YouTube Instagram TikTok How it works FAQ

The fastest way to turn talking videos into clean, searchable text. Free, private and no account required.

About

Built by Rishav Raj with one goal: free transcripts for everyone.

rishav@yttotranscript.com

Transcribe

YouTube to text
YouTube with timestamps
Instagram Reels
TikTok videos

Learn

How it works
FAQ
YouTube transcripts guide

More

Chrome extension
Contact
Privacy policy
Terms of service

© 2026 YTtoTranscript. Made for creators & researchers.

Not affiliated with YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. Respect creators’ copyright.

Clase Harvey - Breve historia del neoliberalismo — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

Home/Transcripts/YouTube

YouTube Transcript

Clase Harvey - Breve historia del neoliberalismo

Heterocronías Feminismos y Epistemologías del Sur · 4,707 words · 24 min read · EN

Watch on YouTube

Share X LinkedIn WhatsApp

Below is the complete, readable transcript of Clase Harvey - Breve historia del neoliberalismo by Heterocronías Feminismos y Epistemologías del Sur on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

Hello, how are you? I hope you are well. Today I moved to the table since my throat isn't doing very well. We'll be talking about neoliberalism, and again, in this case, Harvey's text. [Music] I think we can understand that Harvey's text, or rather both texts, the two parts, can be divided into three points, three main aspects.

First, what were the socioeconomic and political processes that enabled and created the conditions in which neoliberal capitalism emerged? A second aspect would be the specific way in which it was implemented, what measures were taken again in political and economic terms to generate this macro system. And a third aspect would be the specific

ideological work that was carried out, the formation of common sense that allowed most people not only to allow this to be established but even to think it was good. Jarvis goes back to what would be the period after the world wars. In some ways, the world wars had been very damaging for all

nations. Organizations with a scope that was not only international but practically global began to emerge, articulating relations between these countries. Harvey mentions the Proton and Woods agreements, which are important because of their economic implications. These included the establishment of the dollar as a universal currency, initially backed by gold. Then, with the gold crisis, the transition to a

directly fiat economy occurred, where the dollar directly replaced gold; there was no longer direct gold backing. And, of course, the UN, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund were also created. All these organizations, in a way, generated a political climate, shaping what would become globalization—a global political climate. On the other hand, with the

Transcribe another video

Paste any YouTube, Instagram or TikTok link to get a free transcript.

Free · No sign-up · Unlimited

Add to Chrome — transcribe in one click

establishment of the dollar as a fixed exchange currency, the economic aspect was also created; it was no longer so localized. We were now talking about a kind of globalization of the economy in this postwar climate, with a working class severely impacted, of course, by the consequences of the world wars, which Harvey describes as being formed.

This class compromise, this class compromise, between capital and labor, involved accepting state restrictions on the economy. There wouldn't be a market at that point; these are the Keynesian policies I discussed in the previous video. You can review it; I'm not going to go over the things I said in the last video. So,

this class compromise was formed in which the market accepted a whole series of restrictions aimed at protecting the lower classes, the working class. This, to a certain extent, harmed us, but it was something that had to be accepted to maintain some kind of social order. This social compromise that Harvey refers to, this logic, this

Keynesian policy, is what Jarvis calls " bridled liberalism." A bridle, like the ones put on horses when riding them, to control them. I think the image is quite clear: obstacles are put in the way. He attributes this to the free market, which ceases to be so free so that it serves everyone. The capitalist bourgeoisie benefits

because it has a workforce and a group of consumers. content and moderately orderly, and in turn there is a whole series of laws and protections for all social groups. Harvey later clarifies that ultimately the neoliberal project consists of sowing that market, removing the restrictions that the state had imposed on it, and power—not that it is

lost—and giving free rein to capital. Now, there are some things worth pointing out. Regarding these Keynesian policies, there are at least two ways of seeing them, from the left and the right, and a great dispute that somehow extends to our days. The point is, what would be the Marxist or communist affiliation of this

political and economic logic? From the left, it is said, and it is said, that ultimately it is a lukewarm policy that does not solve the underlying problem of capitalism. In fact, what it does is somehow appear as a kind of good, protective capitalism, but one that never manages to change things at their root. What

we see in Harvey's text is that it can also be read that this reined-in capitalism, this bridled liberalism, prevented the establishment of one of the globalization of Communism, with its epicenters in the Soviet Union and eventually in Cuba with the Cuban Revolution, isn't discussed much. It's surprising I did n't mention the Soviet Union, Harvey, but for today,

let's leave it at that. It's worth reviewing a few things, and from the right, this is questioned. Today, it's clearer than ever that any state intervention is considered communist or socialist. That is, Keynesianism, from these contemporary right-wing perspectives—and there were already some detractors back then, at the beginning of the 20th century—is seen as a kind

of communism/socialism, something lurking in the background, reaching into people's pockets, and that would be negative for a while. Or perhaps this worked, and indeed, it was implemented, especially in the 1950s and 60s in the US and a couple of other countries. In others, it didn't work as well, but growth did occur. This

state intervention, this public spending, the protections on the one hand, and the injection of capital during times of financial depression seemed to yield good results. Eventually, this ended. Harvey argues that there were already signs of this crisis as early as the 1960s; they appeared simultaneously. Economic stagnation due to unemployment and inflation led to

what was termed stagflation at the time. This restrained liberalism, these Keynesian policies, struggled to deal with these phenomena simultaneously. One measure risks harming the other; another might favor either stagnation or inflation but harm the other. This resulted in a sense of, to use a redundant phrase, economic stagnation. In the early 1970s, an

oil crisis occurred due to the war, and a gold crisis because the US stopped backing its dollar, its currency, with gold, making it a fiat currency. This whole situation marked the crisis of the system that had yielded such good results up to that point. As Harvey presents it, there were two main options that

corresponded precisely to the two poles we see in this restrained liberalism: a more left-leaning, social-democratic position that, according to Harvey, gained support throughout Europe, or in various European countries. The most important of the powers, and also in some incipient way in the United States, was to shine even brighter by giving greater state control over economic policies in order to

favor larger groups. The other was precisely that of liberalism. Javi tells us that at first it seemed that the left-wing policies, those that aimed for centralized control of the state economy with strong government intervention, seemed like they were going to prevail, but the left was somehow unable to go beyond the solutions that had been

attempted in one way or another; it didn't know how to reinvent itself or wasn't brave enough to propose something new. It is striking that at this point in the particular garden he doesn't refer to the Soviet Union because in some way it was the benchmark in terms of economic and political power that had embraced some form

of communism, and the communist ideas and policies implemented in the Soviet Union were very divisive. There were many parties and intellectuals who declared themselves admirers of the Soviet Union, who considered it a model to follow, and on the other hand it had many detractors, not only from the right but also within the

For better or for worse, one can trace that the left has almost always been very divided and fragmented throughout history, something the right has always known how to exploit very well. Harvey points out that this rise of socialist ideas, or rather, the emergence of groups demanding strong state intervention, generated understandable nervousness among

the world's elites. It was as if they were saying, "The night is coming for us. We could lose everything we have if the left, or our ideas of strong state intervention, gain ground. If economic policies change, it means we're going to lose our place of power." And that's when they start to act.

Here, I think it's necessary to make a clarification: when we think of this in terms of conspiracies or political, military, and economic actions by the elite, we should n't think of it as a group of people like the Illuminati or the Freemasons sitting around a table with a lantern illuminating the middle, all of them in suits with

darkened faces, plotting plans that could last 50 or 100 years. They are rather intelligent, astute actors with the help of large amounts of capital to carry out... Their actions involve intellectuals, and Harvey also talks about the formation of think tanks, research groups, and other groups that provide guidelines, advice, and readings on the

specific social context. This allows them to make small and large decisions. But I say, there's no need to think of it in terms of grand plans that take decades or hundreds of years to bear fruit. In fact, I find all these conspiracies about the New World Order, reptilians, or flat- Earthism a bit amusing, not because they're so

ridiculous—well, that's precisely why they're ridiculous—but my point is this: the conspiracy, all these Machiavellian plans, have already taken place. We've already lost the world; we've lost access to so much capital, and it's so restricted; so few people have it. In general, we also lack the power to act in a democratic government. So, whether they

deceived us into thinking the world is flat or not, or whether these people are reptilians, it doesn't really matter much. I mean, I would be willing—no, I don't discriminate against them—it bothers me that reptilians govern me. Or do I forgive them for... They lied about the Earth being spherical and not actually flat, but

we report the pie. I mean, why do we waste time thinking about conspiracies that, even if they're real, don't affect us at all? When the coup has somehow already happened, they have the power. Faced with that, it doesn't matter who it is. Instead of revealing conspiracies, we could generate movements or processes to recover

all that lost capital, all those rights that we have somehow relinquished to these elites. And this is when these global elites began to act. As you will see throughout Harvey's work, he indicates that there are two main ways to convince or work with the population: one is the stick, the other is the carrot,

like with animals. And when they used the stick, they hit hard. The coups in Argentina and Chile were part of a first advance on strategic territories that could have been co-opted by the red menace, places that could have converted to socialism. So, strategically, they attacked those points. The support of the US, for example, for the

military coups in Chile and Argentina is not, let's say, a conspiracy theory. You can look it up, it's well-documented. If you're interested in a slightly more mobilized perspective, of course, Isabel Allende's *The House of the Spirits* comes to mind. The novel, and for those who are a bit lazier, there's also the film. It explains a bit about

the spirit of Chile at that time and how the military coup against Allende unfolded. At this point, Harvey points out that we can view this neoliberal project in two ways: from a utopian perspective or a more cynical one, as a strictly political project. Topically, it could be described, in a somewhat more romantic and

positive way, as the implementation of a system that revitalizes capitalism and makes it function more efficiently. That's what some capitalists might say. Harvey's view is much more negative. He says it was a political project of class restoration, something organized and executed by the elites to maintain or regain their power. He also explains that there are indications that they

were losing it, both in terms of gross capital in comparison. To the lower classes, as well as because of the socialist threat I already described of radical modification of the economic logic, Harvey, although he says it more elegantly, considers quite simply that the entire utopian proposal of neoliberal capitalism is just talk, it's

marketing that served its purpose when implementing the policies and economic logics that suited these sectors, and when in fact they didn't work in terms of economic reactivation or distribution, this slogan was repeated in some way, becoming a mantra to justify those economically inefficient measures that would benefit everyone but were very positive for that sector that

always benefited, that sector that always came out on top. The author asks at this point what this class was that we are talking about, what this class is that was somehow favored, or even why this whole neoliberal process exists. Well, and he makes some clarifications: it is always difficult to talk about what

a social class is, it often depends on the context. He clarified that in the US supposedly it means nothing; you will see throughout his intellectual development that the right is always hostile to the definition of Class, because it implies talking about a kind of divide that the right wing doesn't like to contemplate. They

prefer to think of it as if we're all in the same boat, even though some have more than others. But the right wing doesn't like to talk about class. Harvey is willing to admit that even if it was a class restoration project, this doesn't mean that the same people who somehow initiated that process were the ones who

ultimately benefited the most. The implementation of all these economic measures had some unforeseen consequences, and he analyzes the cases—we'll see this later— of the US and the UK. For what interests us, to put it simply, what happens is that the economy becomes increasingly financialized. He describes a process whereby the children of the

presidents of companies and corporations begin to acquire shares, and simultaneously a process of financial speculation begins in which net production no longer necessarily indicates the value of your company; rather, a whole host of other values begin to be considered. The actions involved in the financial transactions that were made generated precisely this change, which we will only see later. It was

n't just the landowners, for example, the remnants of the British nobility, who benefited the most, becoming these businessmen, with, of course, the top of the pyramid: the presidents who owned many shares and therefore wielded considerable power over the company. Ultimately, these formed the classes that benefited the most. If I may continue making recommendations, the

film Wall Street, with Martin Sheen and the other actor whose name escapes me right now ( but I'll include a picture), describes this process quite well. One of the main characters says that he doesn't produce anything, that financial speculation allows him to become rich without having actually done anything, simply by paying attention to

stock market movements and knowing when to buy and when to sell. This financialization of everything, as I was saying, created the possibility for new approaches and new technologies to be implemented and generated by those who owned the companies. They would generate and transfer immense capital very quickly. Let's look at the case, for

example, of Bill Gates. Gates, all the telecommunications magnates— this figure is the one they tend to sell us as geniuses. In a way, everything they obtained was because they deserved it; they knew how to create something new, they knew how to sell it, and with this, they amassed enormous capital. Artists and intellectuals

realized quite quickly this process by which companies were gaining so much power, and one can see it in different cultural products throughout the 80s. Films like Blade Runner or Robocop, for example, show these terrifying corporate figures who somehow take over everything, and government figures are pawns in the face of them. Even Back to the Future Part II, in some

scenes, manifests everything that was eventually called the Saberpunk movement in fiction, which showed relatively near futures in which technology in the hands of companies had not benefited us, as was the science fiction prior to Ximo, for example. Saber had not benefited humanity but had served as instruments to enslave and exploit us, more precisely under the

idea that we are going to get to that of freedom. The novel that is considered to have started this whole movement is Neuromancer. Somehow this genre has reached our time with anime, with the Austin anime series, the 3-Carbon series, which has some elements of transhumance, many ideas that are there, and video games

like Echando Ground, soon to be released for 2077. Well, enough of that, we 're not historians or economists. What matters to us is the carrot. At this point, Harvey talks about the generation of common sense, that is, what appears to the average person as obvious. And this was the mechanism that the elites used to seize

power, to implement all these measures in a democracy, because it was possible to carry out coups in Third World countries, but not in America, because it's the land of the free. Again, let's forget about the issue of freedom. So, power is exercised here. We can think of it as a focus on the bourgeoisie.

Relate it to that. We don't have Bourdieu, but we do have a focus on the program, so start making connections. Think about all of this we're talking about in Foucauldian terms. Through the implementation of this, the generation of this common sense, the elites made the various measures being taken acceptable, and to do so they resorted to

media, slogans, the recruitment of political parties, economic pressure, the generation of unemployment, and a whole host of other lovely things that Harvey describes. I don't know if we'll go into that much depth on these topics. So, the situation we have is that all these actors, these elites, begin to use people's fears, values, and traditions

to implement these policies that benefit them. In our continent, we have quite a few examples of the use of immigration or the immigrant as a figure we have to fear and, in a way, hate. They take our jobs, some say; they come to our country to steal, murder, and rape. And of course, we also have the use

of religious values, which can even be imposed as a rhetorical device. Let's look at racism or sexism. That is, a president can be homophobic, a presidential candidate can be homophobic and racist, but how does he resort to religious values that... In some way they represent me. I'm not going to vote because he's a good guy.

In this sense, the star, the quintessential value that neoliberalism resorts to, is freedom. Harvey details how throughout the 60s all the movements, for example in France, all the social movements, the hippies, demanded greater freedom of individual liberties, which was accompanied by, and sometimes in conflict with, the demands of the working classes, who

demanded, not asked for, greater social justice. Harvey also clarifies how he puts it, but I would make some nuances. Harvey says that individual liberties do not always go hand in hand with social justice. To favor that social justice, the benefit, the greatest benefit for all, I am forced on some occasions to renounce my personal individual liberties. It

seems to me that in general we have a very poor conception of freedom, influenced, conditioned, and not directly determined by the cultural products we consume. From the US, we were sold the idea that freedom is doing what I want. So we have the freedom to choose the clothes we wear. I can wear whatever

clothes I want; I am free to do so. However, my freedom Many times it doesn't allow me to buy it, it doesn't allow me to buy the clothes I want. So, truly, effective freedom, the capacity we have to do whatever we please, is not only determined by a legislative or ideological issue, but also by

concrete economic and material ones. Perhaps one could think of a freedom that is absolutely intertwined with social justice. In what sense could we say that the freer we are, the better society is? The fact that we don't have to worry about social violence or the corruption of our leaders would give us an environment in which we

are potentially freer. Wouldn't that environment of social peace be the point of maximum expression of freedom? It's a question; I don't intend to have absolute definitions beforehand. Perhaps, given that the topic of the chapter is critical thinking, and that's what we're aiming for, perhaps we don't have to adhere to thinking of a concept in a certain

way, but rather we can reconfigure it, we can change it. I invite you to think critically about this point. The elite, in some way, resorted to the notion of freedom, and it was the lever that allowed them to implement these social changes. Harvey tells us that it was even something that divided the student class and

Privileged in France and the working class, when the former wanted greater individual freedom, the latter were more concerned with social justice, and really the neoliberal strategy of generating political, economic, methodological, ideological, and scientific individualization has been fantastic, it has given it very good results against the large modern collectives, the guilds capable of exerting a

lot of pressure, the neoliberal system breaks them, fragments them and tells us that each of us has to worry about ourselves, this has been, in terms of ideological indoctrination, what they have [Music] put in our heads for 100 years or so because, indeed, it can be said that the fact that I have to fight for my

own rights or negotiate my next employment contract, if I am better than the other, I can get a better contract than if it went perhaps strictly by guild, I would have to settle for a little less, but since I am very good, I can negotiate a higher salary in my next contract than most, I

get more prospects for advancement, but that, of course, results in harm to my parents, to the people who are closest to me For me, and to the benefit of those with more capital, having to negotiate with a single person can give them, let's say, better conditions in the negotiation. It's an example that, in a way,

shows that it also points out, of course, the biggest example in this sense is the US, but I think that we at this moment are not entirely immune to this rhetoric either. We are told all the time that if any brake is put on the market, God will do it. We hear it in the media, from

politicians and others, we are told all the time that putting any brake on the market would imply a loss of freedom, a loss of freedom for all of us. So, and it's curious because, ultimately, it does n't make much difference to me to brake on certain powers of capital. Far from harming me, that brake

potentially benefits me. It's a state, the ejido, the government that was democratically elected, that has to intervene in my favor, and that's what these entities can do, not a president of a company whom I never elected. But it's almost a garden, it puts it that way, it's a button that the elites can always press to

force public opinion or push it in. In some sense, our freedom is being curtailed, we are being censored, we are being deprived of certain trade rights. This immediately generates unease among a population that is more concerned with freedom of trade than with health or education, for example. Why not talk about freedom in these senses?

Javi ends the text talking about cases such as the implementation in the United States and Great Britain, the differences that arose in the two cases. As I said, the author details them very meticulously, and I don't think it's worth explaining them in great detail; they are easy to understand. Just highlight that this

extortionate process, by which power generates unemployment or hits large groups with union lobbying power, for example, and employs other people, other more dispersed groups that do not have this union power, or deprives the state of the capital that the banks used to provide, and this happens, is a classic, let's say, of neoliberalism: that

capital, instead of going to the government, goes to companies, it finances them, and it is assumed that this is what will generate more employment, more work, and greater capital movement, an activation of the economy. This implies that Companies can have that capital, not necessarily as they wish, but at least they can have it in

different ways than various government agencies. This goes hand in hand with the downsizing of the state that I talked about in the previous video, which you can review. There are differences between the US and the UK in their implementation; they resorted to different economic, political, and ideological mechanisms. But I think you can see this fragmentation. It's

important to break this class consciousness. We could say—I do n't want to mention too many artists—that this collective identity gave me. Let's put it in more neutral terms. It's important to break this collective identity to turn a sector of the working class, the lower middle class, against other sectors closer to them, and never against the

upper class. Poverty, for example, is criminalized. Harvey also talks about this. The criminal is the petty thief on the corner, the one on the next block, the motorcycle thief, the kid who mugs you with a revolver, but it's forgiven or not so serious. It's true, white-collar crime, corporate corruption, the politics of tax evasion,

like all those things that, well, aren't so important in the end. That's the mechanism by which... All these mechanisms ultimately and curiously favor a certain social class, a certain elite, and curiously harm other social groups. Let's wrap up: what does this text have to do with the unit? What does this text have to do with

our training as psychologists? The truth is that the subject—as we saw in the previous unit—is not abstract but situated in specific historical, geographical, cultural, social, institutional, and other terms. We cannot be so naive as to think that the way we think is not, at least in some aspect, shaped or conditioned by concrete political and economic interests.

And this affects not only the people they will eventually deal with in their clinical, social, healthcare, or work practice, or even in research. The neoliberal capitalist logic guides research practices; it guides absolutely all values and logics related to social work. I say this because of the world we live in. Learning to think critically does

n't imply magically escaping these logics that surround and permeate us, but rather thinking within them, recognizing them, challenging them, and dismantling them. Some might say deconstructing them; I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to say deconstructing them because it would be like... Very much tearing them down, and I'm not going to

say about building them up, I'm not going to say that. I would say that ultimately that's what critical thinking is. It's not a thought that's beyond, but precisely the one that's right here, the one that recognizes itself as situated, local, specific, and contingent. I hope you liked the video, that you found it

useful. I read your criticisms and comments in the comments below. [Music] [ Applause ] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

3 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [

Applause] [Music] [ Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [

Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Applause]