Public economics after neoliberalism: A theoreticalhistorical perspective

Abstract Musgravean public economics, as the dominant public policy framework of the post-WWII era, argued that the government can and should supplement the price mechanism in order to create a social order within which a democratic society can flourish. Starting with the late 1970s, this project of public economics has been challenged by the growing dominance of neoliberalism as a form of governmentality that extends the economic logic of markets into the domain of the state and its mode of exercising sovereignty over its subjects. After outlining the historical and the disciplinary context of this challenge, the article maintains that endogenous theoretical confrontations internal to public economics should also be taken into consideration to provide a fuller account of the eclipse of the Musgravean public economics in the era of neoliberalism. Keywords Public economics after neoliberalism: A theoretical-historical perspective Abstract Musgravean public economics, as the dominant public policy framework of the post-WWII era, argued that the government can and should supplement the price mechanism in order to create a social order within which a democratic society can flourish. Starting with the late 1970s, this project of public economics has been challenged by the growing dominance of neoliberalism as a form of governmentality that extends the economic logic of markets into the domain of the state and its mode of exercising sovereignty over its subjects. After outlining the historical and the disciplinary context of this challenge, the article maintains that endogenous theoretical confrontations internal to public economics should also be taken into consideration to provide a fuller account of the eclipse of the Musgravean public economics in the era of neoliberalism

Rethinking Marxism: Valences of Hope in Otherworldly Times

In this essay the new editorial team introduce themselves, acknowledge the theoretical lineages and problematics that the journal has and will continue to explore, and highlight some of the themes that we expect to explore in the coming volumes. The essay provides both an account of the trajectories of capitalism through the last three decades (neoliberal and neocon counterrevolutions; the insurrection of the multitude, or the global crowd in the aftermath of the 2008 crash; and the return of the counterrevolution in the form of reactionary populisms) and an exploration of the political imaginaries of social movements that work against the grain of the processes of capitalist appropriation and dispossessio