The neoliberal state hollowed out parties to escape mass democracy’s brake on capital
Evidence
Hyperpolitics is the product of a hard but hollow environment, an attempt to break the iron grip of neoliberalism without the requisite tools to do so. The neoliberal state began as an interventionist experiment to shield the market from mass democracy—that was its avowedly hard side. To achieve this, however, it had to sever the party ties that bound it to popular constituencies, with all the obligations that entailed. In its mass-political phase, party democracy acted as a brake on capital accumulation. The response was to hollow said parties out and to transform the state from an active agent into an impartial arbiter. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 230
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEEPTHINKING: The causal core: hard-but-hollow environment produced by the state deliberately severing its party ties to escape the brake on accumulation — this is the mechanism behind saturation without change.