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Introduction:

The world has for the last three decades politically been dominated by neo-liberalism. The first head of states advocating the ideology of neo-liberalism were Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain and Ronald Reagan in United States at the beginning of the 1980s, but the real founder of the ideology was Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman became head of the economic department of the university of Chicago in the 1950s. He was funded by the USA government and the car company Ford to secure American investments and interests. Students from all over Latin America were carefully selected to study economics under Milton Friedman. When they finished their studies they returned home and took up influential positions as economic advisers for national governments. The idea was to spread the economic ideology of free market with no limits to profit and without any restriction or regulations of governments.

The key words in neo-liberalism is individual freedom, privatization of basically everything, also areas that are vital for a country and its citizens, like social services, health care, public transport, warfare, prisons, water reserves, land, forests and natural resources in the ground. It also included deregulation of the financial markets making speculation and risky loans with huge interests into big business with profits bigger than ever seen before.

Many countries started to implement neo-liberal policies which meant a change from controlled capitalism with social systems, to a free hunt for profits by making all parts of human life into commodities.

The Monetary Fund and the World Bank became advocates for implementing neo-liberal policies in Africa, Asian and Latin America. Many countries had to apply to the rules of neo-liberalism in order to get loans or aid or to simply not be excluded from trade with the rich countries. Neo-liberalism has made the rich richer and the poor poorer all over the world. Many people in the rich countries have become poor while others have become tremendously rich, but those that have been affected the most are the very poorest in this world. Most of them are living in nations with a much smaller economy than many of the big multinational corporations.

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It is important to understand the mechanisms of neo-liberalism so that we can understand why developments in the poor countries are failing and why many people all over the world is getting poorer. With a better understanding we can become better equipped to act to protect the rights to a decent life for all people, and to take action to create good examples.

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Directive:

<div style="margin-left: 40px;">&nbsp;</div>
 
1. Read &ldquo;What is Neo Liberalism&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Economics of Neo-liberalism&rdquo; 
 
2. Answer the following questions:&nbsp;&nbsp; 
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<div style="margin-left: 40px;">a)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Describe what the basic ideas of Neo-liberalism are. 
 
b)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Write down 5 concrete examples of policies that are implemented in countries that start to follow Neo-liberalism. 
 
c)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What are the arguments for privatizing public assets like mines, water resources, land, public transport, electric companies, etc.? 
 
d)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Consider what you think are the consequence of privatization and give some concrete examples. 
 
e)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What role do the Monetary Fund and the World Bank play in getting countries to adopt Neo-Liberal policies? 
 
f)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Explain how the trade between rich and poor countries are made unfair &ndash; How do the rich countries promote and protect their own production while enforcing poorer countries to remove all forms of public support for production and trade of their own goods? 
 
g)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Explain what deregulation of the financial system means and what consequences this deregulation has had on the global economic crisis in 2008? Who are the losers in this crisis? Explain you answer. 
 
h)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What is the relation between extreme situations, for example after natural disasters, or when a brutal military dictatorship has taken power - and the implementation of Neo-liberal policies? 
 
i)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Investigate via the internet, or by asking people how it is in your country. Have public assets been privatized? What was the circumstance around this privatization and what have been the consequences for normal people? Have there been cuts in the budgets for health, education and public employees? Have trade barriers to protect national productions been lifted to impose &ldquo;Free competition&rdquo;? Are there other policies that have been implemented in the past 15-20 years that you would call Neo-liberal policies? Consider why they were implemented and what affects they have had (positively or negatively), and what the overall outcome has been for the country and its people.</div>
 
3.&nbsp;&nbsp;Make a 30 min. presentation about your own country&rsquo;s experiences with policies of 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Neo-Liberalism. How, why, and when they were implemented, and what it has meant 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;for regular people and the development of the country. Give the presentation to a 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;group of students. 
 
4.&nbsp;&nbsp;Send your presentation, with a short description of who you presented to and how it 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;went, to your teacher for comments.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 
 
FILES:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
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<div style="margin-left: 40px;">F1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What is neo-liberalism. A Brief Definition for Activists by Elizabeth Martinez 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;and Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights 
 
F2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Economics of neo-liberalism.&nbsp;&nbsp;in the Book History Front.</div>

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