This is what Russell Brand wants to talk about - The Rise of Neo-liberalism!

The rise of neo liberalism has been accompanied by the near total obliteration of the left. Since its adoption by the Chilean, US and UK government’s, neo-liberalism in some form has become the dominant mode of political thinking across the planet. 

The theory of Neo-liberalism has its origins in the writings and ideas of a energetic bunch of economists, philosophers and academics led by the Austrian political philosopher Friedrich Von Hayek and including notable economist Milton Friedman. The group took the name the Mont Pelerin Society in the late 1940's after the Swiss spa at which they regularly met. Those that gathered into the society styled themselves as radical liberals with the professed goal of defending human dignity and freedom. The ideas of the neo-liberals as they termed themselves also gained currency in the 50's at the University of Chicago where Friedman dominated the economics department. This led to neo-liberals being dubbed the Chicago school. The term neo-liberal was coined by the Mont Pelerin Society as a symbol of their commitment to the principles of the free market as defined by the economics of neo-classicism. The neo-liberals set themselves a theoretical mission of debunking ideas regarding state intervention and state planning as had been argued by Keynes. In the beginning neo-liberalism was a marginal philosophy that no one took seriously. After the war the dominant model of economics was the Keynesian model that placed emphasis on the state regulating and guiding the economy. Hayek, Friedman and the neo-liberals vehemently rejected the idea of state planning. Like Adam Smith they glorified the notion of the invisible hand as a regulator of human natures propensity for greed. Although the ideas of neo-liberalism began as obscure Hayek was committed to waging a war of ideas that would take a generation to reach the ears of those pulling the levers of power but would eventually displace the theories of Keynesians regarding state planning and intervention. In the 1970's neo-liberalism began to gain currency outside of the narrow academic circles that it had previously occupied. In 1974 Hayek was awarded the Nobel peace prize in economics followed by Friedman in 1976. This instigated a greater interest in the ideas of neo-liberalism by policy departments around the world. 

The University of Chicago had been training Chilean economists in the principles of neo-liberalism as a cold war tactic and in the late 70's after the military coup led by right wing dictator Augusto Pinochet the Chicago boys were called in to develop the economic policies of the Chilean government. More significantly in 1979 the UK government led by newly elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher adopted the ideas of Hayek. As David Harvey has written of Thatcher 'She recognised that this meant nothing short of a revolution in fiscal and social policies' and went ahead in deconstructing the social democratic policies that had dominated the UK politics since immediately after the war. Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping and Ronald Reagan in the US followed Thatcher in 1980.

In the early eighties the neo-liberal idea had become dominant in the US and formed the ideology of the 'Washington consensus', it began to dominate supra-national institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation. These supra-national organisations used their power to spread neo-liberalism further a field restructuring economies and creating free trade blocs. Neo-liberalism was thwarted in its quest for world domination during the eighties by the existence of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe. In the 1990's after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communist economies neo-liberalism was given free reign all over the globe instigating the process now referred to as globalisation. The driving force behind the globalisation of neo-liberalism has been  supranational institutions such as the G8, World Trade Organisation, the IMF and the World Bank. These institutions have pushed neo-liberalism through loan conditions  forcing states to accept structural adjustment programme's through which their economies were restructured to fit the neo-liberal model. Limiting public services, opening up markets to foreign capital and commodities, relaxing labour laws and considerably undermining the national sovereignty of developing countries and increasing inequality.

The 2000’s saw neo-liberalism arrive as the single most dominant political ideology across the globe unchallenged by any other model of political economy. In the last 50 years we have observed neo-liberalism rise from obscurity to hegemony; from a set of theoretical ideas to a hegemonic political project. Bearing this in mind we must think of neo-liberalism as more than an economic theory but a hegemonic project that aims to 'change the soul' of humanity to serve the interests of those that make up the elite. Neo-liberalism is a set of ideas about what the human should be, how they should live and the values that should guide human life.

Unlike traditional liberal economics, that is an idea about the nature of the human, neo-liberalism aims to transform the human through the state. Their views on the human do not constitute a state of nature theory but a vision of what the human should be. Neo-liberalism holds that the most important human value is freedom. For neo-liberalism the culprit of evil is the state. The interference of the state in the affairs of the individual has led to an infringement of the rights of the individual, limiting the human’s ability to flourish. The central belief animating neo-liberalism is the belief in private property and the competitive market. For neo-liberals private property is a fundamental human right. State intervention in the market, they argue, is tainted by the political biases of powerful political bases and interest groups that lobby the state. State decisions on economic issues only lead to tyranny of the majority and inadequate economic decisions that can only be remedied by the signals produced in the market.

Neo-liberalism promotes the freeing of markets from state control and the opening of national markets to global capital and commodities. This includes the reduction of tariffs that protect the national sales of agricultural products. It argues in favour of the dismantling of the welfare state and social provision rejecting the notion of society in favour of the rational, acquisitive individual in pursuit of their self-interest. Private property and the privatisation of state owned utilities such as water, telecommunications and electricity are key policies in the neo-liberal project. It envisions all human activities as being able to fit into the model of the market. Public institutions such as universities and prisons, social welfare provisions like education and healthcare and even war are not seen as off limits from privatisation.  Seeds, genetic materials and cultural, historical forms can all be turned into the private property of individuals. The legal framework of neo-liberalism views the corporation as an individual so the freedom to acquire property is extended beyond the private property of a human entity to the legal entity of an incorporated company. Hence companies have the same rights as human beings to draw limitless natural, intellectual and human resources into their private ownership. In short neo-liberalism aims towards the commodification of everything including the building blocks of life itself. It aims to turn society into one big market made up of consumers free to choose what they buy or to expropriate the common wealth of humanity into their private possession.    

Neo-liberalism is a celebration of the individual over the community. The freedom of the individual to take part in free enterprise even at the expense of the communities and the social world that allows enterprise to flourish.

As David Harvey has pointed out neo-liberalism has constituted a redistribution of the wealth from the public to the rich. What we have witnessed with neo-liberalism is a reconstitution of class power. Although the power may not have been distributed to the old elites it has created a new elite made up of CEO's and high flying bankers. The privatisation of public resources has resulted in the expropriation of the common and institutions built on the taxpayer’s money into private hands.

Neo-liberalism has transferred power from the public realm to corporations, gigantic financial institutions and supra-national organisations seriously weakening the state and undermining democracy. In the neo-liberal utopia un-elected leaders committed to the financial bottom line run our democracies. Governments find themselves indebted to supra-national organisations and held to ransom by finance capital; political parties go in search of rich donors to fund campaigns and keep their parties afloat in exchange for political favours whilst voters drift away from the polls and civil society, and inequality grows.