Ebook: How politics makes us sick: neoliberal epidemics

Introduction : politics and health -- Obesity : how politics makes us fat -- Insecurity : how politics gets under our skin -- Austerity : how politics has pulled away our safety net -- Inequality : how politics divides and rules us -- Conclusion : their scarcity and our political cure.;Since the early 1980s, neoliberalism or 'market fundamentalism' has dominated politics and economics across the globe. In this important book, Ted Schrecker and Clare Bambra consider the effects of over three decades of these policies with particular reference to the US and the UK. They focus on obesity, insecurity, austerity, and inequality, arguing that each represents a 'neoliberal epidemic' - neoliberal because they are implicated in the rise of neoliberal politics; and epidemics because they have been rapidly transmitted across international populations at a rate seen in epidemics of biological contagions. Crucially, the authors argue that neoliberal epidemics require a political cure in the form of a revitalised and social democratic welfare state.