Berlin Wall to Mexico Wall: The Drama of Neoliberalism

Abstract

This article is meant to analyze the origin, evolution and current status of neoliberalism with special focus on the shift that has been observed in the main-stream political ideology of capitalism. An explanatory research approach was employed by relying on secondary sources of data to explain the rise and fall of neoliberalism and its dynamics and uncertain journey in an allegory of destruction of the Berlin Wall to the construction of Mexico wall. The review revealed that the neoliberal ideology which was once projected as a panacea for the liberation of human dignity, autonomy, choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete in markets and personal empowerment is no more relevant and workable as it was during the 1970s. The shreds of evidence further brought out that champions of neoliberalism were more engaged in the arms race, religious polarization, terrorism vs. anti-terrorism, mainstream ideological rivalry, politics of oil under the garb of democracy and market economy. A paradigm shift was also observed as a hallmark in this paper when the messiah of neoliberalism shifted to protectionism which is symbolized by the strong zeal to construct the Mexico Wall. This paradigm shift took place now when free-trade ideology started to signify a trend of integration among the countries of the South and when a significant rise of Emerging Markets has been taking place. It concluded that the holiness of market-oriented ideology proved to be an unholy affair.