Neoliberalism Renders Us Powerless — and Blames Us for It
As the 1 percent internalized the sense that they alone were responsible for their success, so too was everyone else made to feel like the cause of their own failure. This formula was baked into the neoliberal philosophy from the beginning.
Neoliberalism was conceived as a fundamentally moral project to make the world safer for property while fashioning individuals into entrepreneurs of the self. (Etienne Girardet / Unsplash)
There are few things more awful than feeling disposable.
When Joseph De Maistre described the French Revolutionaries as satanic and destructive, he at least granted them the dignity of making an impact. José Gasset might have been wary of the “revolt of the masses” of mediocre people against the aristocracy, but occasionally expressed admiration for the permanence and sweep of their uprising.
But when the proto-neoliberal Ludwig von Mises wrote to Ayn Rand, who herself dismissed the majority of the human race as mediocre at best and “second handers” at worst, he made no bones about it. Most people were “inferior” and owed any and all improvements in their lot to the “effort of men who are better than you.”
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