Neoliberal deceit

If every politician is lying to you, the guy that doesn't pretend to care about the truth looks (like a version of) honest.

There are a thousand reasons why people vote for demagogues and populists. In the recent US election, the economy was identified as one of those reasons, with inflation and consumer price increases being mentioned. Many voters also talked about the need for “authenticity”, that they prefer politicians that “tell it like it is”.

Today’s useful idea is not economic neoliberalism (the notion that market fundamentalism can fix everything), but an associated idea; neoliberal deceit.

Broadly, the promise of neoliberal free-market driven societies was that privatisation, deregulated efficiency and endless competition would make lives better. Neoliberalism was presented as a natural law, that There Is No Alternative.

Forty-plus years into this free market experiment, the social contract has been broken, the world is on fire, water is poisoned and it’s common for CEOs to make nearly 200 times their typical worker. Unleashing the market and being “competitive” was held up as vital and energetic, instead it looks like the “free market” is a sclerotic scam, being used to distract and exhaust voters, protect vested interests and maintain oligarchy. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.

As David Graeber put it: “politically, there is no better way to ensure people are not politically active or aware than to have them working, commuting to work, or preparing for work every moment of the day. Sacrificing so many of one’s waking hours to the gods of productivity ensures no one has access to outside perspectives that would enable them to notice – for instance – that organizing life this way ultimately decreases productivity. As a result of this neoliberal obsession with stamping out alternative perspectives, since the financial collapse of 2008, we have been left in the bizarre situation where its plain to everyone that capitalism doesn’t work, but it’s almost impossible for anyone to imagine anything else. The war against the imagination is the only one the capitalists have actually managed to win”.

Despite books that may help with critical thinking being banned, many voters know something’s wrong. They may not be able to articulate exactly what is rotten, but they can see that billionaires are shooting rockets into space rather than paying their employees enough to cover the rent.

Falling living standards cause immense stress, living inside an ongoing unspoken con, that your elected officials won’t talk about, or even identify, exacerbates that stress.

The neoliberal deceit is the unwillingness of mainstream technocratic, “sensible” politicians to address market fundamentalism.

Until they do, the demagogues and dangerous populists’ simplistic solutions to complicated problems will remain attractive.