Neoliberalism’s success depended on 1980s narrative and libidinal engineering technologies
Evidence
This is why the intensification and proliferation of the capitalist technologies of reality management and libidinal engineering in the 1980s was not merely some happy coincidence for neoliberalism; neoliberalism’s success was inconceivable without these technologies. It is also the reason that direct action, while of course crucial, will never be sufficient: we also need to act indirectly, by generating new narratives, figures and conceptual frames. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1878
Categorization
- SEED: An essay on the mechanics of what Fisher elsewhere calls ‘reality management’ — cultural technologies (advertising, TV narrative) as constitutive infrastructure rather than window-dressing for political economy.
- XREF: 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libidinal pleasure of crushing the working class — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1802; Neoliberals wrote their own inverted history of the twentieth century — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 72; Neoliberalism’s durability rests on fusing the economic with the cultural — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 298 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Neoliberal belief was partly driven by the libidinal pleasure of crushing the working class
#expands(0.88) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1802 - Neoliberalism persists through pervasive cultural imagery, not popular political theory
#expands(0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 246 - Neoliberalism’s durability rests on fusing the economic with the cultural
#corroborates(0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 298 - Neoliberals wrote their own inverted history of the twentieth century
#exemplifies(0.76) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 72 - Neoliberalism’s durability rested on transforming culture and winning over former opponents
#corroborates(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1607