Bottom-up Development vs Neoliberalism

Recently, prominent scholars have criticized “neoliberalism” for perpetuating a range of social ills, from environmental degradation to inequality, charging thinkers like Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek as architects of this perspective. This lecture will evaluate these claims, and put forward the idea of bottom-up development, where development is understood as a complex phenomenon that requires local participation and institutional experimentation, rather than top-down social engineering. While this gives priority to market institutions, it acknowledges that they cannot be constructed out of thin air.

Additionally, the speaker will also discuss the rise of contemporary proposals for economic planning in the form of the mission-directed entrepreneurial state and industrial policy, and illustrate the negative unintended consequences that may result from pursuing it. He will show that critics of “neoliberalism” throw the baby out with the bathwater and replace it with a worse alternative.

About the speaker:



Dr. Bryan Cheang is the Research Director of the Hayek Program at the London School of Economics. He is also a Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Governance and Society at King’s College London, where he received his PhD in Political Economy. He is interested in the role of the state in development and the challenge of complexity for industrial planning. He recently wrote a companion handbook titled “Institutions and Economic Development”, which emphasizes the importance of liberal ideas and institutions.

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