Page 108 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 108
šolsko polje, letnik xxix, številka 1–2
define neoliberal fascism as both a project and a movement, which func-
tions as an enabling force that weakens, if not destroys, the commanding
institutions of a democracy while undermining its most valuable princi-
ples. Consequently, it provides a fertile ground for the unleashing of the
ideological architecture, poisonous values, and racist social relations sanc-
tioned and produced under fascism. Neoliberalism and fascism conjoin
and advance in a comfortable and mutually compatible project and move-
ment that connects the worse excesses of capitalism with fascist ideals –
the veneration of war, a hatred of reason and truth; a populist celebration
of ultra-nationalism and racial purity; the suppression of freedom and dis-
sent; a culture which promotes lies, spectacles, a demonization of the oth-
er, a discourse of decline, brutal violence, and ultimately state violence in
heterogeneous forms. As a project, it destroys all the commanding insti-
tutions of democracy and consolidates power in the hands of a financial
elite. As a movement, it produces and legitimates massive economic ine-
quality and suffering, privatizes public goods, dismantles essential gov-
ernment agencies, and individualizes all social problems. In addition, it
transforms the political state into the corporate state, and uses the tools
of surveillance, militarization, and law and order to discredit the critical
press and media, undermine civil liberties while ridiculing and censoring
critics. What critics need to address is that neoliberalism is the face of a
new fascism and as such it speaks to the need to repudiate the notion that
capitalism and democracy are the same thing, renew faith in the promises
of a democratic socialism, create new political formations around an alli-
ance of diverse social movements, and take seriously the need to make ed-
ucation central to politics itself.
106
define neoliberal fascism as both a project and a movement, which func-
tions as an enabling force that weakens, if not destroys, the commanding
institutions of a democracy while undermining its most valuable princi-
ples. Consequently, it provides a fertile ground for the unleashing of the
ideological architecture, poisonous values, and racist social relations sanc-
tioned and produced under fascism. Neoliberalism and fascism conjoin
and advance in a comfortable and mutually compatible project and move-
ment that connects the worse excesses of capitalism with fascist ideals –
the veneration of war, a hatred of reason and truth; a populist celebration
of ultra-nationalism and racial purity; the suppression of freedom and dis-
sent; a culture which promotes lies, spectacles, a demonization of the oth-
er, a discourse of decline, brutal violence, and ultimately state violence in
heterogeneous forms. As a project, it destroys all the commanding insti-
tutions of democracy and consolidates power in the hands of a financial
elite. As a movement, it produces and legitimates massive economic ine-
quality and suffering, privatizes public goods, dismantles essential gov-
ernment agencies, and individualizes all social problems. In addition, it
transforms the political state into the corporate state, and uses the tools
of surveillance, militarization, and law and order to discredit the critical
press and media, undermine civil liberties while ridiculing and censoring
critics. What critics need to address is that neoliberalism is the face of a
new fascism and as such it speaks to the need to repudiate the notion that
capitalism and democracy are the same thing, renew faith in the promises
of a democratic socialism, create new political formations around an alli-
ance of diverse social movements, and take seriously the need to make ed-
ucation central to politics itself.
106
