Neoliberalism’s triumph reduced left politics to survival through a desert trial.

Evidence

What emerges here, in other words, is an account of the immediate after-effects of the installation of what I have called capitalist realism: the view that, since there is no alternative to capitalism, the only possible attitude consists in adjusting to its demands. … The only possibility, Negri suggests, is to endure the time in the desert as a kind of religious trial: a moment of terrible and terrifying renewal, a transformation of the revolutionary subject happening at the very moment when revolution seems impossible and the forces of reaction control everything. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1560

Categorization

• DEFINE: Fisher restates his defining concept: capitalist realism as the view that adjusting to capitalism is the only possible attitude because no alternative exists.
• XREF: Directly defines/pays off Fisher’s signature concept capitalist realism, central to this collection and beyond. — connects to: Neoliberalism captured the anti-boredom critique that defeated the organised left, replacing it with anxiety. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1759; Neoliberalism won by absorbing sixties desires the left failed to address — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1716; Neoliberalism’s durability rested on transforming culture and winning over former opponents — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1607 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism won by absorbing sixties desires the left failed to address #corroborates (0.82) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1716
• Neoliberalism’s durability rested on transforming culture and winning over former opponents #corroborates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1607
• Neoliberalism captured the anti-boredom critique that defeated the organised left, replacing it with anxiety. #complicates (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1759
• Neoliberalism triumphed through political arguments against redistribution, not market-efficiency claims #expands (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 437
• The left’s defeat may have been a slow disintegration rather than a battle #qualifies (0.72) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 276