Generation Bubble

New Word Order: Contemporary Novels and Neoliberal Hegemony

Neoliberal political economy is nothing less that a coming-of-age story, complete with the requisite struggle against parental authority. To the state is born a little bundle of joy, the market, which the state does everything to nurture and protect. After a period of toddling and awkward youth, the market develops into a brilliant, multi-faceted creature. At this point, the state, incapable of appreciating the free-market’s many deep and subtle complexities, becomes more of a hindrance than a help, overweening in its abiding impulse to interfere in its child’s affairs — for the child’s own good, naturally. Against this parental impulse the market asserts its freedom, and eventually wins it. The novel practically writes itself.