Neoliberalism in Antipodean Spaces and Times: An introduction to the special theme issue

It is easy to tell simple stories about the past. The tag 'Keynesian-Fordism', for instance, brings to mind a period of post-war circumstances in the richer nations where the widespread achievements of rising incomes was secured through state management of demand, regimes of regulation and potent redistribution strategies. The present rarely sheds its complexity so readily. Yet, there is an almost irresistible temptation to tag the present, to stylise it, to contrast it with a simplified past and to render it understandable (see Sayer, 1989). Neoloberalism might be such a tag.