Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices (Harvey, D., 2005, p2).
Based on the concept of neoliberalism, the market is always self-balanced, and the state cannot interfere with the internal freedom of the market upon most occasions. Thus, neoliberalism has handed over a large amount of economic power which should be regulated and supervised by the government to financial institutions or private enterprises. Under such a system, no one can restrain the unproductive accumulation of financial giants. In other words, the giant can directly rely on its own monopoly position for speculative, parasitic and deprived capital accumulation clandestinely.
However, according to Kant, the commercial peace hypothesis can be achieved. Although the pursuit of profits in business competition is ruthless, if there is no violence and exploitation in the process, it can be regarded as a kind of healthy competition (Isiksel, T., 2020). Kant expects economic interdependence to prompt states to accept reciprocal constraints on their behavior, producing a cooperative equilibrium with a cosmopolitan legal order to underwrite it (Kant, 2007). Yet, from my perspective, the interinhibitive equilibrium only exists in government agencies with strong public benefit properties. Conversely, the majority of companies do not care much about moral issues. Though the government can alleviate the gap between the rich and the poor through secondary distribution, such as taxes, big companies have the money to hire lawyers to help them avoid taxes legally, which ultimately leads to the middle class having to shoulder more social responsibilities.
Foucault stated further that there is a paradoxical relationship between liberal economic rationalism and civil society as one moves towards an economic state in that “the constitutive bond of civil society is weakened and the more the individual is isolated by the economic bond he has with everyone and anyone” (Garrett, T.M., 2020).
In conclusion, the emergence of new forms of fascism, new paradigms of liberalism, and new efforts to liquidate governments, like the Brexit are inevitable. However, if these doctrines do not address the fact that financial institutions can maintain their monopolies by reinforcing unproductive accumulation, they may not work well in the end.
Reference
Adam Curtis, “I’m a Modern Journalist,” by Hannah Eaves and Jonathan Marlow, in Mark Cousins and Kevin Macdonald eds., Imagining Reality: The Faber book of Documentary (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), 407-411.
Garrett, T.M., 2020. Kant’s foedus pacificum: Path to peace or prolegomena to neoliberalism and authoritarian corporatist globalization in contemporary liberal democratic states? Annales etyka w życiu gospodarczym, 23(2), pp.7–20.
Harvey, D., 2005. The new imperialism / David Harvey., Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Isiksel, T., 2020. Cosmopolitanism and International Economic Institutions. The Journal of politics, 82(1), pp.211–224.
Kant, Immanuel. (1784) 2007. “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim.” The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Anthropology, History, and Education. Edited and translated by Robert B. Louden and Günter Zöller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
This is a very well-written piece of work. I wonder if adding some example would make the theory and ideologies a little more understandable?
Also, perhaps in conclusion you could do some more in regard of fascism? The concept appeared quite suddenly in your writing.
Maybe, just maybe, discuss less concepts and focusing on just a few of them?