To varying degrees, neoliberal global capitalism shapes modern life not only in Western capitalist societies but also in the rising powers of Asia and Latin America. Its component parts are corporate ownership of assets, free competitive markets, advanced technology, competitive electoral politics, and international forms of interaction and exchange. Its achievements, failures and contradictions are markers that divide human beings at all levels. Defenders of capitalism argue that it is basically sound, it has promoted human freedom, secured human development and achieved significant scientific advances. Even its critics concede that, on a world scale, material conditions have significantly improved. People are living longer and enjoy better health. Consumption of commodities and exposure to a globalised culture are growing at an exponential rate. A world-wide achievement of modern science and a technologically based society has been the enhancement of human well-being. In the late twentieth century, the social dispositions of people have changed. There is a universal expectation for greater equality between sexes, ethnic groups and classes. Not all these developments, however, can be attributed to the capitalist form of economic organisation, let alone its neoliberal variety. Developments in scientific knowledge, bio-technology, the spread of high technology underlying globalisation and the advent of robotisation in manufacture, design and distribution, have also had important positive effects on living standards and modern life.

There are political arguments advanced in favour of capitalism in its contemporary liberal form. Capitalism is contained in a democratic liberal shell, which, it is contended, has prevented the outbreak of wars between democratic countries for the past 75 years. Global capitalism is said to have advanced liberty and peace. Neoliberalism has become the ‘common sense’ of economic and social policy. When economic policies do not work, the errors are attributed to faulty application rather than to the underlying ideological assumptions on which institutions and policies are based. In the late twentieth century, major influential powers have worked within a neoliberal world view and criticism has been muted.

However, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, neoliberal globalisation, as a theory of how things should be done and a political praxis of how things were being done, has been brought into question. In September 2007, the British bank Northern Rock was unable to meet withdrawals from its customers.