A state without a future: neoliberal despotism, crisis-fighting, and government through fear

ABSTRACT

This article is a study on the neoliberal state, its relation to time and its ongoing transformation through crisis. It is spurred by two seminal works – Hartog’s on historicity and Rosa’s on acceleration – that catalogue a collapse of the modern temporality defined by progression from past to future. The article develops this problematic by focusing on the state as a key organiser of social temporalities. As the state has, in the course of the 21st century, been occupied with fighting crises, the assessment of its transformation and its relation to time proceeds from an analysis of its crisis-response. It finds that the state cannot articulate a vision for the future. This is a historically unique development, and the article traces its causes and consequences. It argues that the loss of the future perspective results from neoliberalism’s success in enhancing capital’s power over society. This makes both capital and the state avert to change, even as crisis and disruption become systemic elements of the neoliberal order. This causes the neoliberal state to acquire the form of neoliberal despotism: a state whose purpose is to impose social stasis and, since it cannot lead towards an appealing future, can only govern through fear.

KEYWORDS:

• Crisis
• neoliberal despotism
• neoliberal state
• threat governmentality
• future

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The classification of the state does not follow the further distinction between variegations of neoliberal states according to the way in which they historically became thus; and does not explore the specific ways the tendencies it outlines are expressed within the context of particular neoliberal nation-states. It thus risks homogenising the neoliberal state and over-generalising the broad trends it describes, by extrapolating developments in neoliberal states that emerged from ‘neoliberal regime shift’ dominated by finance, to those that followed different pathways to neoliberalism. It sidesteps states that became neoliberal through an accumulation of ‘neoliberal policy adjustments’ but maintain a significant welfare state and promote and export-based accumulation, which force them to adopt longer-term planning. It should, however, be noted that the trends outlined here present marked similarity across different varieties of neoliberal state; after all, the temporal accounts that triggered this study originate from France and Germany – both of which pertain to the ‘neoliberal policy adjustments’ variety, and maintain substantial welfare infrastructures and industry base (On the variegations of the neoliberal state: Jessop 2019a, pp. 344–345). This generalisation potentially costs the article important nuance and insights. It offers, however, two advantages. First, it sets a platform for more specific, detailed, and comparative studies across varieties and national neoliberal states. Second, it allows the analysis a degree of clarity it would not otherwise have: the article discusses a complex relation-of-relations (the state), drawing from security and economic policy (a combination rare in political analysis), to address issues of time and its experience (the most abstract relation), and develops a complex and novel argument on this basis. It sacrifices some nuance in order to allow this argument to stand as boldly and clearly as is possible within the confines of a singular article.

2. There is an apparent discrepancy here. In the Introduction, I proclaimed the state to be a social relation, a condensation of the balance of power between social forces. From now on, the state appears to be monopolised by one such force – capital – and becomes its organ. There is no necessary contradiction between these two claims: the state as an organ of capital is still the state as a condensation of the balance of power between forces. It is precisely this balance that has shifted drastically in favour of capital – and largely thanks to the state, which is not merely a passive condensation of, but also an active agency in, social dynamics.

3. Promulgated by, especially US and British, high-finance, the disruption tactic is expressed within the state and makes it its object. In Britain and the US, the Conservative and Republican parties are captured by a breed of right-wing neoliberal politicians that, between them, have railed against and, to deferring degrees, undermined: the civil service; the judiciary; international trade treaties; the EU; an ‘antigrowth coalition’ (comprising central bankers, international economic governance institutions, the City of London, workers’ unions, and 30 years’ worth of Chancellors to the Treasury); the police; the institutions promoting the Washington Consensus; the UN, and even NATO.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christos Boukalas

Christos Boukalas is assistant professor at Northumbria Law School. He develops a political theory of law, based on legal and state theory. His research focuses on the advent of a new form of law and state in the course of the 21st century. He has widely published critical accounts on British and American security law and policy, including the monograph Hoemeland Security, it Law and its State (Routledge 2014). His recent monograph Biosecurity, Economic Collapse, the State to Come (Routledge 2023) examines political power during the pandemic and outlines the state that emerges from it.