Matías Saidel - Neoliberalism Reloaded: Authoritarian Governmentality and the Rise of the Radical Right

De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences

Volume

ISBN 9783110723267

e-ISBN (PDF) 9783110723939

e-ISBN (EPUB) 9783110724011

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

To Bruno and Felipe

This book was made possible by my work as a researcher at the National Research Council of Argentina-Institute of Social Studies (CONICET-INES) which includes my participation in the PIP Neoliberal governmentality and processes of subjectivation: towards a critical ontology of the present (20172019) and as a Professor-Researcher at the National University of Entre Ros, where I supervise the Research and Development Project 5132 Politics and subjectivity in neoliberal capitalism: governmentality, dispossession and construction of the common. It was also possible by the kind invitation of De Gruyter to further develop the ideas presented in chapter 3 of this book, part of which appeared in Se puede hablar de un momento fascista del neoliberalismo? Crisis de la democracia liberal y guerra contra las poblaciones precarizadas como sntomas de poca, Revista Argentina de Ciencia Poltica, 2020, 1(24), 70100. This invitation allowed me to revisit earlier work and to conduct new research that has been sent to various academic reviews over the past two years. Chapter 1 draws in part on arguments first presented in La fbrica de la subjetividad neoliberal: del empresario de s al hombre endeudado, Plyade 17, July 2016, 131154. Part of chapter 2 develops reflections first presented at the XI National Congress on Democracy (Rosario National University, 2014) and another part has been published in Consideraciones sobre las crticas neoliberales a la democracia, Perspectivas. Revista de Ciencias Sociales 7(13) EneroJunio 2022, 449473. Most of chapter 4 has been published in El neoliberalismo autoritario y el auge de las nuevas derechas, Histria Unisinos 25(2), May/August 2021, 263275. Parts of chapter 5 were published in Hacia una genealoga del populismo de derechas actual. Una aproximacin a la corriente nacional-(neo)liberal en Europa y Estados Unidos, El banquete de los Dioses 9, JulDec 2021, 339373. A longer version of chapter 6 was published as Anticomunismo sin comunismo? La construccin del feminismo como enemigo estratgico de las nuevas derechas y el dilema de la reproduccin social, Razn Crtica 11, 2021, 255288, https://doi.org/10.21789/25007807.1746 (with Julia Expsito). Chapter 7 draws on a lecture presented at Lund University in May 2018.

I would like to thank Andrea Fagioli, Ivn Dalmau, Fiorella Guaglianone, Betania Parodi, Pablo Manfredi, and Dana D. Nelson who have read and commented parts of this book during the process of writing; Alejo Stark and Gastn Souroujon, for commenting on the book proposal; Julia Expsito, Emilio Lo Valvo, Emiliano Sacchi, for years of discussions and shared work that have nurtured my academic formation and with whom I have written the book Ensamblajes neoliberales: mutaciones del capitalismo contemporneo, (Vicente Lpez: Red Editorial, 2022) which draws on different aspects ofand theoretical approaches toneoliberal capitalism; the colleagues of the PIP and Debates Actuales with whom I discussed many ideas during the last decade (Silvana Vignale, Luciana lvarez, Pablo Mndez, Osvaldo Lpez-Ruiz, Ric Esteves, Adrin Velzquez). I also want to thank my family, and especially the love I received from Yanina and our sons Bruno and Felipe, to whom I would like to dedicate this book.

Can we speak of a fascist moment of neoliberalism? This question, which initially motivated the writing of this book, refers to two interrelated issues. On the one hand, to the increasingly violent, cruel, and unfair means that neoliberal practices and discourses have acquired in recent decades, especially after the global financial crisis and the austerity and punitive response that followed. On the other hand, to the rise of a neoliberal far-right that has not only managed to set the agenda of the ruling political parties in liberal democracies, but also to produce common sense through a relentless battle in social networks, the media, the streets, think tanks and even academia. In this way, discourses and policies marked by hatred of immigrants, women, sex-gender dissidents, the poor, those who receive social aid, etc., are being normalized.

Of course, this question was hardly original. The denunciation of fascism by the left and even the proud use of this label by part of the radical right, such as Vox in Spain, has become increasingly frequent. Moreover, the question has been raised repeatedly in academia, especially after the electoral victory of Trump, Modi, Johnson, the Brexit, and Bolsonaro. It also emerged with the arrival of the Lega to the Italian government and the possible victory of Fratelli dItalia in the 2022 elections, with the consolidation of Fidesz in Hungary and PiS in Poland, with the permanent possibility of a Rassemblement National government in France, with the rise of Vox in Spain, and with the growing influence of the far-right in Latin America, not to mention undemocratic regimes elsewhere that have adopted free-market policies combined with political and social authoritarianism.

In this sense, this question implies a specific geo-political framework, since neoliberalism and fascism arose in a particular historical and geographical context: specifically, Europe and then the rest of the West in the first postwar period. Therefore, given that this past haunts and besieges our political experience, and that the weight of the dead continues to oppress the brains of the living, we are interested in analyzing the rise of authoritarian neoliberalism, fundamentally in Europe and America. These societies were marked by the history of both processes, but also by the rise of liberal democracy which, as it did a century ago, is once again facing a severe crisis.

In order to address this issue, I take into account different studies on the peculiarities and genealogy of the present. Some of them have focused on the features of the new neoliberalism, following the global financial crisis and the way in which it has favored the rise of the far right. Others focus on the disruptive aspects of these currents, even pointing to a distancing, in some cases, from neoliberal coordinates. Taking up part of these debates, this book seeks to ponder the reasons, characteristics, and antecedents of the becoming authoritarian of neoliberalism, its link with the crisis of liberal democracies and with the rise of the new radical right. In this context, I will analyze which traits distinguish the present from previous historical periods, how to think about current neoliberalism as a strategic project, how its field of adversity is configured and what the alternative projects to it are. In particular, I seek to explore the relationship between neoliberalism as a governmental rationality and the authoritarian practices and ideas that have historically characterized it, taking into account its antagonistic dimension towards egalitarian or collectivist political currents and, in that framework, to mass, class, gender, decolonizing movements and racialized subjects. To this end, the book draws on different theoretical and disciplinary sources. In the first place, from the grid of governmentality, elaborated by Foucault, complementing it with contributions from some of the excellent existing intellectual histories of neoliberal thought. This allows us to understand what they conceived as the desirable social order and the governmental practices necessary to achieve it. In this sense, I take up elements of some of the most influential currents and authors of Euro-American neoliberalism of the twentieth century, understanding that the term neoliberal refers to a heterogeneous and in some points contradictory set of economic, social and political proposals. However, I will discuss this governmental dimension in the light of recent mutations of capitalism and a consideration of the way in which human populations are effectively being governed through often violent and coercive processes of neoliberalization. This will imply complementing that analytical framework with other traditions, especially from the critique of (neo)Marxist political economy and its analysis of neoliberalism as a current stage of capitalism. ().