The Ideology of Neoliberal Elections
How elections are used to exploit and dominate the working class
Written by Harsh Trivedi
“With the demise of the Soviet Union, there seemed to be no barrier to the spread of liberal democracy and global economic prosperity. Globalization promised greater international cooperation and national democracy. In practice, the last two decades have witnessed a resurgence of authoritarianism and quite virulent forms of nationalism. The question is why this is the case. Or more precisely, what is it about globalization that breeds this type of political authoritarianism and parochialism?”¹
Here, I seek to explain through a Marxist perspective, how the rapid push of neoliberal, capitalist globalization has produced a paradox — far from being the instrument of liberalizing societies with the liberalization of markets, neoliberalism has turned into an ideology which causes the rise of increasingly isolated, nationalist, and authoritarian tendencies.
The article explains how this establishment maintains their relevance through hegemonic ideological domination in the political field, by looking at different models as encountered in the examples of India under its current regime of the Modi government, Erdogan in Turkey, as well as recent examples of western democratic elections.
Globalization, in general terms, is the increasing interdependence of international markets under a global capitalist (“free trade”) system. Neoliberalism adopts realist approaches to international relations, which is to say it promotes states’ interest in self-preservation and being competitive — the greatest part of the competition being the economy.
A central belief of neoliberal ideology is to reduce the role of the state in the economy and increase privatization, this increased privatization results in greater control of the international market by multinational corporations. In reaction to the feeling of losing control to external, global bodies of economic governance, the domestic economic anxieties therefore start projecting themselves onto the social sphere of life.
This desired need for a greater state power is promoted by domestic politicians with calls to maintain ‘sovereignty’, we see this from the rhetoric surrounding Brexit to the “America first” approach of Donald Trump. The bourgeois class of developing states seek to gain their part within what seems an inevitability of being encompassed completely by global capitalism, that is, to feel that they are not just subject to it, but subjects of the system that can play a role in shaping it to their own ends.
However, as seen from the examples we will explore, this rhetoric is primarily just that — rhetoric — to gain electoral victory, while the bourgeois of the developing countries actively facilitate the transnational capitalist class and weaken the defenses of labour protection.
This rhetoric works as the tool of ideological domination of the working class within both developed and developing states.
A central belief of neoliberal ideology is to reduce the role of the state
An example of the neoliberal authoritarian paradox is the willingness of the Modi government to adapt to climate change — as neoliberal market consensus pushes for compensating with climate change as it now seems to be the inevitable option — while being ideologically extremely right-wing in internal social affairs, disregarding the rights of the tribal population for example.
India is seen on the global scale as the “largest democracy in the world” and being a rising superpower in the near future. However, through a Marxist outlook one sees how these are purely assumptions based on economic statistics of private benefits, and not grounded in material conditions of reality for the larger population.
Since Modi’s election, income inequality has accelerated dramatically, the top 1 percent’s share of the country’s wealth has increased from 49% in 2014 (the year of Modi’s election) to 58.4% in 2016. Figures from 2017 show that 73% of all new wealth created went to the 1%. These are staggering figures for a country of over 1.2 billion people.
While in opposition, the (pre-2014) the current ruling party — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) protested actively at multiple levels of domestic politics for increasing support to farmers — supporting a policy that would increase taxes on imported food and implement MSP (minimum selling price) for farmers to support domestic production.
However, since assuming power on that mandate, they have dropped their original stance and instead reduced (in some cases, completely eliminated) import tariffs for basic grains and refused to implement MSP, resulting in massive crises in the agriculture sector, contributing to an increase in the rate of farmer suicides. Protests against the government’s betrayal to their mandate met with state violence — 5 farmers were shot dead by police at a peaceful protest. The new government hiked up the FDI (foreign direct investments) limit for insurance companies from 26 to 49%.
Most recently, the government has hinted at increasing privatization in the defense sector through a bill in parliament to nearly 49%, essentially selling out sovereign control of the military to foreign capitalist interests — primarily US and Israel based companies, creating greater dependency. Outside parliament, however, it engages in rhetoric promoting the need for greater ‘nationalism’ and publicly defames the slightest criticism of the current government as being ‘anti-national’ in character. The most recent target of this have been upcoming student leaders who are targeted by the police and in many cases have been put into jail on charges of ‘sedition’.
The rhetoric is completely opposite to the policies being implemented. The essence of neoliberal authoritarian politics can be explained through a Marxist look at the functions of hegemonic ideology for the ruling class.
“The strengthening of authoritarian dimension(s) of neoliberal politics signal … [that] governments seem to have increasingly turned to strategies that accept and promote polarization in society when faced with alternative political projects.”²
A clear example of the abandonment of appeasement to oppositional elements in favor of more direct and violent repression is Turkey since the failed coup of 2016, where over 120,000 officials (and counting) — judges, elected mayors, members of parliament, journalists, police members, and various other civil servants — have been purged by the majoritarian government.
Being a member of NATO, Turkey has yet to receive any criticism from fellow members of the neoliberal order; as long as the transnational capitalist class profits, human rights violations can be disregarded to unconscionable degrees.
In the face of being trapped by this forced binary logic, we must demand an alternative with even more vigor.
This ideological functioning holds true for recent elections in western democracies, particularly France and United States. As it became clear that the extreme-right-wing candidate LePen had greater electoral potential than previously conceived, people were mobilized to vote for Macron and he was promoted in many instances, as in a cover story of The Economist as “Europe’s Saviour”.
Similar tactics were used, albeit unsuccessfully, in the case of US’s election, the closer the election came the greater the incessant demand by pollsters and news channels that voting anyone but Hillary Clinton would amount to throwing away one’s vote — reinforcing the ideology of a fixed two-party system where elections always become a choice between the lesser of two evils.
Even after electoral defeat, the DNC establishment refuses to acknowledge the weaknesses of Clinton as a presidential candidate and has rallied to blame anyone or anything other than their own failures, alienating the alternative of a more left-wing approach.
The very politics that give rise to a right-wing reaction of the extreme kinds is repackaged cynically to be the ‘last hope’ against these symptoms of fascism — this is the narrative sustaining the neoliberal establishment.
In the face of being trapped by this forced binary logic, we must demand an alternative with even more vigor. We cannot let our freedom be held hostage by the ruling class, vulnerable to their whims as they waver from one election to the next.
