T-shirt for sale at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, USA, 2018
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGESThe Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)
George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison (Allen Lane, £12.99)
THE STORY ARC OF THIS “SECRET history” is that the economist Friedrich Hayek invented an extreme form of capitalism known as neoliberalism in his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom which attracted some “fanatical disciples” who set up some think tanks which attracted some “wealthy backers” who pumped in so much money that the think tanks were able to brainwash politicians into abandoning social democracy, thereby leaving us with the redin-tooth-and-claw, devil-take-the-hindmost, laissez-faire capitalism that enslaves us today.
This is the umpteenth book by the columnist George Monbiot, who has something of an obsession with free-market think tanks, and with my employer, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), in particular. Written with the filmmaker Peter Hutchison, feels like a
