Why And How Was Neo-Liberalism Able To Establish Itself As The Essay

Why And How Was Neo-Liberalism Able To Establish Itself As The Dominant Paradigm In The 1980s - Essay Example (Tyvela, 2004, p.156) Even Communist China was at the forefront of the global neo-liberal program, making it only a matter of time before other countries joined the system. And this is precisely what had happened in the 1980s and continues to this day. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and the shift in policy framework of several developing countries, the nature and complexion of geo-economics had taken a different form. Major financial institutions such as International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter- American Development Bank were the chief promoters of the neoliberal project. The neoliberal system also possessed some inherently democratic values such as the emphasis on free-trade and offered equal economic opportunity for those who are enterprising. This made it easy for many fledgling and aspiring democratic countries in the developing world to adopt the system. Moreover, the prospect of creating prosperity and the potential for lifting st andards of living convinced politicians to take this approach. Nothing exemplifies the merits of neoliberalism than the recent developments in India and China. Since they started to participate in financial globalization, countries with abundance of cheap labour such as India and China are destined to assume leadership position in coming years. (Foulkes, 2006, p.22)