About Me

My name is William Davies, I live in London and I am a Reader in Political Economy at Goldsmiths, University of London, where I am also Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Centre. This blog has no official connection to Goldsmiths and all views expressed on it are my own. For more on my academic work, see my page at Academia.edu or Google Scholar. You can email me or follow me on twitter @davies_will.

I am author of two books, The Limits of Neoliberalism: Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition (Sage, 2014) and The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Wellbeing (Verso, 2015).

My articles and interviews:

The Big Mystique, London Review of Books (January, 2017)

How statistics lost their power - and why we should fear what comes next, Guardian Long Read (January 2017)

Review of Margaret Thatcher by David Cannadine, Guardian Review (January 2017)

The Age of Pain, The New Statesman (November 2016)

Home Office rules, London Review of Books (October 2016)

The Age of Post-truth Politics, The New York Times (August, 2016)

The Mis-managed Heart, Real Life (August, 2016)

Brexit will make things worse. Is that why people voted for it?, The Washington Post (July 2016)

Happiness and Children, openDemocracy (May 2016)

Silly Robots!, The Chronicle Review (November, 2015)

Mark Zuckerberg and the End of Language, The Atlantic (September, 2015)

The Democratic Critique of Neoliberalism - Review essay on Wendy Brown's Undoing the Demos, Renewal (August, 2015)

The Corruption of Happiness, openDemocracy (May, 2015)

What have we lost in the shift from cigarettes to smartphones?, openDemocracy (March 2015)

The Data Sublime, The New Inquiry (January 2015)

Interview with Estudios de la Economia to discuss The Limits of Neoliberalism (November, 2014)

Symposium on The Limits of Neoliberalism Renewal (October, 2014)

Call to arms for shaking up social sciences relies on false premise that science alone can solve all social problems, LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog (October, 2014)

Beyond the Laws of the Market - interview with Tom Mills (part 2), New Left Project (August 2014)

Neoliberalism and the End of Politics - interview with Tom Mills (part 1), New Left Project (August, 2014)

How 'competitiveness' became one of the great unquestioned virtues of contemporary culture, LSE Politics & Policy blog (May, 2014)

A Bibliographic Review of Neoliberalism Theory Culture & Society online (March, 2014)

The tyranny of intermediaries: Who writes the rules of our modern capitalism?, Juncture (February 2014)

Recovering the Future: The reinvention of 'social law', Juncture (January 2014)

Interview with Nicholas Gane on neoliberalism, Theory Culture & Society online (December 2013)

Podcast interview with Philip Mirowski on his work on neoliberalism, (July, 2013)

Apologists for Power (review of Economists and the Powerful) New Left Project (March 2013)

Getting economists to wake up to reality, openDemocracy (October 2012)

Interview with Andy Haldane, openDemocracy (July, 2012)

An intellignet industrial policy: and pigs might fly? openDemocracy (June, 2012)

Taking risks with the economy: it's time to throw caution to the wind, openDemocracy (April, 2012)

Interview with Aaron Peters to discuss 'Uneconomics' debate Resonance FM (February, 2012)

Uneconomics: a challenge to the power of the economics profession openDemocracy (February, 2012)

Freeing the Market, The Point (January, 2012)

John Lewis and a new vision for capitalism, The Sunday Telegraph (January, 2012)

The politics of positivity: why is the government measuring our happiness levels?, The Independent (January, 2012)

From New Times to End Times, The New Statesman (November 2011)

Hack-gate: the latest cultural contradiction of British conservatism? Open Democracy (July, 2011)

National wellbeing: the 'personalisation of the public interest'? Open Democracy (June, 2011)

The uses and abuses of 'happiness', Open Democracy (April, 2011)

Book review: The Economics of Enough, by Diane Coyle, Open Democracy (March, 2011)

Happiness and production, Open Democracy (January 2011)

Bringing Mutualism Back Into Business, Policy Network (December 2010)

Who is the fairest of them all? Nick Clegg? A short philosophical report on the torture of a simple word, Open Democracy (November 2010)

Book review: Them and Us by Will Hutton, Open Democracy (November 2010)

Book review: Envisioning Real Utopias by Erik Olin Wright [pdf], Renewal (September 2010)

Decoupling 'fairness' from class and power in the UK, Open Democracy (June 2010)

Recovery of What?, Open Democracy (May 2010)

Maximisation, optimisation and all that, Open Democracy (April 2010)

Forward to the past! Charlie Leadbeater and Phillip Blond lead the way, Open Democracy (April 2010)

'The Making of Neo-Liberalism' [pdf] Renewal (January 2010)

Waiting for Crisis, Diffusion eBook (Proboscis, December 2009)

If I ruled the world, Prospect, (December 2009)

Unlimited Company, BBC In Business, (November 2009)

Housing After Crisis, Re-Public, (October 2009)

Republicans at work, Open Democracy (September 2009)

Mutuality would be a good fit for the Tories, Financial Times (September 2009)

Review of Free by Chris Anderson, Prospect, (August 2009)

A Liberal Defence of Money, The Liberal, April 2009

The Limits of Expertise [pdf] Renewal (September 2008)

Book review of The New Spirit of Capitalism by Boltanski and Chiapello [doc], Renewal (September 2007)

The cold, cold heart of web 2.0, The Register (July, 2007)

What does free market collectivism mean for the Left?, Soundings, Left Futures Debate (June 2007)

Open to all RSA Journal (Debate with George Osborne MP, June 2007)

Tax credits: the success and failure, Prospect (June 2007)

Internet Politics, BBC Thinking Allowed (January 2007)

The Governmentality of New Labour [doc], Public Policy Research (January 2007)

Against Community, Prospect (November 2006)

The Changing of the Guard, Open Democracy (June 2006)

Ideas Interview, The Guardian (May 2006)

Beyond Communitarianism and Consumerism' [doc], Renewal (March 2006)

After TV interview, with Andrew Keen (March 2006)

Digital Exuberance, Prospect (February 2006)

Open or closed: how the net will be won, Computing (December 2005)

Evidence-based policy and democracy, Open Democracy (November 2005)

The Age of Surveillance: a new 'dotcom boom'?, Open Democracy (August 2005)

Is it Aldous Huxley or George Orwell?, The New Statesman (August 2005)

Don't assume that improving IT alone will bridge the digital divide, The Times (January 2005)

Is Efficient Government Necessarily Good Government?, Public Service Director (January 2005)

'Circling the Wagons: The Net Politics of Exclusion', The Register (November 2004)

How to Tame Capitalism, The New Statesman (September 2004)

'But Tony Blair, I Sent You an Email!', Open Democracy (July 2004)

'Communication in the 21st Century', lecture given at Royal Society of Arts, October 2003.

'Army Ants, Spiked Online (September 2003)