T H E D E A T H O F N E O L I B E R A L I S M:
IS POPULISM THE NEW LIBERALISM?
TAMARA JACOBS
W e are still witnessing the early days of the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis and its repercussions have only begun to significantly unfold, with 2016’ s two key votes: Brexit and Trump. Both have unveiled the deep-rooted divisions within the West, which were exacerbated by the 08 crash, and were ignored by the seemingly wider liberal demographic. Both represent a mark left on the West by the crisis and a crisis for the neoliberal project of the past three decades, which has evidently failed and is on its way to its death.
Neoliberal economics, which have prevailed since the 1980s, takes a Laissezfaire approach to economic development with a reduced role of government, giving more power to the private sector. Arguably, this model brought about widespread prosperity, particularly in Western Europe and the USA. However, as indicated by 2016’ s rise of populism, many sectors in those societies were, particularly the white working class, as they refer,‘ left behind’, and did not reap the benefits of the modern‘ rugged individualism’. But during the financial meltdown of 2008, what was insignificant inequality, became a huge wave of dissatisfaction and disillusionment from the government and financial institutions. In Europe, the hard-hitting recession transformed meagre campaigns against immigration and globalisation into powerful movements from all sides of the political
20 spectrum. We saw the upswing in popularity of the Danish People’ s Party, the Spanish Podemos, and even the Front National in France, which was given a complete makeover by its new leader Marine Le Pen. In the UK, slowly but surely, we also saw the rise of UKIP. These political movements were shaped by the forces of populism, which as seen in Europe, comes from all ends of the political spectrum; it is a political logic rather than an ideology. This logic fundamentally undermines the existing political system and demands a change from it, assuming this request is indefinitely rejected by the system, causing the system to succumb to these demands, essentially evolving into what the populists wanted.
With the European Union operating a neoliberal agenda, with one central bank controlling the monetary policy of its 19 member states, all at different levels of economic development, it can be argued that perhaps this was doomed to fail. Anyone at the ECB will know the underlying truth that an economy like that of Greece cannot be put on par and share an identical monetary policy with a country like Germany. This arrangement may have been doomed to fail from the start, simply because it operates against basic logic. This ongoing problem became majorly apparent in 2008, when the ECB would need to implement austerity measures in all of its member states, but again, such different economies could not be