The Fascist Nature of Neoliberalism

by Andrea Micocci, Flavia Di Mario

Capitalism is based on a false logic in which all facts and ideas are reduced to a consideration of their ‘feasibility’ within the capitalist system. Thus, all mainstream economic and political theories, including those such as Marxism which are supposed to offer an alternative vision, have been stunted and utopian ideas are completely side-lined. In order to constantly work out the feasible, you have to hang on to pseudo-factual concepts: nationalism; a constant drive for efficiency; the idea of nation/state; corporatism; managed markets; business ethics; governance etc. Capitalism is reduced to the management of the economy by states that fight each other and marvel at the independence of finance. All this, the book argues, is akin, intellectually, economically, politically, and unfortunately individually, to fascism. The Fascist Nature of Neoliberalism offers a brief, provocative analysis of this issue with special reference to the most visible executioners of its will: the much-misunderstood managerial class. This group simply happens to hold power, and hence visibility, but they do what everybody else does, and would do, all the time. This is because capitalism is an intellectual outlook that thoroughly directs individual actions through fascist and non-fascist repression. This book argues that the only way to escape capitalism is to recover individual intellectual and sentimental emancipation from capitalism itself in order to produce radical solutions. This volume is of great importance to those who study and are interested in political economy, economic theory and philosophy, as well as fascism and neoliberalism.

Genres: Economics

94 pages, Hardcover

Published October 18, 2017

Reviews

[Juan Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, and very important theory. It’s moderately well argued but in a repetitive way that feels incomplete. I hope the authors do a deeper work on this.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun thesis, though there is quite a lot of repetition and some blanks to be filled in. The diversity and quality of the research that went into this text makes it feel more like a long paper than a book.

This being said, points were made.

This is not an organic society with free people making equal exchanges on a market. Every bit of this fantasy has been reified, into a militant code. And this is the nature of fascism. A kind of pretend liberalism which mouths the words of community, ethics, efficiency, feasibility, and "rationality", crushing anything outside of it as an enemy, and bringing everything else inside it as a diverse "friend."