Against marketization: how capitalist exchange subverts democracy and disciplines workers

How do markets function? Who creates, shapes and organizes them? And what do they mean for the relationship between labor and capital?

Drawing on dozens of conversations with policymakers, administrators, businesses, workers, and trade unionists across many European countries, the authors unpack marketization. They go beyond liberal theories that see markets as natural forms of economic organization and broad-brush left critiques of neoliberalism. They look behind the scenes in the current European political economy, examining the practicalities of how markets are created and manipulated by employers, policymakers and bureaucrats in pursuit of greater profitability. Far from leading to greater freedom, these processes often override the rights of individuals, degrade the status and security of workers, and undermine democratic accountability.

Against Marketization examines how the state and capital use markets to discipline the working class. Greer and Umney work from the top to the bottom of the European political economy, from the European Commission to the workplace, to show how neoliberal principles translate into market mechanisms and reshape the lives of workers.