Neoliberalism in the context of "Washington Consensus"

Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundaries with the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. Mexico covers 1,972,550 km (761,610 sq mi), and is the thirteenth-largest country in the world by land area. With a population exceeding 130 million, Mexico is the tenth-most populous country in the world and is home to the largest number of native Spanish speakers. Mexico City is the capital and largest city, which ranks among the most populous metropolitan areas in the world.

Human presence in Mexico dates back to at least 8,000 BC. Mesoamerica, considered a cradle of civilization, was home to numerous advanced societies, including the Olmecs, Maya, Zapotecs, Teotihuacan civilization, and Purépecha. Spanish colonization began in 1521 with an alliance that defeated the Aztec Empire, establishing the colony of New Spain with its capital at Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. New Spain became a major center of the transoceanic economy during the Age of Discovery, fueled by silver mining and its position as a hub between Europe and Asia. This gave rise to one of the largest multiracial populations in the world. The Peninsular War led to the 1810–1821 Mexican War of Independence, which ended Peninsular rule and led to the creation of the First Mexican Empire, which quickly collapsed into the short-lived First Mexican Republic. In 1848, Mexico lost nearly half its territory to the American invasion. Liberal reforms set in the Constitution of 1857 led to civil war and French intervention, culminating in the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire under Emperor Maximilian I of Austria, who was overthrown by Republican forces led by Benito Juárez. The late 19th century saw the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, whose modernization policies came at the cost of severe social unrest. The 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution led to the overthrow of Díaz and the adoption of the 1917 Constitution. Mexico experienced rapid industrialization and economic growth in the 1940s–1970s, amidst electoral fraud, the Tlatelolco massacre, and economic crises. The late 20th century saw a shift towards neoliberalism, marked by the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, amidst unrest in Chiapas.

Urban anthropology is a subset of anthropology concerned with issues of urbanization, poverty, urban space, social relations, and neoliberalism. The field has become consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ulf Hannerz quotes a 1960s remark that traditional anthropologists were "a notoriously agoraphobic lot, anti-urban by definition". Various social processes in the Western World as well as in the "Third World" (the latter being the habitual focus of attention of anthropologists) brought the attention of "specialists in 'other cultures'" closer to their homes.

Extractivism is the removal of natural resources particularly for export with minimal processing. This economic model is common throughout the Global South and the Arctic region, but also happens in some sacrifice zones in the Global North in European extractivism. The concept was coined in Portuguese as "extractivismo" in 1996 to describe the for-profit exploitation of forest resources in Brazil.

Many actors are involved in the process of extractivism. These mainly include transnational corporations (TNCs) as the main players, but are not limited to them, because they also include the government and some (chiefly economic) community members. Trends have demonstrated that countries do not often extract their own resources; extraction is often led from abroad. Extractivism is controversial because it exists at the intersection where economic growth and environmental protection meet. This intersection is known as the green economy. Extractivism has evolved in the wake of neo-liberal economic transitions to become a potential avenue for development to occur. This development occurs through stabilizing growth rates and increasing direct foreign investment.

The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, big city machines, racial and religious minorities (especially Jews, Catholics, and African Americans), white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic Party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and wealthy Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and won both the White House and both congressional houses with a mandate, surviving the splits that created two splinter parties.

The coalition made the Democratic Party the majority party nationally for decades. From 1933 to 1968, Democrats only lost control of the White House when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 and was then reelected in 1956 due to his broad popularity. The Democrats typically controlled both Houses of Congress before the 1990s. The coalition began to weaken with the collapse of big city machines after 1940, the steady decline of labor unions after 1970, the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, the turn of northern white ethnics and southern whites toward conservatism on racial issues, and the rise of neoliberalism under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, with its opposition to regulation.

Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike, with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement. In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class, in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.

The foundations of anarcho-syndicalism were laid by the anti-authoritarian faction of the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA) and developed by the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT). Anarcho-syndicalism was constituted as a specific tendency following the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907, which led to anarcho-syndicalism becoming the dominant form of trade union organisation in Europe and Latin America. After facing suppression during the Revolutions of 1917–1923, anarcho-syndicalists established the International Workers' Association (IWA) in 1922. Anarcho-syndicalism reached its apex during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, when the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) established an anarcho-syndicalist economy throughout much of the Spanish Republic. Anarcho-syndicalism went into decline after the defeat of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The movement split into two factions: the "orthodox" faction, which held to traditional syndicalist principles in spite of changing material conditions; and the "revisionist" faction, which aimed to achieve a mass base and work within the framework of newly established welfare states. By the end of the 20th century, the rise of neoliberalism and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc had led to a revival in anarcho-syndicalism, with syndicalist unions once again being established throughout the globe.

Economic liberalization, or economic liberalisation, is the lessening of government regulations and restrictions in an economy in exchange for greater participation by private entities. In politics, the doctrine is associated with classical liberalism and neoliberalism. Liberalization in short is "the removal of controls" to encourage economic development.

Many countries have pursued and followed the path of economic liberalization in the 1980s, 1990s and in the 21st century, with the stated goal of maintaining or increasing their competitiveness as business environments. Liberalization policies may or often include the partial or complete privatization of government institutions and state-owned assets, greater labour market flexibility, lower tax rates for businesses, less restrictions on both domestic and foreign capital, open markets, etc. In support of liberalization, former British prime minister Tony Blair wrote: "Success will go to those companies and countries which are swift to adapt, slow to complain, open and willing to change. The task of modern governments is to ensure that our countries can rise to this challenge."

Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of new trends in economic thinking about the inefficiencies of government regulation, and the risk that regulatory agencies would be controlled by the regulated industry to its benefit, and thereby hurt consumers and the wider economy. Economic regulations were promoted during the Gilded Age, in which progressive reforms were claimed as necessary to limit externalities like corporate abuse, unsafe child labor, monopolization, and pollution, and to mitigate boom and bust cycles. Around the late 1970s, such reforms were deemed burdensome on economic growth and many politicians espousing neoliberalism started promoting deregulation.

The stated rationale for deregulation is often that fewer and simpler regulations will lead to raised levels of competitiveness, therefore higher productivity, more efficiency and lower prices overall. Opposition to deregulation may involve apprehension regarding environmental pollution and environmental quality standards (such as the removal of regulations on hazardous materials), financial uncertainty, and constraining monopolies.

Monetarism is a school of thought in monetary economics that emphasizes the role of policy-makers in controlling the amount of money in circulation. It gained prominence in the 1970s, but was mostly abandoned as a direct guidance to monetary policy during the following decade because of the rise of inflation targeting through movements of the official interest rate.

The monetarist theory states that variations in the money supply have major influences on national output in the short run and on price levels over longer periods. Monetarists assert that the objectives of monetary policy are best met by targeting the growth rate of the money supply rather than by engaging in discretionary monetary policy. Monetarism is commonly associated with neoliberalism.