The Never Ending Nightmare of Neoliberalism

As Trump rips up the free trade consensus a dangerous philosophy based on nothing but avarice still dominates the left and right

Credit where credit is due the Bronze Age Pervert made a fair point:

I am sure the Bronze Age Pervert and I would disagree on what promoting “interesting high culture and commentary” looks like but at least we can agree that the state has a responsibility to do so. And starting from that premise maybe we could even forge some compromise that would allow public stations to broadcast content I would enjoy such as the plays of Bertolt Brecht in exchange for content he would enjoy such as frequent showings of nude men with well sculpted bodies.

But here comes the rub. In endorsing Donald Trump the Bronze Age Pervert did not sign on for a political project that says the state has a responsibility to promote interesting high culture and commentary. Trumpism views the state the same way an addict views the copper wiring in a house. Anything valuable is to be ripped out and sold. Does Mr. Pervert know this? Does he care?

It’s a rather striking feature of our supposed two party system that neither party seems particularly interested in building lasting political power. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congresswoman with neither the beauty nor the intelligence of a Neanderthal, is “calling for the complete and total defund [sic] and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.” NPR and PBS could become right wing state media. Instead the right wants to completely abolish them.

Much like public television and radio, the National Endowment for the Humanities could be used to promote whatever the party in power desires. Instead the Trump administration wants to cut its funding by 80%. We’re talking about the agency that allows for the existence of museums and libraries. Those on the right always talk about “western civilization” yet they want to close every park, every museum, and every library. What exactly does western civilization look like to them? Chipotle? Where do they think the ancient Greek and Roman busts they use for their profile pictures would be kept?

It can be helpful to remember that these people, and here I mean the ones actually holding power not the ones gibbering on the sidelines, are not conservatives of any variety. Edmund Burke referred to the state as “a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” The philosophy that has held the whip hand in the western world since the 1980s views this kind of thinking as socialism. Thomas Hobbes might as well be a communist to them. There is no partnership. The only thing they want the state to do is empty its pockets then die.

I am going to use a word for this that has perhaps been cheapened from overuse by podcasters with vocal fry but that remains relevant for understanding our present moment: neoliberalism.

The demise of neoliberalism was endlessly predicted. It was predicted in the 2008 financial crisis, it was predicted with Trump’s first election, it was predicted with Joe Biden’s election, it was predicted with Donald Trump’s second election. And yet here we are. Still running from Freddy Krueger.

Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval offer an explanation in their book Never Ending Nightmare. Neoliberalism “is not a form of conservatism” rather it is “an attack on the very foundations of social life as they took shape and became established in the modern epoch.” It is not a return to Adam Smith, it is a rejection of Adam Smith. It is a “radical” and “revolutionary” project. The right wing’s answer to Pol Pot.

What makes neoliberalism so radical is that its goal is “imposing the logic of capital in the economy, but also in society and the state itself.” It seeks to subject every aspect of human existence to market forces. We now live in a world where people talk about their “sexual market value” and the “opportunity costs” of spending time with their friends and we wonder why everyone is depressed.

Ever since Ronald Reagan took the oath of office the United States has been continually doubling down on an experiment just as insane as Year Zero. No society in human history has rejected the idea that the young should have some sense of obligation and duty to the old, yet the party in power is now calling our seniors on Social Security “fraudsters” and “parasites.” They want want to fire every other customer service representative who works at the Social Security Administration and make a 92 year old whose wife just died talk with an AI chatbot about it. This is anti-humanity.

So how are we to understand Donald Trump’s newly announced tariffs? Dardot and Laval identify Trumpism and similar global phenomena as the “second phase” of neoliberalism, one which rides to power on the backlash created by the first phase. In the United States the backlash created by the first phase is everywhere around us.

A small subset of politicians and intellectuals on the right and left, Pat Buchanan and Bernie Sanders among them, warned against the trade deals of the 1990s and early 2000s. While NAFTA and GATT were painful, it was China’s admission to the World Trade Organization and the establishment of Permanent Normalized Trade Relations (PNTR) in 2000 that truly crushed US manufacturing.

Between 1999 and 2009 1/3rd of all manufacturing jobs in the United States disappeared. What were once good paying union jobs that could be done without a college degree were replaced with lower paying non-unionized service industry jobs. Men with only a high school diploma have seen significant real wage declines since PNTR and the situation is even worse for those who don’t graduate high school.

When men without college degrees lost the ability to be breadwinners for their families we saw suicides and fatal drug overdoses spike. Today both stand at record levels. In the “blue wall” manufacturing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin many unfortunate people experienced unemployment, poverty, and family breakdown. In 2016 and 2024 those people rebelled. Had Bill Clinton not signed PNTR in 2000 Donald Trump would not be the President today.

After decades of the US political class pretending this was not a problem Trump has at last struck a wild blow on behalf of those hurt by our trade deals, millions of real Americans that defenders of the free trade consensus would rather pretend do not exist. However, he is acting long after the horse has left the barn. If tariffs had been utilized in the 90s or early 2000s US manufacturing might have been saved. Now the factories have been mothballed and major capital investments would be required to bring them back.

Here is the bizarre situation we find ourselves in. Trump has, at least for the moment, broken from the neoliberal consensus on free trade while affirming that the neoliberal consensus on the role of the government is stronger than it has ever been. This has created a completely incoherent and unworkable governing ideology. Trump’s presidency started with a unprecedented attack on the capabilities of the only force able to make good on his promises of reshoring US manufacturing, the US federal government.

There are many examples throughout history of states utilizing tariffs alongside government intervention to create prosperity. Japan’s post World War 2 economic boom was entirely based on this. China has used a similar strategy with an even more active role for the government. If Trump and his coalition wanted to use tariffs successfully they could study these models. To manage and encourage the rebuilding of US manufacturing would require government investment, industrial planning, and the creation of domestic state owned enterprises.

There is no indication that Trump will even consider this option. Trump’s coalition is awash with Cro-Magnon anti-government morons like Marjorie Taylor Greene. When Ronald Reagan declared “government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem” his brain was already melting. Ironic that today it remains a rallying cry for those political actors who are in the advanced stages of mental retardation.

What does that leave Trump’s tariff policy with? The delusional belief that private capital will, by itself, make major investments to reshore manufacturing in the next 3 years. As the US stock market melts down on the tariff announcement and a recession becomes imminent private capital will pare back. Spending and investment will be reduced everywhere as people batten down the hatches. John Maynard Keynes will once again be shown correct in observing that in such situations only the government can buck the trend and aggressively spend money. Marjorie Taylor Greene will shriek and fling her shit at her keepers.

We common citizens of the United States find ourselves trapped between two insane ruling ideologies. On the one hand is the belief that there is no such thing as critical domestic industry and that everything can be offshored and globalized without adverse consequence. On the other is the belief that if the government were to build anything that would be socialism. Can I vote for a military coup please?

Trump’s trade war attacks the dictatorship of global financial capital that has defined the neoliberal era without a plan to implement any alternative governing structure. It will surely end in disaster. And when that day comes I know the Bronze Age Pervert and everyone else on the right will wish they had their own NPR to propagandize for them.