From Minerva Reef to Minerva's Owl Taking Wing at dusk: Libertarians and Neo-liberal Orthodoxy in the Pacific
Mary Patterson, School of Social and Environmental Enquiry, University of Melbourne
This paper explores the peculiar trajectory of neo-liberalism in Vanuatu from the manifestations of extreme libertarianism in the activities of the Phoenix foundation and its founder Michael Oliver, a student of Hayek's teacher Ludwig von Mies, to what appears less extreme in the current orthodoxy of the economic policies of the majority of the International Aid donors to Pacific States. The local interpretation of both the Phoenix foundation's schemes and the policies of Aid donors and others reflect the complexity of the social imaginary in Vanuatu and the inadequacy of theories of development frequently promoted as the way forward for Pacific states.
