Considerations on the neoliberal critiques of democracy

Abstract

This work is based on the hypothesis that the crisis of liberal democracy and the current rise of the neoliberal far right, with its hierarchical, sexist, xenophobic and racist conceptions, are not only accidental effects of the processes of neoliberalization, but also find ideological antecedents in the neoliberal thought collective. From this point of view, democracy is seen as the fruit of the era of the masses, the spoil of pressure groups, the forerunner of egalitarianism, the prelude to totalitarianism or the vector of decadence and collectivism. Hence the need for institutional devices that contain the pernicious effects of the dogma of popular sovereignty and of a strong State that prevents politics and democracy from affecting the functioning of the market. The work analyzes a technocratic, a conservative, a pluralist and a racialized critique towards democracy and concludes by pointing out that neoliberal demophobia derives in a defense of authoritarianism.