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.
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.