Capitalist realism’s depoliticising hegemony invited populist fervour to replace it

Evidence

What we are seeing, evidently, is not an attack on the establishment from outside (or below), but the replacement of one form of establishment with another. And one reason that this insurgent establishment — neo-authoritarian and neo-nationalist rather than neoliberal — has been able to overcome its rivals is that it has stirred up a populist political fervour that capitalist realism tended to damp down. Capitalist realism secured its hegemony by de-activating people as political agents and re-interpellating them as entrepreneurial individuals. It wanted to close down political movements, not build them, all the better to organise and administrate policy from above. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2042

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Left populism helped destroy post-politics yet failed to restore mass politics — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 345; Capitalist realism restricts the horizon of what is politically possible — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 410; Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 8 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism’s defeat of its own aims produced states yanked by capital and popular zeal #corroborates (0.90) — Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, 139
• Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable #expands (0.75) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 8