Neo-Liberalism and Post-Crisis Recovery: A Review of Literature on 2008 Crisis and COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery

Abstract

Discussions of the causes of the inequitable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic strike a similar tone as the same discussion of the 2008 financial crisis. In this review of the literature on post-2008 financial crisis and the post-pandemic economic recoveries, neo-liberalism is identified as an influential force in both crises’ inequitable impacts on communities experiencing marginalization. Calls for a radical new and more just health, social, and economic system can be found during the financial crisis and currently during the pandemic. However, the post-crisis recovery measures taken by governments across the Global North after 2008 rejected these calls, instead implementing policy measures that signalled a recommitment to the very same neo-liberal system that had created its inequitable impacts. This critical review of the literature discusses how the historical post-crisis recovery policies of the 2008 financial crisis might shed some light on what is to come during the recovery period of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, in addition to what possible alternatives to neo-liberal post-crisis economic recovery might look like.