PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Theories of the State

Comment on the neo-liberal perspective of the state.

How the answer moves

The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.

Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R1 neo-liberalism = revival of 19th-c economic liberalism → market over state late-1970s welfare-state crisis → “market fundamentalism” → roll back the state
Body flow
individual + market primacy → Hayek (planning → lost liberty; social justice a “mirage”) → Nozick (minimal night-watchman) → Thatcher's TINA → privatisation / deregulation / austerity → Thatcherism, Reaganism, LPG 1991
Counter-view
| 2008 crisis → Polanyi (markets need state) → Stiglitz “failed ideology”
Conclusion routes
onclusion routes G@ efficiency real, but welfare / equality costs → minimal state utopian markets cannot function without the state they seek to shrink

Model answer

Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.

Handwritten model answer — UPSC PSIR 2017, Theories of the State