Neoliberalism is frequently discussed as a collection of economic policies—privatisation, deregulation, weakened unions, lower taxes on wealth—but Monbiot and Hutchison argue that it is better understood as an entire political philosophy, and a remarkably successful one. 

The book traces this doctrine from Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and the Mont Pelerin Society through its adoption by Thatcher, Reagan and the institutions of global finance. It then follows neoliberalism beyond economics, examining how market logic has entered public services, democratic government, social relations and the ways people understand their own success or failure. The result, the authors contend, is not merely greater inequality but a culture of insecurity, loneliness and political fatalism.

Written as an accessible political intervention rather than a detached academic history, The Invisible Doctrine is brisk, polemical and unusually clear about the machinery connecting abstract economic ideas to ordinary life. It is most useful as an introduction for readers who sense that privatisation, austerity and the hollowing-out of public institutions belong to the same historical project but want the connective tissue made visible.

Allen Lane, 2024 sixth-printing hardcover with dust jacket. Light jacket rubbing and shelf wear; internally clean and firmly bound.