{"title":"Melinda Cooper","description":"\u003cp\u003eMelinda Cooper’s work explores the intersections of \u003cem\u003epolitics\u003c\/em\u003e, economics, and social theory with a sharp eye on contemporary transformations. Her insightful studies, such as \u003cem\u003eCounterrevolution\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Asset Economy\u003c\/em\u003e, unravel complex dynamics shaping modern societies, from political shifts to financialisation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders interested in critical analyses of social change and the evolving role of education and policy will find Cooper’s writing both thought-provoking and accessible. Her books illuminate the subtle forces that influence global and local structures alike, making them essential reading in \u003cstrong\u003ePolitics \u0026amp; Current Affairs\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eEducation \u0026amp; Reference\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"counterrevolution-by-melinda-cooper-9781942130932","title":"Counterrevolution","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA thorough investigation of the current combination of austerity and extravagance that characterises government spending and central bank monetary policy.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt the close of the 1970s, government treasuries and central banks took a vow of perpetual self-restraint. To this day, fiscal authorities fret over soaring public debt burdens, while central bankers wring their hands at the slightest sign of rising wages. As the brief reprieve of coronavirus spending made clear, no departure from government austerity will be tolerated without a corresponding act of penance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYet we misunderstand the scope of neoliberal public finance if we assume austerity to be its sole setting. Beyond the zero-sum game of direct claims on state budgets lies a realm of indirect government spending that escapes the naked eye. Capital gains are multiply subsidised by a tax system that reserves its greatest rewards for financial asset holders. And for all its airs of haughty asceticism, the Federal Reserve has become adept at facilitating the inflation of asset values while ruthlessly suppressing wages. Neoliberalism is as extravagant as it is austere, and this paradox needs to be grasped if we are to challenge its core modus operandi.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMelinda Cooper examines the major schools of thought that have shaped neoliberal common sense around public finance. Focusing, in particular, on Virginia school public choice theory and supply-side economics, she shows how these currents produced distinct but ultimately complementary responses to the capitalist crisis of the 1970s. With its intellectual roots in the conservative Southern Democratic tradition, Virginia school public choice theory espoused an austere doctrine of budget balance. The supply-side movement, by contrast, advocated tax cuts without spending restraint and debt issuance without guilt, in an apparent repudiation of austerity. Yet, for all their differences, the two schools converged around the need to rein in the redistributive uses of public spending. Together, they drove a counterrevolution in public finance that deepened the divide between rich and poor and revived the fortunes of dynastic wealth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFar-reaching as the neoliberal counterrevolution has been, Cooper still identifies a counterfactual history of unrealised possibilities in the capitalist crisis of the 1970s. She concludes by inviting us to rethink the concept of revolution and raises the question: Is another politics of extravagance possible?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46848840106220,"sku":"9781942130932","price":57.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13119913482879.jpg?v=1759000530"},{"product_id":"family-values-by-melinda-cooper-9781935408345","title":"Family Values","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn investigation of the roots of the alliance between free-market neoliberals and social conservatives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhy was the discourse of family values so pivotal to the conservative and free-market revolution of the 1980s and why has it continued to exert such a profound influence on American political life? Why have free-market neoliberals so often made common cause with social conservatives on the question of family, despite their differences on all other issues?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eFamily Values\u003c\/em\u003e, Melinda Cooper challenges the idea that neoliberalism privileges atomised individualism over familial solidarities, and contractual freedom over inherited status. Delving into the history of the American poor laws, she shows how the liberal ethos of personal responsibility was always undergirded by a wider imperative of family responsibility. This investment in kinship obligations recurrently facilitated the working relationship between free-market liberals and social conservatives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNeoliberalism, she argues, must be understood as an effort to revive and extend the poor law tradition in the contemporary idiom of household debt. As neoliberal policymakers imposed cuts to health, education, and welfare budgets, they simultaneously identified the family as a wholesale alternative to the twentieth-century welfare state. As responsibility for deficit spending shifted from the state to the household, the private debt obligations of family were defined as foundational to socioeconomic order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDespite their differences, neoliberals and social conservatives were in agreement that the bonds of family needed to be encouraged—and at the limit enforced—as a necessary counterpart to market freedom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn a series of case studies ranging from Bill Clinton's welfare reform to the AIDS epidemic, and from same-sex marriage to the student loan crisis, Cooper explores the key policy contributions made by neoliberal economists and legal theorists. Only by restoring the question of family to its central place in the neoliberal project, she argues, can we make sense of the defining political alliance of our times, that between free-market economics and social conservatism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47430682607852,"sku":"9781935408345","price":64.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781935408345.jpg?v=1774558760"},{"product_id":"the-asset-economy-by-lisa-adkins-9781509543465","title":"The Asset Economy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRising inequality is the defining feature of our age. With the lion’s share of wealth growth going to the top, for a growing percentage of society a middle-class existence is out of reach. What exactly are the economic shifts that have driven the social transformations taking place in Anglo-capitalist societies?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this timely book, \u003cem\u003eThe Asset Economy\u003c\/em\u003e, Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings argue that the rise of the asset economy has produced a new logic of inequality. Several decades of property inflation have seen asset ownership overshadow employment as a determinant of class position. Exploring the impact of generational dynamics in this new class landscape, the book advances an original perspective on a range of phenomena that are widely debated but poorly understood – including the growth of wealth inequalities and precarity, the dynamics of urban property inflation, changes in fiscal and monetary policy, and the predicament of the “millennial” generation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDespite widespread awareness of the harmful effects of Quantitative Easing and similar asset-supporting measures, we appear to have entered an era of policy “lock-in” that is responsible for a growing disconnect between popular expectations and institutional priorities. The resulting polarization underlies many of the volatile dynamics and rapidly shifting alliances that dominate today’s headlines.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47432806367468,"sku":"9781509543465","price":64.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781509543465.jpg?v=1774766402"},{"product_id":"counterrevolution-by-melinda-cooper-9781945861154","title":"Counterrevolution","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCounterrevolution\u003c\/em\u003e by Melinda Cooper offers a thorough investigation of the current combination of austerity and extravagance that characterises government spending and central bank monetary policy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt the close of the 1970s, government treasuries and central banks took a vow of perpetual self-restraint. To this day, fiscal authorities fret over soaring public debt burdens, while central bankers wring their hands at the slightest sign of rising wages. As the brief reprieve of coronavirus spending made clear, no departure from government austerity will be tolerated without a corresponding act of penance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYet we misunderstand the scope of neoliberal public finance if we assume austerity to be its sole setting. Beyond the zero-sum game of direct claims on state budgets lies a realm of indirect government spending that escapes the naked eye. Capital gains are multiply subsidised by a tax system that reserves its greatest rewards for financial asset holders. Despite its airs of haughty asceticism, the Federal Reserve has become adept at facilitating the inflation of asset values while ruthlessly suppressing wages. Neoliberalism is as extravagant as it is austere, and this paradox needs to be grasped if we are to challenge its core modus operandi.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMelinda Cooper examines the major schools of thought that have shaped neoliberal common sense around public finance. Focusing in particular on Virginia school public choice theory and supply-side economics, she shows how these currents produced distinct but ultimately complementary responses to the capitalist crisis of the 1970s. With its intellectual roots in the conservative Southern Democratic tradition, Virginia school public choice theory espoused an austere doctrine of budget balance. The supply-side movement, by contrast, advocated tax cuts without spending restraint and debt issuance without guilt, in an apparent repudiation of austerity. Yet, for all their differences, the two schools converged around the need to rein in the redistributive uses of public spending. Together, they drove a counterrevolution in public finance that deepened the divide between rich and poor and revived the fortunes of dynastic wealth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFar-reaching as the neoliberal counterrevolution has been, Cooper still identifies a counterfactual history of unrealised possibilities in the capitalist crisis of the 1970s. She concludes by inviting us to rethink the concept of revolution and raises the question: Is another politics of extravagance possible?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67708838740204,"sku":"9781945861154","price":46.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781945861154-counterrevolution-1.jpg?v=1791838144"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/melinda-cooper.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}