Steve Heikkila, as Deep Throat, whispering to me to “Follow the money!”
In his recent IDT post “Neoliberalism Wants to Destroy Democracy” (part I of a series) Steve Heikkila looks at some key moments in recent history to show the progressive weakening of the connection between liberal democratic political values and transnational neoliberal economic policy in Western countries. Using the turnover of Hong Kong, the Greek financial crisis and BREXIT as his initial touchstones, Steve asserts that what we are witnessing in the confusing tumult of contemporary politics at home and abroad is first and foremost about the crisis stage of neoliberal economic policies after thirty years of intensification, under both Democratic and Republican leadership. Basically, Steve is like deep throat from Watergate fame, whispering in my ear, “Follow the money!”
Why am I talking about neoliberalism in the Anti-Fascist Survival Guide Section of IDT? I believe that The Anti-Fascist Survival Guide should include serious reflection about how to create and maintain solidarity among members of the anti-fascist coalition. In order for anti-fascist resistance to be effective, it has to be more than just the call for an anti-fascist solidarity on the terrain of liberal democratic values–while it is certainly the case that all people of good will could and should choose to resist ‘the new fascism’ on these grounds alone, it is also the case that politics concerns human needs as well as human rights. It has been the fashion for some time to think that we strengthen calls for justice by transforming needs talk in to rights talk. However, this only works where we can continue rely on the power of rights language, and I’m not sure any more than we can.
Why am I talking about neoliberalism in the Anti-Fascist Survival Guide Section of IDT? It is my contention that The Anti-Fascist Survival Guide needs to include practical information about creating and maintaining solidarity among members of the anti-fascist coalition.
When I think about maintaining anti-fascist solidarity, I think about how to avoid having people turn on each other due to their different assumptions, life experiences, class background (how to avoid the twin failures of factionalism and vanguardism). Moral absolutism comes very easily for me. But to be success at the level of tactics, I know I have to take political positions that show that I am prepared to address both the material and the psychological needs of what has been called “the precariat” (portmanteau of precarious and proletariat). Tactically, we can’t be successful if all we try to do is stand together and call out fascists and their fellow travelers as moral monsters; we need to understand that the new populism on the left (which embraces the language of moral universalism) and the new populism on the right (which only recognizes the needs of the ingroup white working class) are both reactions to what Jan Rehmann has referred to as ‘the hegemonic crisis of neoliberalism.’
The hegemonic crisis of neoliberalism is the frantic attempt by the establishment to protect the prerogatives of elites by maintaining the conditions for the transnational financial system in the face of such things as the widespread effects of global recessions, forced austerity, increasing privatization, rising inequality and student debt, and the loss of working class jobs due to globalization and technological innovation. These effects are both material and psychological. In his 2014 Guardian piece, “Neoliberalism has Brought Out the Worst in Us” psychologist Paul Verhaeghe captures the paradox of life for most people under neoliberal economic conditions, by quoting the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman: “Never have we been so free; never have we felt so powerless.”
Since it is a hallmark of neoliberal ideology that all social contradictions find their solution through the action of free markets, writes Verhaeghe, “Our society constantly proclaims that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough, all the while reinforcing privilege and putting increasing pressure on its overstretched and exhausted citizens. An increasing number of people fail, feeling humiliated, guilty, and ashamed…Those who fail are deemed to be losers and scroungers, taking advantage of our social security system.”
So, what happens when increasingly atomized individuals (there are only individuals in neoliberal ideology, since the very idea of the common good is evacuated), experiencing what Ronald Aronson has called “the privatization of hope” are charged with “finding biographic solutions to systemic contradictions?” The answer appears to be for many who are struggling, the loss of appetite for social programs and government initiatives, and a sort of a decision, in the course of struggling, that we are not, in fact, “stronger together.” Anti-fascist solidarity will require an understanding of how it is that class resentments have been manipulated to bring about an illiberal ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’ as some sort of a solution to the hegemonic crisis of neoliberalism. If progressives are going to have any hope of getting this message across to enough people to tip the balance, we will have to show (prove) that we are not, and will not, be satisfied with a softer democratic neoliberalism, where only a narrow educated and technocratic slice of the electorate (armed of course with appropriate liberal values) can lead materially successful lives.
