What are neoliberal lives? This trans-disciplinary book investigates the forty-year war by the American business class to restore its power and profits, revealing the devastating implications for human development and dignity.

List of figures and tables1 Neoliberalism: a politics for yacht owners2 Neoliberal work and incomes: nice for some3 Every last molecule on earth: neoliberalism’s “nature” 4 Neoliberal health: US exceptionalism5 Education: public good or finishing school?6 Politics: a threadbare democracy7 President Trump: the end of neoliberalism?8 ConclusionIndex

Life in America has been transformed over the past forty years, as capitalist logic has expanded into previously protected spheres. This expansion has had devastating effects on the potential for human development.Neoliberal Lives argues that what appear today as fragmented social, economic, environmental, and political problems are all manifestations of neoliberalism -- a class-based political project to more favourably position capital in its struggle to preserve the conditions for profitability. It examines how US business has successfully increased control over, privatized or commodified labour, welfare, education, democracy and the natural world, with devastating effects on our individual and collective potential, determining our life chances in very real ways.This is a manifesto to free that potential from the increasingly cramped quarters to which neoliberalism has confined it.

‘A worthwhile and timely book which seeks to offer an analysis of the limits and the limitations of neoliberalism both in terms of those areas of social life that have not been (fully) neoliberalised, and in terms of how neoliberalism can be limited by government policy, social practices, and social action. It contributes greatly to our understanding of neoliberalism, offers new insights, and includes a wealth of contributions across important fields.’ -- Wolfgang Streeck, Max Planck Institute