Reversing Financialization and Restoring Government

Abstract For more than four decades, free market policies and ideology–Neoliberalism, aka, Washington Consensus or Market Fundamentalism–have reshaped the US and global economic system. A naive reading of the virtues of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” resulted in the lifting of constraints imposed during the 1930s on US financial institutions and markets. The decision to embrace neoliberal practices has been politically determined; it is not a natural state. The originator of neoliberal thought, Friedrich von Hayek, reportedly stated that he would prioritize “free markets” over democratic freedoms and human rights (as the ultimate expression of “freedom”).1 We will show that the verdict of these policies has “failed the marketplace test” when viewed from the vantage point of the median wage-earner.