Neoliberalism 2.0 may lead to greater crises

In the day and age when it seemed to some people that neoliberalism - having led to a widespread financial and economic crisis, followed by the social and political turmoil - had been consigned to where it belongs, that is to the trash bin of history, the economic and political theory is rearing its ugly head again.

Undoubtedly, "new pragmatism" - a novel, unorthodox outline of economic theory and economic policy aiming for triple balance, economic, social and ecological - is an alternative proposal to failing neoliberalism, but there's a long way to go before it prevails. China can contribute a lot to the success of new pragmatism, if it continues its fruitful combination of the power of the invisible hand of the market with the visible hand of the government.

A decade after the outbreak of the devastating global financial crisis, the professional community has no doubts that neoliberalism was its main underlying cause. It is an ideology, school of economics and an economic policy that cynically feeds on such magnificent liberal ideas as freedom, free choice and democracy as well as private property, entrepreneurship and competition, favoring enrichment of a few at the expense of the majority.