No Nonsense

“Long viewed as a model of consensus and moderation, the Netherlands has in recent decades been rocked by waves of right-wing radicalism. In this highly engaging book, Merijn Oudenampsen makes that shift comprehensible by showing how neoliberalism took hold of Dutch politics and how it drove a decimation of the social safety net while expanding the privileges and subsidies enjoyed by corporations and asset owners. The definitive history of economic politics and policy in the Netherlands since the seventies, and a major contribution to the neoliberalism literature.”
—Martijn Konings, author of The Bailout State: Why Governments Rescue Banks, Not People

“In this careful and insightful book Oudenampsen shows that, in the Netherlands, the greatest trick neoliberalism ever pulled was convincing us that it doesn’t exist. How does a deeply political ideology mask itself as technocratic, consensual, pragmatic, and inevitable? Here we find answers that wind through Dutch politics, government, and intellectual history, in which technocrats, economists, and social scientists take center-stage. No Nonsense is necessary reading for anyone interested in the forms, reach, and effects of Western neoliberalism.”
—Stephanie L. Mudge, author of Leftism Revisited: Western Parties from Socialism to Neoliberalism

“A master class in myth-busting, this book lays bare the triangulation and self-serving politicking that turned a social democracy into the Netherlands Inc.”
—Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism