Neoliberal Development In Bangladesh : People on the Margins (HB)

Neoliberal development, the contemporary paradigm of capitalist progress, has been used as a legitimizing ideological tool for the state since the 1980s. This paradigm with its exclusive focus on free market, free trade, 'efficient' allocation of resources and 'de-territorialization' of economic growth has transformed the very nature of the state. The shift from 'welfarism' to 'marketization/ commoditization has permitted the global emergence of a market-society wherein the logic of profit and competition determines economic prosperity. For the neoliberal states, market is both the ends and means of social wellbeing. Transnational corporations, international financial institutes and their development discourses are pivotal in globalizing this neoliberal approach. This market-society paradigm is, however, encountering many challenges and alternative visions are coming up from the very people who are suffering. Bangladesh's experience regarding neoliberal