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This chapter begins with a discussion of the roots of economic history. It then turns to the identity crisis faced by economic history today, brought about by the development of a movement founded in the United States at the end of the 1950s known as “new economic history” or “cliometrics.” History is normally expected to improve our understanding of the past. It is probably agreed that what distinguishes good historical research is its capacity to throw light on the workings of societies that differ to varying degrees from our own. However, the aim of cliometrics is not to increase our knowledge of the past. It is to create narratives of the past compatible with neoliberal economics, and often it is a highly ideological exercise to endorse specific worldviews, theories, and policy recommendations.

This chapter begins with a militarized cell from the Chilean Communist Party that tried to kill General Augusto Pinochet, who was known for having participated in the bloody putsch against President Salvador Allende in 1973. It recounts how Pinochet explicitly broke the pact of succession in a military junta, successfully maneuvering to oust the other members of the junta and instituting a series of regulations that made him the dictatorship's strongman. It also mentions the united political opposition that defeated Pinochet in a referendum, forcing a return to democratic rule after seventeen years of dictatorship in October 1988. The chapter explores the association between a political system based on permanent repression and a public philosophy premised on the idea of individual liberty. It argues that the connection between neoliberal economics and less-than-liberal political regimes are a philosophical digression that is rooted in history.

This chapter analyses the connections between Donald Trump and Brexit, particularly the role and nature of globalisation and related economic changes, asking how a socially progressive form of globalisation might respond to the challenges laid down by these two seismic political victories. The results of the UK's referendum on EU membership and the US presidential election in 2016 have caused many commentators to re-evaluate the assumptions of neoliberal globalisation. Trump's election, in particular, poses a challenge not only to neoliberal economics, but also to liberal democratic politics and the rule of law — both domestically and internationally. The chapter then argues for an alternative vision to that of neoliberal globalisation on the one hand, and a resort to reactionary nationalism on the other: a clear commitment to tackle the gross inequalities that have characterised the period of neoliberal globalisation and to work towards socially just forms of global governance.

This chapter presents an alternative theory of human capital. It rejects orthodox accounts based on labor scarcity and the idea that people are in a skills competition. With this in mind, the chapter outlines a different approach built on the starting premise that twenty-first-century economies are characterized by job scarcity. It first considers job scarcity and some of its implications for the development of an alternative theory of human capital. The chapter then looks at why translating human behavior into capital is different from other forms of capital assets and why the foundations of individual economic welfare under market capitalism are inherently insecure. Next, an alternative understanding of the self is presented, after which the chapter recognizes the fundamental inequalities in opportunities to develop individual capabilities. Finally, the chapter highlights the socioeconomic foundations of human capital, rejecting the overarching model of neoliberal economics from which orthodox theory derives.

This chapter presents an interview with Richard Levins. Topics covered include the meaning of Levins' thesis “all science is class science, yet science also finds out real truths about the world”; his belief in the primacy of experience; the role of science and of scientists in this era of neoliberal economics and increasing surveillance of people in the name of “national security”; and the possibility of critical self-reflection.

This chapter argues that the twenty-first century requires humane global governance, well beyond current perspectives usually based on neoliberal economics. Humane global governance would give priority to human concerns and human rights; encompass the Sustainable Development Goals as key objectives; be focused on support for national and international priorities for human rights, poverty reduction, and diminishing extremes of inequalities. Global public goods should be defined and pursued in a humane way, emphasizing human needs in tackling such global threats as the transmission of communicable diseases, extremes of rapid migration, civil conflict, peace and human security—all key elements in human development. Examples are given as to how such approaches have been demonstrated by different UN agencies and how they can be built on for the future.

This chapter demonstrates how transnational legal space mediates the process through which global markets become embedded in politics. Neoliberal economic ideology asserts that markets function most efficiently and productively when states do not interfere in the natural process of their operation, yet the state’s legislative intervention in fact plays a crucial role in constructing markets. There was an obvious political struggle over the legislative functions of the state in regulating the way that corporations could legally both influence the formation of, and participate in, the market that was emerging in Burma. The chapter also examines the discursive argument regarding the constitutionality of the Massachusetts Burma Law, emphasizing how the lawyers of the Commonwealth established a series of transnationalist discourses that opened up a transnational legal space.