Post-neoliberalism tag goes here
Beyond Neoliberalism, beyond dollar-carbon nexus, and beyond US export market dependency
Last week we were both at the Beyond Neoliberalism conference in Cambridge, UK. There were many excellent panels and speakers, with a lot of focus on industrial and financial policy. Tim spoke on a panel with Helen Thompson, Amir Lebdoui and Bill Janeway; excerpts will be published at the conference website, and we recorded interviews with conference attendees including Jayti Ghosh, Marcus Nobre, Ha-Joon Chang and Ilias Alami – stay tuned. This newsletter also has some bits about the dollar-fossil fuel connection, Bolivian developmentalism, an update on US LNG bargaining, and how Europe and Africa might strategically reduce their exposure to US capriciousness.
Lots of discussion on our Discord, as ever, and you can follow us on Bluesky (Tim, Kate) and LinkedIn.
-Kate
Beyond Neoliberalism conference
It would probably be easier to take our collective notes and feed them into an LLM, but I’m determined to do things the hard way, so here’s my synthesis:
Neoliberalism has been largely superseded, but while that’s necessary it is not sufficient. Industrial policy that makes people’s lives better and protects climate and nature is extremely difficult to do. A few reasons for that: it requires delicate coordination; constant adjustment, and sector-specific expertise in state institutions which has been hollowed out over decades. Plus, competing with China which is applying its successful version of state capitalism across more and more products.
A big theme of the conference was: even when all that is achieved, it is hard to sell politically. How do you rally people around developing emerging strategic industries that are unfamiliar, niche or just obscure? Or any economic and social policies that are complex, abstract, and have benefits that are diffuse and slow to manifest?
Finally, and not unrelated to the previous point: a post-neoliberal state that takes a more active role in the economy can be pointed in many directions – many of them not necessarily good (see the proposed Alaskan LNG project, which despite the talk still struggles to be born amid a general glut of LNG and inconvenient distance from its target markets in Asia; US energy secretary Chris Wright has suggested the proponents might be able to benefit from green loans and offtake commitments from the US military).
A Bolivian case study
Although the focus of the conference was largely transatlantic, with a lot of reflection on Bidenomics in particular, there were several presentations of research from elsewhere the world. One panel looked at finance-related tools of policy.
Natalya Naqvi from LSE, described how Bolivia used nationalized finance for developmentalist goals, overcoming external constraints. One of the key findings of her research is that opposition by domestic private financial actors is equally as important as external constraints – something we explored a little in relation to Pakistan in 2023. Where the story of Pakistan is one of plunder by domestic elites, however, Bolivia was able to benefit from rising commodity prices, new inflows of finance amid low interest rates, and domestic popular mobilization – that all supported developmentalist reforms. Those reforms included capping the interest rates of local private banks, taxing commodity exports sufficiently to pay off IMF loans and gain financial autonomy, and eventually shrinking the role of private banks altogether.
Again, there’ll be more of this and other presentations from the conference at the website (where you can sign up for email updates when more is available).
Will US hegemony’s implosion drive decarbonisation or prevent it?
Advait Arun argues in an excellent piece for Heatmap that the dollar-fossil fuel connection is a huge challenge for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Read the whole story, but key points are:
The US is using LNG as a bargaining chip, requiring countries to commit to LNG imports from the US.
There’s a powerful network effect of the US dollar along with other barriers to de-dollarisation.
The US wields another very powerful weapon: it's a very, very big market and it matters for many countries as an export market. This is why the tariffs are such a threat.
Deploying RES is good for Global South countries not just because it is cheaper, but also because it reduces reliance on USD-denominated (fossil fuel) imports and thus improves stability and overall current account.
That means that these LNG commitments (if they come to pass) will be bad in multiple ways:
1. keep in dollar hegemony
2. keep in expensive fossil fuel dependence
3. bad for the climate!
None of this is very reassuring
What should African countries do when the US is so intransigent, deals struck even by more powerful countries such as the UK are sketchy, the President exults in reneging on his prior commitments? China Global South Project argued that they may have to give up on the US. Easier said than done. Deepening alliances and trade relationships with non-US countries seems inevitable, but these adjustments will take time.
Will Brussels step up?
On that note, Shahin Vallee wrote last week that the EU, having wisely taken its time to respond to the Trump tariffs, should pull a compete U-turn on its economic policy towards the US. That includes immediately implementing steel and aluminium tariffs; raising the prospect of export controls on critical goods such as semiconductor lithographic equipment; and activating anti-coercion instruments around sectors such as digital and financial services (Vallee notes the large US large surplus in services with Europe; Trump analysis of trade balances focuses only on goods).
That’s it for this week!