'The revolution will not be theorized: Neoliberal thought and the problem of transition' by Thomas Biebricher in (2023) Constellations comments
Neoliberalism is a notoriously contested term, and even among those who principally subscribe to it, which is mostly its critics, fierce debates persist over its nature, how to study it properly—and whether it is still the appropriate conceptual armament to understand the contemporary world and an arguably emerging “post-neoliberalism” (Davies & Gane, 2021). Not only is it controversial how neoliberalism should be defined—a governing rationality in the spirit of Foucault's governmentality lectures (Foucault, 2008), a portfolio of certain policies, or a strategy of transnational capital to restore and safeguard profit rates (Harvey, 2005)—but also on what level to study it, either that of “actually existing neoliberalism” (Brenner & Theodore, 2002; Cahill, 2014), a set of theories and arguments, or both.
My starting point and focus for most of this paper is neoliberal thought as it is represented by the writings of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, the German ordoliberals, and, importantly, James Buchanan. My aim is to develop a critical account of neoliberal thought that will abstain from explicitly normative criticisms and rather opt for a more indirect but effective and somewhat novel critique that holds neoliberalism to its own standards and shows how it fails to meet them or is pushed into adopting highly questionable positions in the attempt to do so. The argument proceeds as follows: As already suggested, the meaning of neoliberalism is heavily contested, so I will provide the basis of my argument by laying out a brief account of neoliberalism, which relies on a theoretical-historical reconstruction of its context of emergence around the middle of the 20th century. What I conclude from this reconstruction is that we are well-advised not to narrow down neoliberalism too much and not to downplay its internal heterogeneities. Therefore, rather than trying to isolate a number of doctrines or positions as quintessentially neoliberal or even considering them to be the “essence” of neoliberalism, I argue that what unites neoliberal discourse is not a set of positive convictions—although there is some significant overlap in certain areas—but rather a shared problematic that pertains to the preconditions of functioning markets.
Within that overall problematic, democracy is one of the most pressing problems according to neoliberal thinkers, because virtually all of them agree that it complicates the task of setting up and securing the workings of functioning markets significantly. Still, this basic agreement notwithstanding, neoliberal accounts of democracy display a considerable range of specific diagnoses as to the nature and source of its dysfunctionalities or even pathologies. Accordingly, the second step of the argument is a survey of some selected lines of critique of democracy as they are formulated by leading neoliberals. Among other things, this survey helps us appreciate the heterogeneities of neoliberal thought, but, more importantly for my purposes, it also gives us a sense of the deep reservations neoliberals have with regard to democracy and the trenchant nature of their critique.
As the specific critiques of democracy vary among neoliberals, so do the suggested remedies and reforms put forward. Accordingly, in the next step, several selected reform proposals are scrutinized that range from the vague call for a “strong state” to Hayek's “model constitution” and the much more specific argument for the introduction of a constitutional balanced-budget amendment, which is a signature demand of Buchanan. What this survey shows us, among other things, is the radical nature of the neoliberal reform proposals, which is important to my overall argument.
Despite the highly controversial implications of all of these reform proposals, I will deliberately forego engaging them directly based on normative arguments. Instead, my critique focuses on the missing analytical link between neoliberal diagnostics and respective remedies. In order to show this, the fourth and final part of the argument shifts attention to the politics of neoliberal transformation, that is, whether and how this kind of politics is theorized in neoliberal accounts. Again, there is a certain degree of variance between Hayek, Eucken and Buchanan, but the common denominator here is the inability to theorize such a politics without violating the respective assumptions underlying the critical diagnostics or moving beyond the confines of liberal democracy as a condition of implementing such reforms. Thus, the key thesis I wish to defend in the following contends that neoliberal thought lacks any plausible solution to the so-called problem of transition—if they care to reflect on it at all.
These findings lead to several different interpretations with more or less far-reaching implications that are discussed in the concluding section.
