Market-driven Politics: Neoliberal Democracy and the Public InterestMarket-Driven Politics is a multi-level study, moving between an analysis of global economic 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 everyonetelevision broadcasting and health care. Public services like these play an important role, because they both affect the legitimacy of the government and are targets for global capital. This book provides an original analysis of the key processes of commodification of public services, the conversion of public-service workforces into employees motivated to generate profit, and the role of the state in absorbing risk. Understanding the dynamics of each of these trends becomes critical not just for the analysis of market-driven politics but also for the longer-term defense of democracy and the collective values on which it depends. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The global economy and national politics | 8 |
The new global economy | 13 |
Global market forces and national policymaking | 21 |
The options for national governments | 26 |
Explaining national responses | 29 |
The case of Britain | 32 |
The longrun impact of the global economy on national politics | 35 |
The transition to marketdriven broadcasting | 112 |
The television market 19992000 | 122 |
Restructuring | 132 |
How television became a field of capital accumulation | 136 |
Commodification and public service television | 149 |
Conclusion | 162 |
The National Health Service | 165 |
The National Health Service 194879 | 166 |
British politics in a global economy | 38 |
British governments and economic globalisation 19752000 | 40 |
Market forces social structure and ideology | 45 |
the Big Bang and its fallout | 58 |
Party politics | 63 |
Institutional and constitutional change | 69 |
The social costs of marketdriven politics | 74 |
Problems of third way politics | 76 |
Conclusion | 79 |
Markets commodities and commodification | 81 |
The private lives of commodities | 87 |
Services as commodities | 90 |
television | 95 |
health care | 100 |
Public service television | 108 |
Public service broadcasting in Britain | 110 |
The transition to commodified health services | 167 |
The NHS quasimarket and other health care markets 19992000 | 177 |
The commodification of health care | 189 |
Effects | 201 |
The NHS Plan and the Concordat with the private sector | 203 |
Global market forces and the NHS | 207 |
Marketdriven politics versus the public interest | 211 |
Is the UK an outlier? | 216 |
Does it matter that politics are marketdriven? | 217 |
Why has there been so little resistance? | 219 |
Do public services matter? | 220 |
On what basis can public services flourish? | 222 |
Is this relevant? | 224 |
Notes | 225 |
| 267 | |
Other editions - View all
Market-Driven Politics: Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest Colin Leys Limited preview - 2003 |
Market-Driven Politics: Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest Colin Leys Limited preview - 2020 |
Common terms and phrases
advertising audience Baumol Baumol's Cost Disease BBC's BBC1 become Blair Britain British BSkyB budget capital cent changes channels commercial commodification commodities competition Conservatives corporate cost disease countries culture democracy doctors economic effects election electoral firms for-profit funding Gavyn Davies George Monbiot global economy global market forces globalisation Guardian health authorities health-care homes income increased increasingly industry interest internal investment ITV companies Labour government Labour Party Leo Panitch less licence fee long-term major market-driven politics ment million National Health Service needed neoliberal Network NHS hospitals non-market nurses organisation patients Press pressure private finance initiative private sector privatisation production profits programmes public sector public service broadcasting public service obligations public service television rates regulation revenues satellite share significant social spending staff Thatcher tion TNCs trade union trusts viewers workforce