#85 Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste w/ Philip Mirowski
Added 2020-04-25 10:22:46 +0000 UTCPhilip Mirowski, joins me to discuss why the Covid-19 pandemic is more opportunity than threat to neoliberals and whether - as in the wake of the financial crisis - neoliberal doctrines will survive, and even thrive in the wake of the coronavirus-induced global economic crisis. We also discussed how Philip defines neoliberalism and why the worst political and economic consequences of the Covid-19 crisis are yet to come.
Comments
And here we are in 2024 having learned nothing.
Cheryl
2025-01-21 18:41:54 +0000 UTCTruly deeply troubling but enlightening. The left in the UK really need to be taking a lot of this on board; we can't just assume that we've won the argument and so now we can move on. As he says NeoLiberalism is not laissez-faire, state spending is not good by default; easy to see this with all the contracts that have been given out since the start of the lockdown.
Chris Martin
2020-06-29 13:18:40 +0000 UTCHaving slept on it, and not really thought about it, and also being tired now, I feel more optimistic. I think (ha!) Capital will have no choice but to scale back its ambitions at this moment, in a way that will be agreeable to the Left. So there we have it, it's all going to be fine ;)
Shatner's Bassoon
2020-04-26 22:13:59 +0000 UTCGood episode, definitely thought provoking.
Abra K
2020-04-26 20:01:44 +0000 UTCYes, a good point that.
Politics Theory Other
2020-04-26 18:51:49 +0000 UTCDemocracy Alliance as an example of how 'the left' are failing... a neoliberal (Clintonite) fundraising network founded by liberal billionaires. The more I think about it, I think, he is a liberal, railing against how ineffectual 'the centrists' are. Because all the bogeymen he raises in this essay are very well known to the Marxist left. Anyway.
Abra K
2020-04-26 18:49:59 +0000 UTCExcellent episode.
2012_Olympic_Font
2020-04-26 10:14:48 +0000 UTCIncredibly thought-provoking, albeit dark
Hasani Gunn
2020-04-26 00:31:10 +0000 UTCPerhaps we can't see the woods for the trees. The Left are in a place we don't expect them to be: all the people who are beginning to take on board that it's all over now - they'll have to think 'who gets the best of this?' 'why should my kids when theirs?', and so on, questions that they can usually find a way of not asking themselves. Oh dear ... I'm horribly tired. I hope perhaps there could be a discussion soon. Goodnight! x
Jane Pickering
2020-04-25 22:46:50 +0000 UTCIt's always inspiring when a new way of approaching a problem comes up, I think. Perhaps I should say realistic rather than new. There was a form of almost magical thinking in December - I mean leading up to the election and left over from 2017. And we've been in shock, and now we have a pandemic, and the right are doing their shock-doctrine stuff. I think we can think in a more realistic way now. There was a dark humour in the conversation that I think can be very creative. Sorry - I'm tired and can't quite shake my word bits into action. I hope we can talk sometime. Keep safe x
Jane Pickering
2020-04-25 22:35:14 +0000 UTCThat was interesting, and depressing. I feel a bit torn on this. On the one hand (as ridiculous as it is for a nobody such as I to challenge the great Mirowski), I feel he overestimates the importance of ideas in determining the course of history (Mont Pelerin etc.). I don't really think neoliberalism was a self-conscious project pioneered by Hayek et al. I think it was just good old fashioned class warfare, and the neoliberal ideologues just happened to be on hand to provide some kind of rationale for it – it's hard to imagine that had the left been a bit better organised in the late 1970s things would have turned out differently. On the other hand, it does feel as though at this moment in history ideas and political organisation could be decisive. Capitalism (or neoliberalism, if you prefer) is falling apart around us - this should be an opportunity for the left (morbid as it is to speak of a humanitarian disaster as an opportunity). But the left is kind of ... not there. Trump is presiding over a catastrophe in the US, but where is the opposition? Who is articulating any kind of alternative in any credible way ...?
Shatner's Bassoon
2020-04-25 20:14:08 +0000 UTCIf anyone was wondering what he meant about reimagining / redefining markets he goes into more detail in this draft https://www.academia.edu/39825773/Draft_Can_the_Left_Even_Understand_Why_the_Right_is_winning
Jake
2020-04-25 19:46:27 +0000 UTCLove Seymour too, but struggled to find anything uplifting here! I guess I must have missed something in it.
Abra K
2020-04-25 19:45:10 +0000 UTCI found this incredibly uplifting. This is the sort of thinking we need to do now, and build from there. And how nice for Mr Seymour that someone else is being as realistic as him! Thank you, Alex - I know I mustn't say how much I wish this were available to the non-subscribers so I could Stan it so I won't.
Jane Pickering
2020-04-25 19:19:57 +0000 UTCIf what he says is right and the left must attend to the organisational (and ideological) approach of the neoliberals, and to answer his closing comments, surely Mirowski himself is in the best position to form a constructive left response...? And yet, there was little constructive on show here. He painted them almost conspiratorially, as indomitable - didn’t even appear to imply a way through. Not much use really.
Abra K
2020-04-25 18:54:03 +0000 UTC
