Conservative-neoliberal politics combines free markets with restricted migration and cultural homogeneity

Evidence

Although the EU is described regularly as a neoliberal federation, there are clear forerunners to Brexit in neoliberal networks. One sees this in the European Conservatives and Reformers Group (ECR) and the affiliated Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformers, both established in 2009 and led by British Conservatives. The Prague declaration of the ECR, prepared by Tories and the Liberal Institute led by MPS member and former Czech president Václav Klaus, emphasized economic not political freedom as the foundation of individual freedom and national prosperity. At the MPS meeting in South Korea in 2017, Klaus voiced typical xenophobic “populist” themes, saying that “mass migration into Europe … threatens to destroy European society and to create a new Europe which would be very different from the past as well as from MPS way of thinking [sic].” Referring to far-right parties in France, Austria, Germany, and Italy, he said: “The people are starting to open their eyes, to look around, to speak out, to express their dissatisfaction with the brave new world without freedom and democracy, with the world heralding relativism, with the suppression of old values, traditions, customs and habits, with the world of new aristocracies.” Already in 2014 at an MPS meeting in Hong Kong, Klaus had made it clear that “to protect liberty … we need to rehabilitate the sovereign nation-state … We need responsible citizens anchored in domestic realities, not cosmopolitan, selfish individuals ‘floating’ at the surface and searching for short-term pleasures and advantages—without roots and responsibility.” Along with parties organized in the AECR, the far-right parties invoked by Klaus share the rejection of an ever-closer European Union and insist on a Europe of nations. Yet even as they reject free migration, they retain the other three freedoms of European integration: those of goods, services, and capital. The new variety of conservative-neoliberal perspectives combines uninhibited economic liberalism with limited mobility of people and a new attention to the sociological—and sociobiological—necessity of cultural homogeneity as a basis for order. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 26

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the key variety ‘conservative-neoliberal’ as fusing economic liberalism with cultural homogeneity — a crucial distinction in fracturing the crude stereotype.
• XREF: Connects to the MPS history themes and the ‘globalist vs. nationalist’ tension running through this book and companion works on neoliberalism’s internal varieties. — connects to: Neoliberal ‘freedom’ prioritized cross-border capital mobility over domestic welfare. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 423; Neoliberalism survived by co-opting multiculturalism into marketable identity commodities — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 185; Neoliberalism paired deregulation with social conservatism to shift welfare onto families — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 37 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal ‘freedom’ prioritized cross-border capital mobility over domestic welfare. #complicates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 423
• Neoliberalism paired deregulation with social conservatism to shift welfare onto families #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 37
• Neoliberalism survived by co-opting multiculturalism into marketable identity commodities #expands (0.78) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 185