Anti-welfare animus, not anti-statism, unites neoconservatism and neoliberalism.

Evidence

Extrapolating a little from Brown’s arguments, we might hypothesize that what held the bizarre synthesis of neoconservatism and neoliberalism together was their shared objects of abomination: the so called Nanny State and its dependents. Despite evincing an anti-statist rhetoric, neoliberalism is in practice not opposed to the state per se – as the bank bail-outs of 2008 demonstrated – but rather to particular uses of state funds; meanwhile, neoconservatism’s strong state was confined to military and police functions, and defined itself against a welfare state held to undermine individual moral responsibility. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 127

Categorization

• XREF: Directly echoes the reader’s prior material on the Frankfurt school’s analysis of welfare-state hostility and on how supposedly anti-statist rhetoric masks selective state use. — connects to: The neoconservative-neoliberal alliance united against the welfare state rather than against the state itself — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 127; Neoconservatism and neoliberalism unite mainly through shared hatred of the welfare state

Broader Connections

• The neoconservative-neoliberal alliance united against the welfare state rather than against the state itself #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 127
• Neoconservatism and neoliberalism unite mainly through shared hatred of the welfare state #corroborates (0.90)