Against Empire. Matthew T. Eggemeier
recognition and efforts to build a more egalitarian economic order. The divide between those on the left who prioritize various recognition claims (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) and those focused on pursuing a class-based strategy should be eliminated so that the left can push forward with a pluralist project that draws links between distinctive social movements. Connolly observes, “The idea is to call out expressions of racism, militarism, climate denialism, and misogyny whenever you encounter them as you simultaneously support positive responses to real working-class grievances and point out how reasonable solutions to them are compatible with a pluralizing, more egalitarian culture.”134
This chapter has argued that in order to comprehend the emergent political assemblage on the right, it is necessary to examine the political formation that preceded it: the neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony. We have explored how this hegemony has undermined democracy and amplified political projects of economic disempowerment and belligerent nationalism. We also have examined its link to cultural politics of dog-whistle racism, an anti-feminist gender politics, and Christian conservatism. The emergent political formation on the right departs in subtle ways from the standard neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony while pushing forward its plutocratic and militarist elements and its cultural politics of overt xenophobia, racism, and misogyny. In conclusion, we described the broad contours of a politics that serves as a radical democratic alternative both to neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony and its mutation into authoritarian populism. In the next chapter we explore this alternative in greater detail.
31. We use the term “empire” here in a manner consistent with its use by the Christian thinkers examined in chapters 3–6. While they differ with regard to particulars, West, Schüssler Fiorenza, Ellacuría/Sobrino, and Hauerwas all approach empire as the exercise of American power as figured by neoliberal globalization, US militarism, and a conservative cultural politics. The broader literature on “empire” and “imperialism” is extensive. Generally, there exist four streams of analysis of empire: the New Left, cultural, Marxist, and postcolonial. For historiographical overviews of these trajectories, see Kramer, “Power and Connection”; Wolfe, “History and Imperialism”; and Cooper, “Decolonizing Situations.”
32. See, for instance, Barkan, “The Fascism to Come.”
33. Some of this discussion of neoliberalism is taken from my book on the topic, coauthored by Peter Fritz, titled Send Lazarus.
34. Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste.
35. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 151.
36. As Wendy Brown describes the process, “Law was mobilized to privatize state industries, seduce foreign ownership and investment, secure profit retention, and reduce trade restrictions. On the other hand, popular assemblies and Left parties were outlawed, strikes were criminalized, unions banned.” One exception is the way in which neoliberalism spread in response to natural and human-made disasters. See Klein, The Shock Doctrine.
37. The autonomist Marxism of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri—which will be examined below—is a third approach that combines Marxism with features of Foucault’s and Deleuze’s work.
38. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 19.
39. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 2.
40. Harvey, “Neoliberalism Is a Political Project.”
41. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 39.
42. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 40.
43. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 21.
44. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 44.
45. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 40.
46. Quoted in Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 23.
47. This is the central thesis of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. See also Loewenstein, Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe.
48. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 39.
49. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 7.
50. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 6.
51. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 7.
52. Overall, Harvey observes, “Almost all states, from those newly minted after the collapse of the Soviet Union to old-style social democracies and welfare states such as New Zealand and Sweden, have embraced, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes in response to coercive pressures, some version of neoliberal theory” (Brief History of Neoliberalism, 3).
53. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 29.
54. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 65.
55. Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism, 159.
56. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 35.
57. Brown, “Sacrificial Citizenship,” 12.
58. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 24.
59. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 24–25.
60. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 25–26.
61. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 26.
62. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 27.
63. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 27.
64. Brown, Undoing the Demos, 25.
65. Brown, “Apocalyptic Populism.”