Critical Dialogue

Critical Dialogue
In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemo- scape that would be abhorrent to its intellectual founding
cratic Politics in the West. By Wendy Brown. New York: Columbia fathers, Brown argues: far from a straightforward neo-
University Press, 2019. 264p. $75.00 cloth, $25.00 paper. liberal dream come true, the present is ripe with aspects
doi:10.1017/S1537592720000651
and elements that represent genuine nightmares to the
— Thomas Biebricher, Goethe University Frankfurt neoliberal imagination. In other words, we live in a world
[email protected] that is marked by the unintended consequences of the
neoliberal project, which have even turned it into its
In her new book, Wendy Brown brings her immense opposite in some respects. It is a world that had to endure
intellectual powers to bear on what is arguably the most a frontal attack in the name of markets and morals, which
important but also the most difficult question: Where are still only succeeded halfway and consequently created
we? Brown has an outstanding track record not only as a monstrous hybrid of what might be called authoritarian
a theorist but also as a perceptive diagnostician of “what neoliberalism: in this sense, we truly live in the ruins of
our present is,” to borrow a phrase from Michel Foucault. neoliberalism.
In In the Ruins of Neoliberalism she continues this di- The focus of the opening chapter, “Society Must be
agnostic work, addressing the seemingly contradictory Dismantled” (which is a play on the title of Foucault’s
mélange of neoliberal and (ultra-)conservative, populist, lectures, Society Must be Defended), is the realm of the
or outright authoritarian ingredients. social and an account of neoliberalism’s tactics and the
The approach Brown pursues in her book rests on two rationale behind its attack on society, including the
key assumptions. First, she highlights the importance of concomitant notion of social justice. Not surprisingly,
a view of neoliberalism that is not confined to the strictly the main reference point here is the work of Friedrich
economic realm but also takes into account that “nothing Hayek who (in-)famously lashed out against the notion of
is untouched by a neoliberal mode of reason and valua- social justice as deeply inimical to notions of individual
tion,” implying that its critical analysis also “requires freedom. As Brown shows, Hayek’s concern is that
appreciating neoliberal political culture and subject “pro- politically mandated justice will destroy the twin sponta-
duction” (p. 8). This means, among other things, that neous orders of market and morality. His strategy consists
neoliberalism is not understood as an exclusively econo- in a negation of the realm of the social, including structural
mizing project but rather as a political one that promotes powers of domination, and instead focusing on a narrowly
the duo of markets and morals. It is through this novel conceived notion of coercion as the sole threat to in-
conceptualization, which builds on the pioneering work of dividual liberty. The result of this erasing of the social,
Melinda Cooper on the mediations between neoliberalism which is also the locus of democracy and the concrete
and social conservatism, that Brown gains a diagnostic experience of the nonfamilial other, is individual freedom
handle on the more reactionary aspects of the contempo- disembedded and thus turned into unlimited license.
rary conjuncture; for example, treating appeals to tradi- In the second chapter, “Politics Must Be Dethroned”
tional morality not so much as antithetical to but as part (which is a reference to Hayek’s demand to the same
and parcel of neoliberalism. effect), neoliberal reservations regarding democracy are
However, this does not lead her to the conclusion that subjected to critical scrutiny. Brown’s starting point is to
ours is simply a neoliberal world properly understood in identify the political as the actual cause of concern for
its more encompassing meaning, which brings us to the neoliberals, who sought to constrict and de-democratize it.
second key assumption. To be sure, neoliberalism did Three varieties of neoliberal thought—Milton Friedman,
prepare the ground for the mess that today’s world Friedrich Hayek, and the German Ordoliberals—are
appears to be. However, Brown maintains that neoliberals examined in order to identify their respective critiques
and neoliberalism are not its cause in the strict sense of the and remedies. Although these differ notably—for example,
term. After all, the result of a decade-long pursuit of the Hayek’s critique of sovereignty as the root problem of
neoliberal project is not a world straight out of the democracy against the ordoliberal espousal of strong,
neoliberal textbook but rather a political-economic land- unified, and thus sovereign statehood as the very solution

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 Critical Dialogue

to that problem—the bottom line is the thrust toward it is not clear to what extent the respective arguments are
a polity in which markets (and morality) are made safe generalizable and whether Brown would suggest that this is
from the intrusions of democracy. However, as in Frank- the general shape and form of neoliberalism today—which
enstein’s experiment, things go wrong. Brown shows that is a claim not easily defended. Similarly, despite the
neoliberalism may have succeeded in demolishing demo- attempt to ground her claims in a neoliberal tradition that
cratic life across the board, but its failure to thoroughly is understood to include a certain range of positions (as in
theorize the political comes back to haunt it in the form of her discussion of neoliberal critiques of democracy), there
contemporary authoritarian forces that seize on the de- are parts of the book that rely heavily—and at times solely
stabilization of liberal democracy to bring about that alter- —on Hayek. This is most obvious and consequential in
neoliberal world we live in today. the case of the neoliberal appreciation of tradition and
Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to the way “the personal, morality. The argument fits really well with Hayek, and it
protected sphere must be extended” (p. 89), with the latter would probably fit as well with Ordoliberals. Still, it might
chapter focusing on the judicial dimensions of this un- be more difficult to square with someone like Milton
dertaking through a critical reading of two recent Supreme Friedman, his known appreciation of the family notwith-
Court decisions. The starting point of the argument is standing. Although I find the interpretation of neoliber-
Hayek and his lauding of tradition, morality, and even—if alism as a project of markets and morals to be prima facie
only for strategic reasons—religion as noncoercive, spon- highly plausible, it would still have to be demonstrated
taneously evolved orders that must be protected against the with respect to a broader range of thinkers.
intrusions of state and democracy. Hayek thus serves as the This brings me to the second point, which is partly
prime example of the neoliberal entanglement of markets a matter of warring interpretations of Hayek and his take
and morality/tradition and also offers some of the crucial on morality, as well as on reform and history, more
strategies: restricting democratic calls for social justice generally speaking. Brown emphasizes the conservative
through the requirement of general rules, and so on, and, Hayek of tradition and rejects his own distancing from
conversely, expanding the private sphere that is shielded conservatism. But there is more ambiguity to this than
against state intrusion. However, the result is an actually Brown acknowledges. After all, the spontaneous order of
existing neoliberalism that is twisted in any number of traditional morality may be evolving slowly, but an
ways, where traditional values are politicized and com- evolutionary account such as Hayek’s will always empha-
mercialized and thus turned into the opposite of what size the room for mutation and experimentation inherent in
Hayek thought they would provide. Freedom is no longer such an order. Traditions, therefore, are hardly locked in,
restrained by such traditions as he conceived of it; rather, it and Hayek insists that his account is different from
is a raw will to power that emerges from uninhibited a conservative reflex to pull the brakes on any (moral)
freedom. innovation. Ultimately, this points to a well-known ambi-
In the concluding chapter on fatalism, ressentiment, guity in Hayek’s overall framework where the quasi-
and nihilism, Brown draws on Nietzsche and Marcuse to conservative espousal of tradition and opposition to large-
discuss how the neoliberal-driven trivialization of values scale transformation sits uneasily next to his own calls for
(from democracy to truth and morality) breeds nihilism radical and abrupt reforms in the neoliberal spirit. If this is
that results in something close to what Marcuse called an accurate interpretation, what would this imply for
“repressive desublimation.” The latter loosens the reins of neoliberalism understood as markets plus morals, given
individual conscience and also releases the expectations of that Hayek is the key witness supporting this interpretation?
social conscience. As “nihilism intersects neoliberalism” The third point is also related to the frame of reference
(p. 171), vengeance becomes the battle cry born of the of Brown’s book, which is mostly neoliberalism, US style.
wounded sense of entitlement held by what used to be What emerges from her narrative is an unbridled freedom
a diffuse ruling class of white men that now lives out its largely understood as a de-sublimated will to power that
apocalyptic fatalism: if they cannot rule anymore, they will simply does not care about its own conscience, society, or
try to take everybody else down with them. the future of the planet, acting out its instinctual impulses
In the Ruins of Neoliberalism is a powerful book replete in an almost hedonistic manner. Still, how does this sit
with acute observations, nuanced insight, and bold with accounts of actually existing neoliberalism that stress
theorizing. It is also written with an eloquence and style its disciplinary aspects, ranging from the installment of
that are evident down to the very rhythm that sentences workfare regimes across the OECD world to generalized
and entire passages exude. Still, there are four broad issues austerity, in the very name of futurity—that our children’s
I would like to highlight where Brown’s text prompts children should not be forced to pay off our debts? In
further questions. a nutshell, where Brown sees license and de-sublimation, I
First, despite some references to the European context, (also) see the harsh discipline of a punitive neoliberalism,
In the Ruins is a book that speaks to the transformations of to borrow a term from William Davies, which is all about
neoliberalism in the context of the United States; however, a (financial) future orientation or at least pretends to be.

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 This brings up the final issue. Brown answers the popular sovereignty, and social justice; his formulation of
question as to where we are in the most admirable liberty as the absence of political coercion; and his concern
fashion; still, she remains conspicuously silent on the with supplementing economic competition with a strong
follow-up: Where do/should we go from here? Although I family-based moral order. Moreover, Hayek identifies the
think it is perfectly legitimate to focus on the diagnostic importance of getting the state out of the social-provision
side without offering too much on the constructive side, and social-justice business, tarring both with the label of
some gestures as to how definitive and also possibly error and totalitarianism. In this respect, he gives us the
irreversible she deems the current transformations to be fullest and most profound account of neoliberalism’s
would have been welcome, especially given the ominously transmogrification of liberal democracy tout court, which
dark coloring of the last chapter. has in turn transformed everything from the social
imaginary to the soul of the neoliberal subject.
Response to Thomas Biebricher’s Review of In the As for Hayek’s account of morality, although it is true
Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic that he distanced himself from Burkean-style conservati-
Politics in the West vism in affirming the evolutionary dynamic of tradition, he
doi:10.1017/S1537592720000663 did not regard all traditions as equal; nor did he think they
had an equal chance of winning an evolutionary compe-
— Wendy Brown
tition for survival among them. Rather, he insisted, only
those religions and traditions survive that center family,
I am grateful to Thomas Biebricher for his thoughtful property and individual liberty. Moreover, he believed that
consideration of In the Ruins. Certainly he is right that all traditions embody spontaneously developed and
many of the immediate referents and touchstones of the evolved orders of hierarchy and authority to which we
book are American, even as the work also aims to limn voluntarily conform, while state social programs represent
characteristics of contemporary politics elsewhere. To the opposite: rationalistic and coercive principles of
some degree, this accidental provincialism besets every egalitarianism; in short, social engineering that violates
work of contemporary political theory: we risk universal- the spirit and ordering principles of human tradition. It is
izing the tendencies we tacitly or explicitly draw from our this opposition (and its legitimized antagonism to social
immediate milieu. But it also indexes a problem peculiar to justice and state mandates of provision or protection) that
theorizing both neoliberalism and contemporary right- has been unleashed in neoliberalized societies from Bolso-
wing authoritarianism. On the one hand, these are trans- naro’s Brazil to Trump’s United States. Tradition, free-
national developments—the late twentieth-century neo- dom, patriarchy, religion, and authority are bundled and
liberal revolution was global, and the eruption of hoisted to demonize and defeat state-secured social justice,
ethnonationalist and authoritarian responses to some of equality, “gender ideology,” secularism, and democracy.
its effects extends across South Asia and South America, Just ask William Barr.
the EU and the near East, and the United States. Yet the Finally I want to turn to the nihilism, both facilitating
specific instantiation of neoliberalism; the cultural and and intensified by neoliberalism, that unleashes a de-
political traditions it intersects, displaces, or builds on; and sublimated will to power and a spurning of obligation to
even the crises to which it responds and foments are society and futurity in contemporary subjects. Here,
specific to each national and even subnational setting. Biebricher simply misunderstands me. This phenome-
There is no universal architecture of actually existing non, especially evident in the alt-right, was no more
neoliberalism or actually existing right-wing authoritari- a part of the neoliberal blueprint than are the plutocra-
anism, even as both are global phenomena. Efforts to cies, irresponsible political demagogues, or resentful
politically theorize our conjuncture must navigate this ethnonationalists and Brexiteers populating contempo-
paradox and will inevitably fail. rary Western politics. Rather my argument is that
This brings me to the centrality of Hayek to my a condition of nihilism more than a century in the making
account of the antidemocratic force of neoliberalism. (cf. Nietzsche) both has blended with key features of
There are two reasons for this. Hayek, on my reading, neoliberalism, including its libertarian version of freedom
offers the most systematic and far-reaching theory of and assault on the social, and responds to key neoliberal
a neoliberal order, replete with an epistemology, ontology, effects—including deindustrialization, union busting, and
cosmology, and political theory. This theory displaces the mass migration—to produce political formations of no
“capitalism on steroids” stereotype of neoliberal economic one’s aim or design. This kind of analysis, which Stuart
policy to feature the novel account of the social, the Hall identifies as conjunctural and Foucault would call
political, the moral, and the economic at the heart of the genealogical, aims to identify some of the political
program. If, as Biebricher’s book makes vivid, the other energies, especially those of a reactionary white working
founding neoliberals do not agree with Hayek on every- class, roaring about in the ruins of neoliberalism. Discern-
thing, they largely share his critique of robust democracy, ing how to transform these energies is surely an important

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 Critical Dialogue

part of answering Biebricher’s final query to me: What is to classical ancestor, laissez-faire political economy, is the
be done? extent to which markets require careful political construc-
tion and support. This in turn is what makes a political
The Political Theory of Neoliberalism. By Thomas Biebricher. theory indispensable.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018. 272p. $85.00 cloth, $25.00 Second, any claim that a political theory derived from
paper. the classical neoliberal texts bears on the present requires
doi:10.1017/S1537592720001115 dealing with the interval between the postwar intellectuals
and the later rollout of neoliberal regimes. This means
— Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley
[email protected] reckoning with features such as financialization and
postnational political entities that were not on the landscape
of the founding thinkers, as well as the significant variation
Is it possible to extract a political theory from the across neoliberal political regimes in Latin America, East
constellation of postwar ideas that self-identified as neo- Asia, and Eastern Europe, and even within Europe and the
liberal? What would be the elements and arc of such United States.
a theory, its immanent norms and ideals, its tensions or Third, any effort to relate intellectual history to
aporias? Did the theory inform and shape actual regimes in concrete historical developments raises the question of
recent decades, and if so, how? And how might certain how this influence occurred. Against approaches in which
current political predicaments be refracted through appre- intellectuals are portrayed as direct advisers to power
ciation of this theory? (though this was crucial in Chile and, as Nancy MacLean
These important questions animate Thomas Biebrich- has established, characterizes the role of certain US think
er’s superbly researched, artfully constructed, and impres- tanks as well) or in which politicians use neoliberal texts
sively even-handed contribution to the growing literatures as playbooks (though Thatcher certainly did), Biebricher
on neoliberal intellectual history and “actually existing draws on the neoliberals’ own understanding of how ideas
neoliberalism.” He moves from the 1938 Colloque Walter become reality principles. On the one hand, there is the
Lippmann to the contemporary European Union tech- importance of crisis in developing what they understood as
nocracy and across neoliberal thought in Germany, an “ideational” opportunity – as Milton Friedman fa-
Austria, Chicago, and Virginia to map the explicitly mously put it, in a crisis, “the actions that are taken depend
political architecture of neoliberal theory and practice. on the ideas that are lying around.” On the other hand,
He underlines the significance of fascism, communism, Biebricher argues that neoliberalism’s influence develops
and totalitarianism, and not only Keynesianism, in gradually and takes hold over time by “impregnating”
fomenting neoliberalism’s response to simmering crises action and institutions; this approximates what the Ordo-
of liberalism that came to a head in World War II. And he liberals explicitly identified with a new form of reason or
works expertly with the major and minor works of the what Foucault, in his 1979 Collège lectures, identified as
classical neoliberal thinkers themselves, rendering the neoliberal political rationality.
book both a trustworthy introduction to and skillful Biebricher treats these three challenges—the disunity
analysis of its subject. of neoliberal thought, the interval between the founding
Deriving a political theory from classical neoliberal ideals and actually existing neoliberalism, and the chal-
thought has three distinct challenges, each of which lenge of linking the ideas to policy—as more than
Biebricher faces directly. First, “neoliberal” is a shorthand technical riddles to be solved. Instead, they undergird
for the non-unified ensemble of postwar thinkers hailing the complexity of his analysis: the importance of featuring
from Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzer- heterogeneity and tensions, coherence and contradictions
land, and the United States who gathered under the rubric at the site of the common neoliberal project; the impor-
of the Mont Pelerin Society but pursued most of their tance of grasping the form of reasoning that structures
work separately from one another. Formed by what institutions, not just the decisions that emanate from
Biebricher terms different “fields of adversity” (collectiv- them; and the importance of tracking how a regime
ism, the Keynesian welfare state, paleoliberalism, fascism, designed for one purpose—building a competitive market
republicanism) and trained in different disciplines (eco- economy—ends up becoming a managerial apparatus for
nomics, philosophy, sociology, politics), these thinkers another: technocratic crisis management in a financialized
also differently appraised the limits of classical liberalism EU.
(pp. 18–21). If they all demonized socialism, an over- In part I, Biebricher dedicates chapters to the neo-
reaching state, and democratic excess, they differed on how liberals’ varied approaches to the state, democracy, eco-
best to secure “the political and social conditions for nomic science, and politics. In the chapter on the state,
functioning markets” (p. 26). Establishing these condi- Biebricher builds his account from the paradoxical prob-
tions constitutes what Biebricher terms “the neoliberal lematic of how to simultaneously empower, narrowly
problematic”; what distinguishes neoliberalism from its focus, and limit the state. Exploring differences between

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 the overtly strong statism of thinkers like Eucken and entity that prizes markets above all and is insulated from
Roepke and the more covert statism of the Americans, he popular demands or popular sovereignty.
also probes their different concerns, from resetting general Biebricher offers multifold “proof” of the influence of
principles of federalism, the balance of power, and law’s ordoliberalism in recent EU developments. There is the
purpose to the specifics of achieving balanced budgets or importance of Eucken’s text to EU policy makers and their
countering the moral effects of capitalist proletarianiza- setting of economic rules and thresholds enforced by
tion. The chapter on democracy traces neoliberal chal- sanctions. There is the economic theory that guided the
lenges to popular sovereignty, majority rule, and pluralism, handling of the financial crisis and its aftershocks in
each of which threatens a liberal market order. All the southern Europe: it incorporated a specific model of
neoliberals sought to delegitimize and deinstitutionalize economic competition and punishing austerity measures.
mass democratic demands and interest group pluralism, And there are the political principles guiding the manage-
but their strategies for insulating the state from these ment of the crisis. Here Biebricher identifies the author-
phenomena differed. They ranged from Hayek’s aim to itarian model of politics embodied in the Troika
restrict legislatures to universal rule-making and legitimat- —“analogous to a liquidator in a private insolvency”—
ion of liberal authoritarianism to the ordoliberal invest- and in a European Commission invested with powers of
ment in depoliticized technocracy and an “economic “surveillance, monitoring, and, if need be, sanctioning of
constitution.” Similarly, the fascinating chapter on science member states that strike at the heart of a core competence
traces the disparate degrees of confidence the neoliberals of national parliaments” (p. 216). Indeed, the Macroeco-
had in economic science, from those who essentially nomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) established in 2011,
thought the state should be largely run by economists to with its set indicators, scoreboard, and semiautomatic
those who were dubious about all claims to comprehensive triggering of powerful sanctions, epitomizes ordoliberal
knowledge, including those of economics. scientism and technocracy. Thus, Biebricher concludes
The final chapter of part I, on politics, examines that the European Commission has become precisely that
among other things the mobilization of politics for the undemocratic economic rule setter, umpire, and enforce-
transition to neoliberalism. Here, Biebricher reveals how, ment power that ordoliberalism sought from the state.
for the neoliberals, a political iron fist may operate within Biebricher’s argument of steady EU de-democratization
a liberal frame to throttle democratic will formation while by ordoliberalism is persuasive and disturbing. Still, one
protecting private liberties. Thus, across neoliberal think- wishes that its implications for the present and future of
ing, “totalitarian democracy” (aka social democracy) may European democracy, which are compressed into the last
be legitimately replaced by “dictatorial liberalism,” at least few pages of the book, were more fully drawn. (His final
in the transitional period. Yet even this device does ominous claim, that “if Europe does not manage to
not settle how an order premised on constructivist and redemocratize its will-formation and repoliticize some of
organicist elements, forthrightly eschewing planning, and its institutions, there is a distinct danger that its ordoliber-
reliant on the spontaneity of markets and on “re-rooting” alization will slowly stagger toward its eventual comple-
homo oeconomicus in the pastoral family could be fashioned tion,” is notably undeveloped and makes no mention of
from the political-economic order it strives to vanquish. So contemporary nationalist rebellions against this process [p.
how did ideas that lacked a plan for their own instantiation 224].) One also wishes that Biebricher’s consideration, in
become the ruling ideas of our age? part I, of the ordoliberal aim to fortify a pastoral patriarchal
Part II approaches this question not by the usual morality had not dropped away from part II, given its
means of reflecting on the early decades of neoliberalism relevance to Thatcherism in an earlier decade and to
but by focusing on the post-2008 crisis of the European broader contemporary developments on the Right, in-
Union. Why did the EU and United States deal so cluding in the United States and Latin America. One
differently with the 2008 financial crisis and its after- might wish, too, that after a relatively expansive and
math? Why did the EU undertake austerity that pro- transcontinental treatment of the several strands of neo-
longed its recovery when the United States did not? Here, liberal thought and its applications, Biebricher had not
Biebricher develops his (and the neoliberals’) argument narrowed the focus of the final discussion to an ordoliber-
that ideas matter, especially in acrisis and when there is alizing European Union.
uncertainty. He argues that ordoliberal ideas, particularly More generally, Biebricher’s interpretive and critical
those of Walter Eucken, shaped the European Union/ claims are sometimes frustratingly brief and underdevel-
European Monetary Union response to the crisis and that, oped. Perhaps this exchange will be an occasion for him to
since 2009, the growing ordoliberalization of the EU has expand on them. That said, Biebricher fulfills his promise
entailed development and administration of depoliticized to identify a political theory in neoliberal ideas, to treat
and undemocratic rules for intra- and international Euro- these ideas seriously and critically, and to reveal their
pean competitiveness. The EU is thus realizing the relevance to building actually existing neoliberalism. The
ordoliberal technocratic ideal of a supervenient political work is an important contribution to both the academic

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 Critical Dialogue

literature on neoliberal thought and understanding con- who is interested in the political theory of neoliberalism and
temporary crises of liberal democracy. what is distinctive about the neoliberal present, Europe is
thus one of the most interesting sites of actually existing
Response to Wendy Brown’s Review of The Political neoliberalism to consider.
Theory of Neoliberalism There is indeed a somewhat ominous ring to the final
doi:10.1017/S1537592720001127 paragraphs regarding scenarios for the future develop-
ment of the EU. Let me take this opportunity to clarify
— Thomas Biebricher
that I consider this future development to be, in
In her generous and deeply perceptive review of my principle, undetermined. There are alternatives to ordo-
book, Wendy Brown points out some strengths but also liberalization. Some are represented by right-wing populist
what she considers to be the limitations of the study. parties (although there is a considerable north–south
And, as in many things, Brown is right—certainly with divide here, Dutch or Swedish populists being staunch
respect to some of the limitations. In particular, she draws supporters of an “ordoliberal” Europe of austerity), while
attention to the quite abrupt and also ominous closing other political forces continue to fight for a more “social
lines of the book that raise a lot of questions regarding the democratic” Europe. And although the structural decks are
current state and future trajectory of an increasingly stacked against this latter project of a more social, more
ordoliberal European Union that might be subject to democratic European Union that does not revert back into
escalating nationalist contestation from any number of a loose federation of nation-states, I would still consider
“right-wing populist” movements and parties. More this a position worth struggling for.
generally, Brown points to the often “underdeveloped” Finally, Brown correctly points to what I would
interpretive and critical claims in the study. Furthermore, describe as rather modest critical claims that aim not so
she detects a narrowing of the scope that takes place over much at a refutation but rather a problematization of the
the course of the book; for example, when the ordoliberal various tenets of neoliberal political theory. The system-
praise of traditional morality, which is addressed early on, atic reason for this is my commitment to a mode of
is never taken up again in the more diagnostic parts of the critique that is largely immanent and that I have
book or when the broad transatlantic framework of employed for a combination of reasons. Given the relative
varieties of neoliberal thought gives way to an analysis dearth of studies that engage critically and in depth with
of “actually existing neoliberalism” with an exclusive the primary sources of neoliberal political theory, I think
focus on contemporary Europe. it is sufficient as a first step to identify tensions, lacunae,
I think these are perfectly valid points, so let me try to inconsistencies, and blind spots in that theory. I hope
address them, beginning with the last one. Although that others will take the small holes I tried to poke into
a broader transatlantic comparative scope of the analysis this body of thought as a starting point and enlarge them.
of actually existing neoliberalism would have been more Moreover, the book was to be about neoliberal theory,
desirable in principle, given the restrictions of space, I first and foremost; I wanted the critique developed in it
chose to focus on Europe for two reasons. First, the not to be inherently tied to (for example) Foucaultian or
severity of the string of crises was much more pro- Gramscian assumptions, so the critical points could not
nounced there, and assuming that neoliberalism thrives be dismissed simply because one disagrees with these
on crises, this is the setting where “neoliberal innovation” assumptions. In other words, I wanted to write a book
is most likely to be expected. Second, the unique political whose critique would have to be taken seriously not only
form of the Eurozone/European Union turns it into by those who are already part of neoliberalism’s choir of
a perfect laboratory for neoliberalism, especially with critics but even by those who tend to have faith in the
regard to statehood “after” the nation-state. For someone neoliberal creed.

544 Perspectives on Politics

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