Journal Article

A 'new' capitalism?: The state and restructuring

Darryn Snell, Mark Dean, Al Rainnie

2024

Overview

Industrial policy is back on the agenda for many countries after years in the wilderness. COVID-19, the climate crisis, and the emergence of a new cold war - what has been described as the polycrisis (Tooze 2018) - has raised concerns about sovereign industrial capabilities for governments and has contributed to a renewal of the state and its intervention in economic, industrial and regional development. In a recent series of publications (Dean 'et al'. 2021, 2024; Rainnie and Snell 2023, 2024) we have traced the reemergence of industrial policy in Australia, its regional and renewables focus and, crucially, the increasing and fundamental militarisation of that policy. In this article, we examine the re-emergence of the state in the industrial policy and industrial development domain, and what has been broadly defined as the 'new state capitalism' (Alami 2023). While some political economists have suggested 'new state capitalism' has emerged out of global economic and environmental crisis and represents a break with the era of neo-liberalism which began in the 1980s, we suggest that the new state capitalism continues to support many of the key tenets of neo-liberalism which prove challenging for meaningful regional and industrial renewal.

• Publisher: Australian Political Economy Movement
• Subject: Economic policy / Government business enterprises / Industrial policy / Neoliberalism