The 2008 bailouts discredited neoliberalism while powerfully reasserting capitalist realism.

Evidence

Despite initial appearances (and hopes), capitalist realism was not undermined by the credit crisis of 2008. The speculations that capitalism might be on the verge of collapsing soon proved to be unfounded. It quickly became clear that, far from constituting the end of capitalism, the bank bail-outs were a massive re-assertion of the capitalist realist insistence that there is no alternative. Allowing the banking system to disintegrate was held to be unthinkable, and what ensued was a vast hemor-rhaging of public money into private hands. Nevertheless, what did happen in 2008 was the collapse of the framework which has provided ideological cover for capitalist accumulation since the 1970s. After the bank bail-outs neoliberalism has, in every sense, been discredited. That is not to say that neoliberalism has disappeared overnight; on the contrary, its assumptions continue to dominate political economy, but they do so now no longer as part of an ideological project that has a confident forward momentum, but as inertial, undead defaults. We can now see that, while neoliberalism was necessarily capitalist realist, capitalist realism need not be neoliberal. In order to save itself, capitalism could revert to a model of social democracy or to a Children of Men–like authoritarianism. Without a credible and coherent alternative to capitalism, capitalist realism will continue to rule the political-economic unconscious. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 161

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: One of the book’s pivotal analytical moves: 2008 killed the ideology (neoliberalism) but strengthened the deeper ontology (capitalist realism), which survives as ‘undead defaults.’ Dense enough to sit with across readings.
• XREF: Echoes the ‘no alternative’ frame from the whole book, and the ‘cancellation of the long term’ theme running through this chapter. — connects to: The 2008 bailouts permanently broke the US deficit’s profit-recycling mechanism. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 237; The 2008 bailouts discredited neoliberalism but not capitalist realism itself. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 161; The bank bailouts radically discredited neoliberalism’s core ideas. (+5 more)

Related

• The 2008 bailouts discredited neoliberalism but not capitalist realism itself. (similarity 0.96)
• The bank bailouts radically discredited neoliberalism’s core ideas. (similarity 0.93)
• The 2008 bank bailouts delegitimized the political centre ground myth (similarity 0.88)
• The 2008 crisis was expected to falsify neoliberal doctrine but did not (similarity 0.84)
• The 2008 bailouts permanently broke the US deficit’s profit-recycling mechanism. (similarity 0.83)
• The 2008 crisis killed none of the economic ideas that caused it (similarity 0.82)
• Bailouts persisted because nobody could admit the economy was ungovernable (similarity 0.81)
• The 2008 crisis falsified neoclassical economic theory yet elites kept using it. (similarity 0.81)
• The 2008 crisis invalidated the preceding thirty years of financial orthodoxy (similarity 0.81)
• The 2008 crisis reinforced rather than refuted neoliberal and orthodox economic doctrine (similarity 0.80)
• Neoliberalism survived the 2008 crisis relatively unscathed. (similarity 0.79)
• Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable (similarity 0.79)
• Left academics wrongly assumed the 2008 crash would doom neoliberalism (similarity 0.79)
• Observers widely expected the 2008 crash to refute neoliberal doctrine (similarity 0.79)
• The 2007-8 crisis failed to dislodge neoliberal policy dominance. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The 2008 bailouts discredited neoliberalism but not capitalist realism itself. #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 161
• The bank bailouts radically discredited neoliberalism’s core ideas. #corroborates (0.90)
• The 2008 crisis reinforced rather than refuted neoliberal and orthodox economic doctrine #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 100
• The 2008 crisis was expected to falsify neoliberal doctrine but did not #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 80
• Neoliberalism survived 2008 by becoming an unrecognized everyday worldview #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 76
• The 2008 bank bailouts delegitimized the political centre ground myth #corroborates (0.75)
• Post-2008 capitalist realism shifted from bullying to desperation rhetoric. #expands (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1673