New Labour’s emo-politics were fundamental to securing UK neoliberalism
Evidence
New Labour’s authoritarian emo-politics was ostensibly part of its “progressive” supplement to capitalist realism. Blairism maintained that the only way to implement any measures that would produce “social justice” was to capitulate to the dominance of capitalism. It was “unrealistic” to hope for anything more; such expectations were a relic of an earlier moment — the conditions for which have now disappeared - when the organised working class could assert itself against capital. New Labour accepted and naturalized this new composition of social forces, arguing that its capitulation would allow it the bargaining room to bring in measures — such as the minimum wage - which a Thatcherite neoliberal party would always block. It turned out, however, that New Labour’s emo-politics were actually fundamental to the securing of neoliberalism in the UK. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1928
Categorization
- XREF: Directly extends Fisher’s capitalist realism thesis from the book of that name — New Labour as the left-wing administration that consolidated neoliberal common sense. — connects to: Managed public displays of grief inaugurated a new phase of neoliberal governance in Britain. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1916; New Labour marketed itself as above left and right to overcome political antagonism — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 483; New Labour succeeded Thatcherism by accommodating globalization while attending to the excluded (+1 more)
- SEED: An essay angle: the ‘progressive supplement’ as the mechanism by which reformist parties entrench rather than contest the dominant economic settlement.
Broader Connections
- New Labour marketed itself as above left and right to overcome political antagonism
#expands(0.88) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 483 - Identity recognition politics fit neatly into a rising neoliberalism that suppressed egalitarianism
#corroborates(0.87) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 688 - New Labour succeeded Thatcherism by accommodating globalization while attending to the excluded
#expands(0.80)