Neoliberalism, with its emphasis on markets rather than human needs, is finally getting the appropriate response. Days and nights of rage.
There are currently widespread riots in France. The triggering event was police brutality: Rioting then spread to Spain and Belgium. Meanwhile there are massive protests in Albania, originally triggered by Kushner wanting to buy up a huge chunk of Albania’s seashore. This is so serious that when the Supreme Court ruled for Kushner, the protestors burned it down. In India there are massive student protests. The government moved 50,000 troops and militarized police into Delhi and set up massive roadblocks. That didn’t stop the protesters, who used the roadblocks against the police and systematically slashed police vehicle tires.
Even if this wave subsides, this is only the beginning, because the world’s ruling classes are in no mood, neither materially nor ideologically, to change course. Remember what they told us–“There’s No Alternative”.
Neoliberalism has had a 50 odd year run and the results are what’s driving the protests, rioting and confrontations. All that’s required is a spark to set the whole thing ablaze. Like our hot, dry summer in the West, wildfires are only dangerous if there’s plenty of fuel: people who are on the edge of revolt because of the advancing precarity and hopelessness. It’s been the lack of hope that caused the insurgency, even more than the loss of employment and explosion in costs. When there is no hope for any positive change, organized action in pursuit of a better future just seems pointless, especially in our neoliberal regime with its assault on community.
The point of neoliberalism, after all, is to deny that anything can be accomplished outside the punitive structure of markets. There can be no change, except for the worse in the lives of ordinary people, and so there can be no hope. The violence today has reached that of revenge and nihilistic destruction for its own sake. If everything is just going to get worse, then might as well burn it all down and seek revenge on the feral elite who brought about this intolerable state of affairs.
The neoliberal turn of the late 1970s ushered in a new era of shareholder capitalism, or what I like to call looting, which made maximizing shareholder returns the exclusive goal of corporations. To deliver those returns, America’s business leaders waged a broad assault on the labor movement, using every lever available to curb worker power. Technology, globalization, and union busting all operated to destroy labor.
Of course, neoliberalism has created select winners. For decades the US elite has grown fabulously wealthy through financialization and the systematic offshoring of production. Industrial capacity was relocated to low-wage countries while the financial system with it’s explosion of “private equity” transitioned to rent extraction, asset inflation, and the arbitrage gained with the recycling of global savings through the dollar system. The near-collapse of 2008 exposed how close this financial colossus had come to collapse. Covid only underscored the financial fragility, while once again structural problems continued thanks to the power of Wall Street and the larger financial industry. The result of the influence is a more leveraged and fragile system. A leveraged financial system now vulnerable to a potentially crippling financial crisis with the collapse of the AI bubble.
I’d be negligent in failing to acknowledge the malign role of neoconservatism that’s driving the rage. The US and European nations have collectively made some disastrous foreign policy decisions; they have gone all-in on the use of Ukraine as a proxy against Russia, while funding arming and supporting the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Of course there’s the US and Israel’s supreme war crime–a sneak attack while negotiating with Iran, that’s driving much of the unrest.
This is just the beginning. Unless the US and Israel end the Iran war. Fuel shortages will increase, food prices will jump this year and even more next year, and more people who feel like they have little to lose will take to the streets. No one believes in the American Dream anymore–majorities believe that the politicians and billionaires ruling them don’t care about them, and they’re right.
At the same time, the Epstein elite know they have blood on their hands. The end of empire and financial crash could finally bring accountability. An elite that has operated for decades with near-total impunity understands what a genuine systemic collapse could mean for them. The fight for the empire is existential for those who run the system. The deep state that has driven the post-Cold War order understands that a genuine systemic collapse would not merely end their geopolitical dominance — it would expose the elite that make up the ruling class. The accumulated record of illegal wars, false pretexts, economic predation, and the deliberate sacrifice of allies would become impossible to bury.
All of which is to say, this is just the start. Buckle up and expect more civil unrest in more countries, possibly including in the homeland. We have the most incompetent leaders who’ve handled the multiple crises very badly, with an emphasis on keeping oil prices artificially low and manipulating financial markets for insider plunder. So gas and diesel will go up, food even more expensive, prices in general will rise, there will be more unemployment and people will be angrier and angrier with less and less to lose.
Nihilism is contagious and neoliberalism has given average people nothing: no hope, no future, no useful and rewarding education, no jobs, no status other than that of consumer with a mountain of debt. So don’t be surprised if days of rage comes to a location near you.
