Neoliberal conviction was fueled partly by sadistic class resentments
Evidence
The great mystery of neoliberalism is to what extent its advocates “really” believed it. Was it ever anything more than a ruse to restore ruling-class power and wealth? Of course, the answer to this partly depends on which advocates we are talking about. It’s possible that certain key proselytisers for neoliberalism never believed it, and only opportunistically fixed upon it as a way of destroying the “red bases” of working-class power. With others, it’s more likely that a belief was aided by the desire to believe. This desire was motivated by economic interest, of course, but also by certain libidinal satisfactions: the pleasures of seeing the working class defeated, of seeing the poor and vulnerable stripped of social security. For a certain English petit-bourgeois sensibility, Thatcherism was the equivalent of a riot: a jubilee of destruction, a temporary autonomous zone for a reactionary desire that feeds off suffering and misery. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1802
Categorization
- XREF: Fisher invokes ‘temporary autonomous zone’ from Hakim Bey ironically to describe Thatcherite jubilee; connects to his wider thesis that apparently progressive forms can be captured by reactionary affect. — connects to: Neoliberal belief was partly driven by the libidinal pleasure of crushing the working class — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1802; Neoliberals diagnosed intellectual hostility to markets as resentment, utopianism, and ignorance. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 286; Resentment of the lower classes stems from the perceived devaluation of one’s own efforts
Broader Connections
- Neoliberal belief was partly driven by the libidinal pleasure of crushing the working class
#corroborates(0.97) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1802 - Resentment of the lower classes stems from the perceived devaluation of one’s own efforts
#corroborates(0.78) - Neoliberals diagnosed intellectual hostility to markets as resentment, utopianism, and ignorance.
#complicates(0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 286