Neoliberalism operates as a soft totalitarianism with choice rhetoric but no real choice

Evidence

What’s more of an issue is the kind of soft totalitarianism of neoliberal dictatorship, isn’t it? I don’t use those terms lightly. This situation where people — where there’s a rhetoric of choice and no effective political choice, where there’s a general kind of helplessness and people feel they’ve got no control over their lives — it seems to me that these are what we need to fight against. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2180

Categorization

• DEFINE: Fisher’s concise definition of ‘soft totalitarianism’: formal freedom of choice with no effective political alternatives and pervasive helplessness.
• XREF: connects to: Ordoliberal and public-choice strands of neoliberalism explicitly reject Friedman’s natural-liberty rhetoric — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 353; Neoliberalism is a self-consciously evolving thought collective, not a fixed catechism — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 141; Neoliberalism governs through guilt and debt rather than the body — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 53 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals redefine freedom as something to be limited and detached from democracy #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 119
• Neoliberalism operates through systematic contradiction and disavowal of its own practices #expands (0.83) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 81
• Neoliberalism is a self-consciously evolving thought collective, not a fixed catechism #complicates (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 141
• Neoliberal rhetoric evokes free markets while quietly relying on a strong state #corroborates (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 26
• Neoliberalism works best when subjects voluntarily adopt market-logic selves #expands (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 21
• Neoliberalism is internally plural yet not formless #complicates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 10
• Ordoliberal and public-choice strands of neoliberalism explicitly reject Friedman’s natural-liberty rhetoric #qualifies (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 353
• Neoliberalism governs through guilt and debt rather than the body #expands (0.75) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 53
• Neoliberalism is a contested but usable analytical category rather than a fixed ideology #complicates (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 15
• Neoliberal theories succeed as policy rhetoric despite having scant evidence #expands (0.73) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 425
• Neo-neoliberalism achieves ubiquity through replication rather than movement #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1877