In November 1999 the first protests associated with the ‘anti-globalisation movement’ took place in Seattle, and came to be seen as the starting point for globalised resistance to neoliberal capitalism. Despite initial optimism, the following years have seen little progress in formulating a coherent alternative to neoliberalism, a failure that has become particularly poignant in the aftermath of the recent credit crisis. Now, the neoliberal mandate that appeared to be in ‘crisis’ in just 2008 has reinvented itself through the guise of a new ‘era of austerity’.