witnessing a fundamental shift in the relationship between politics and economics. His original analysis of the key processes of commodification of public services, the conversion of public-service workforces into employees motivated to general profit, and the role of the state in absorbing risk is critically important, not just for an analysis of market-driven politics but also for longer-term defence of democracy and the collective values on which it depends.
"...[P]olitics everywhere are now market-driven. It is not just that governments can no longer 'manage' their national economies; to survive in office they must increasingly 'manage' national politics in such a way as to adapt them to the pressures of transnational market forces." Market-driven Politics is an empirical examination of the extent to which politics and policy are conditioned, or even determined, by global economic forces. It is a multi-level study which moves between an analysis of those global forces, through national politics, to the changes occurring week by week in two fields of public life that are both fundamentally important and familiar to everyone - television broadcasting and healthcare. The focus is Britain, but the arguments apply in many other contexts. Public services like health care and broadcasting play an important role, because they affect the legitimacy of the government of the day; in market-driven politics such domains become political flashpoints because they are also targets for global capital. Colin leys agues lucidly that we are witnessing a fundamental shift in the relationship between politics and economics. His original analysis of the key processes of commodification of public services, the conversion of public-service workforces into employees motivated to general profit, and the role of the state in absorbing risk is critically important, not just for an analysis of market-driven politics but also for longer-term defence of democracy and the collective values on which it depends.
The commodification of public services, and the role of the state in absorbing risk
Colin Leys is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University, Canada. His previous books include Politics in Britain, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory and, with Leo Panitch, The End of Parliamentary Socialism.
... a book of enormous importance. Elegantly written, clearly
structured, and powerfully argued, Market-Driven Politics documents
the dangers inherent in the increasing commodification of public
services and the growing subordination of national policy to global
market forces. Colin Leys has written, at one and the same time, a
powerful introduction to the forces shaping modern UK politics and
a much needed wake-up call to the British Left.
*David Coates*
... a powerful indictment of the invasion of the public sphere by
the market. Closely argued and backed by detailed case studies of
health and the media this book is the most searching examination
yet published of trends that are becoming ever more dominant in our
politics, forcing us to reflect anew on the meaning of the public
interest and how markets can be reconciled with it.
*Andrew Gamble*
In this fine and powerful book, Colin Leys gives an incisive and
compelling account of the ways in which the pressures of the global
market-place are undermining the public domain, and narrowing the
scope of democratic politics in the process. His analysis of the
disastrous effects of market-driven politics on public-service
broadcasting and health care is penetrating, scholarly and
unanswerable. This is a book which no one interested in the
political economy of twenty-first-century Britain can afford to
miss.
*David Marquand*
Neoliberal democracy is arguably the most important political
notion of our age, yet it is one that is very poorly understood.
Colin Leys has come to our rescue with a brilliant and accessible
presentation of the concept, chock full of hard empirical data and
case studies. I strongly urge all who are concerned with the future
of democracy to read this book.
*Robert McChesney*
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