Neoliberalism

This issue of the international edition of Wenhua Zongheng (文化纵横) examines how the Global South can build a New Development Theory grounded in its own practice.

The neoliberal order has failed to deliver prosperity to the Global South. To achieve economic catch-up, a new theory of modernisation is needed, centred on state-led industrialisation, production, and employment.

Since the 1990s, an invisible intellectual architecture has shaped what counts as legitimate economic thought, narrowing debate until it seems like there are no alternatives. Reversing this brain capture is an urgent task.

As a declining imperialist system lashes out to preserve its declining order, working-class organisation becomes not only necessary for the oppressed of the world but indispensable to human survival.

In recent years, the Latin American far right has launched a crusade against the rights of women and sex-gender dissidents, hoping to crush some of the region’s most active opposition to neoliberalism.

The global number of migrants has nearly doubled in the past thirty-five years, underscoring rising inequality and the imposed underdevelopment of the Global South.

India’s liberalisation beginning in the 1990s has led to a steady decline in manufacturing. To reverse this trend and expand productive employment, industrial policy must address structural issues of dependence and inequality.

India’s neoliberal turn since the 1990s has accelerated deindustrialisation; as the global order shifts, the country’s left must seize any openings to push for autonomous national development.

This issue of Wenhua Zongheng (文化纵横) analyzes the impact of Donald Trump’s return on the global order and the emergence of a multipolar world.

Since 2018, Mexico’s National Regeneration Movement (Morena) has sought to roll back neoliberalism and democratise the country. Though the ideological battle has advanced, economic transformation continues to lag behind.

The passivity – and complicity – of Global North liberals and social democrats has paved the way for the global rise of the far right of a special type.

Xiong Jie reviews Lu Xinyu’s influential analysis of the agrarian question and rural modernisation in China, highlighting debates between neoliberal and socialist approaches within contemporary Chinese thought.