Neoliberalism and Political Economy, 1920s-1980s

FAIN: FA-233312-16

Vanessa Ogle
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA 19104-6205)

A book-length study on the history of economic neoliberalism from the 1920s to the 1980s.

The project charts the emergence of a de-territorialized and unregulated political, legal, and economic order from the 1920s-1970s. Under this regime, tax havens and offshore finance mostly in the Caribbean; unregulated currency/Eurodollar markets emanating from the City of London to the offshore world; and so-called Special Economic Zones in the developing world, formed islands of free-market capitalism in the shadow of national jurisdictions. As the project argues, with the end of Bretton Woods and the turn to neoliberalism in the 1970s and 1980s, unregulated offshore finance, economic zones, and Eurodollars ‘abroad’ became blueprints for expanding unfettered market capitalism ‘at home’ in Europe and North America. The project focuses on the involvement of British, German, US, and French government officials with such policies, as well as the role of select tax haven countries, international organizations, and private business interest groups.