Austerity measures intensified capitalist realism by presuming there was no alternative to capitalism.
Evidence
I think it’s too quick to talk about the end of capitalist realism, though what we have been seeing for the past couple of years is a challenge to this naturalisation of neoliberal concepts. In some ways, the austerity measures that have been implemented have constituted an intensification of capitalist realism. Those measures couldn’t have been introduced unless there was still a widespread sense that there is no alternative to neoliberal capitalism. The various struggles that have blown up since the financial crisis show a growing discontent with the panic neoliberalism that has been put in place since 2008, but they have yet to propose any concrete alternative to the dominant economic model. Capitalist realism is about a corrosion of social imagination, and in some ways, that remains the problem: after thirty years of neoliberal domination, we are only just beginning to be able to imagine alternatives to capitalism. But at least now we can imagine imagining such alternatives. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2205
Categorization
- SEED: The ‘backlash never names an alternative’ dynamic is a reusable analytical frame for any mass protest movement.
- XREF: connects to: Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 8; Capitalist realism makes a coherent alternative to capitalism unimaginable. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 8; Occupy’s defeat exemplified the capitalist realism claim that alternatives to the market are unimaginable. — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 221 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable
#expands(0.91) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 8 - Capitalist realism makes a coherent alternative to capitalism unimaginable.
#expands(0.91) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 8 - Austerity’s survival proves capitalist realism persists
#expands(0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2228 - Austerity’s speed followed from the absence of any political alternative
#corroborates(0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1674 - Austerity structurally dismantled the workers’ movement and its economic alternatives
#expands(0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 654 - Occupy’s defeat exemplified the capitalist realism claim that alternatives to the market are unimaginable.
#exemplifies(0.78) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 221 - Austerity arose in response to mass political challenge to capitalism itself
#complicates(0.74) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 798