Neoliberal Economic Policy and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism

This edited volume explores and makes explicit the links between neoliberal economic policies and right-wing ideology. The book focuses on the case of the US while situating these trends in the global political economy. The book brings together contributions from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating economics, political science and sociology to examine the connections between the economic precarity generated by neoliberalism and the rise of the far right. The contributors argue that a flawed ideology has left a vacuum in policymakers’ ability to understand the impact of economic policies on human welfare and mental health. These mistakes of historical proportions can be directly linked to the rise of the right-wing populist movement driven by the frustrations associated with the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy. Chapters consider the history of neoliberalism and comparative studies of socio-economic conditions, before addressing specific issues associated with neoliberal policies, such as the demise of unions, the decline in well-paying manufacturing jobs, the gig economy, trickle-down economics, income inequality, the tremendous increase in suicides, and the rise of an oligarchy in America. This book will be of interest to a broad range of readers, including those in politics, economics, sociology, industrial organization and labour studies. John Komlos is Professor Emeritus of Economics and of Economic History, University of Munich. He also taught as a visitor at Harvard, Duke University, University of North Carolina, as well as in Vienna and St. Gallen (Switzerland). Komlos devoted most of his career developing and expanding this research agenda, which culminated in his founding of the field of “Economics and Human Biology” with the journal of the same name in 2003. Through that research program he became a humanistic economist realizing that conventional economics does not reflect well the way the real economy functions. Since the financial crisis of 2008 he has been writing about current economic issues from a humanistic perspective.