Does the eruption of ethnonationalist movements defined by hyper-patriotism, xenophobia, racism, religious chauvinism, and so-called traditional moral values signal the end of neoliberalism? Or are these protofascist movements, the natural consequence of neoliberal policies that allowed corporations to corrupt and seize governing institutions and the press, impoverish the working class, and orchestrate the largest transference of wealth upwards in American history?
There is no doubt, as the political scientist Wendy Brown writes, that the constellation of principles, policies, practices, and forms of governing reason that may be gathered under the sign of neoliberalism has importantly constituted the catastrophic present, but, she argues, this was not neoliberalism’s intent, rather its Frankensteinian creation.
By generating anti-democratic forms of state power above its natural consequence, she argues, it was antidemocratic culture from below. The synergy between these two forces sees an increasingly undemocratic and anti-democratic citizenry ever more willing to validate an increasingly anti-democratic state.
• Professor Wendy Brown teaches at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton University and isthe author of In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West.
