After the Washington Consensus: Rethinking Dominant Paradigms and Questioning ‘One Size Fits All’ Orthodoxies

Abstract

At the conclusion of a G20 meeting in London, organised to consider international responses to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the then British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, famously declared that the Washington Consensus was dead. This was in line with much commentary at the time, suggesting that the entire edifice of neoliberal economic thought — of which the Washington Consensus was emblematic — had been shown to be worthless or even reckless and dangerous, and had brought the entire global financial and economic system to the brink of disaster. Since then, of course, there have been concerted attempts by many with a strong, vested interest in retaining the pre-GFC system. The finance houses of Wall Street and the city of London have been very much to the fore in trying to drag public opinion and policymakers back to ‘business as usual’. Yet, in spite these efforts, it does seem that the old modes of neoliberalism have been seriously wounded, although it is not yet clear whether the damage will prove fatal. At the very least, as Robert Wade (2009) has put it, even if there are strong pressures from powerful elites to return us to the familiar ways of thought and action, it is now more possible to consider some alternative paradigms and policy agendas. The basic problem is that although neoliberal approaches have been roundly attacked, no well-articulated alternatives have so far emerged.