Materialist and ideational explanations of neoliberalism’s endurance are complementary, not rival

Evidence

There are two ways of making sense of neoliberalism’s longevity. One is to point to the durability of the blocs of capital and their allies in government. The other points to the expansion and adaptation of neoliberal worldviews encroaching upon the competing ideologies of conservatism and social democratic liberalism. This book has no quarrel with the former explanations, including those of neo-Gramscian International Political Economy, and finds them essential for making sense of the present. To draw attention to the intellectual history of neoliberalism as in the second model is not to insist dogmatically on the primacy of ideas. It would be ironic, as some have noted, if leftist critics became fixated on the realm of ideas while the right adopted materialist explanations of the present. At the same time, proposals for social changes, whether large or small, do not emerge in a vacuum, which requires attention to the universe of ideologies and to the process of preference formation. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 14

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Scholars dispute whether ideas or class interest explain neoliberalism’s internal cohesion — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 121; Postmodern ideas’ acceptance, not their content, is what needs materialist explanation — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 617

Broader Connections

• Postmodern ideas’ acceptance, not their content, is what needs materialist explanation #corroborates (0.75) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 617