Introduction of Part I

Abstract

The first part of this book is devoted to telling the story of the relationship between some of the key institutions, actors, resources and sociologically relevant transformations associated with the rise of the neoliberal age. But because I choose to regard this age as a condition supported by a range of processes, a particular emphasis is placed on the circumstances affecting how individuals live and interact, and how the biophysical environment comes to be reorganized, under its guise. I have identified four central neoliberal processes, each corresponding to a chapter of this first part: financialization, flexibilization, personal responsibilization and privatization. These were selected for their distinctively neoliberal character or, put differently, for their role in entrenching the logic of competition in society, that is, for neoliberalizing it. In the final chapter I tackle the neoliberalization of nature, in an effort to understand how the processes in question have mediated humanity’s relation to the environment.