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The Neoliberal Mind: The ideology of the future

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In The Neoliberal Mind, Dr Madsen Pirie makes the first serious, monograph-length attempt to describe what a 'neoliberal' really is – as a description of temperament and political beliefs, not as a political slur. Optimistic, forward-looking, and globalist in outlook, Dr Pirie's neoliberals are people who are excited about the prospect for deeper trade links around the world to lift people out of poverty and for technological advances to solve the problems that face societies around the world. They prefer to draw their ideas from the real world instead of theorising abstractly, and believe that markets above all alternatives have proven themselves to be the best way of promoting innovation and economic efficiency, to drive humanity's prospects forward.

48 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2017

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About the author

Madsen Pirie

60 books26 followers
Born in Hull, Pirie is the son of Douglas Pirie and Eva Madsen. As a child, he attended the Humberstone Foundation School in Old Clee, Lincolnshire.

He graduated with an MA (undergraduate) in History from the University of Edinburgh (1970), with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of St Andrews (1974), and with an MPhil in Land Economy from Pembroke College, Cambridge (1997)

Before co-founding the Adam Smith Institute, Pirie worked for the United States House of Representatives. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the private Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, USA. Pirie was one of three Britons living in the United States who founded the Adam Smith Institute.

The Adam Smith Institute is a UK-based think tank that champions the ideas of free market policy. In January 2010 Foreign Policy and the University of Pennsylvania named the Adam Smith Institute among the top 10 think tanks in the world outside of the US. The Institute is "a pioneer of privatisation" in the UK and elsewhere. It has undertaken policy initiatives aimed at replacing state controls and monopolies with opportunities for competition choice in a broad area. The ASI proposed reforms in taxation, public services, transport and local government. It published Douglas Mason's original paper advocating a poll tax or community charge as it was later called.

His work in helping to develop the Citizen's Charter led to his appointment to the British Prime Minister John Major's Advisory Panel from 1991 to 1995.

Apart from his work with the Adam Smith Institute, Pirie is an author in several fields, including philosophy, economics, and science fiction.

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56 reviews
July 3, 2021
It takes an overly optimistic view of neoliberal thought, reduces the far left to USSR/China branded communism, and tries to market itself as being about "reality" and "accepting of complexities", while not addressing any of the very obvious idealism they engage in by just saying the free market solves most of the problems.
3 reviews
February 5, 2022
This is an excellent read on economics and society. The book is well-written and comprehensive, yet also concise. I highly recommend it.
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