In this episode, co-hosts Natalie Smith and Maxximilian Seijo argue that the pandemic not only killed neoliberalism as a tacit ideological formation; it also revealed how neoliberal truisms have never captured the actual causal mechanisms and potentials that defined the past 50 years. Fleshing out these claims, Naty and Maxx journey through the work of rockstar economic historian Adam Tooze, focusing in particular on his widely-hailed recent book, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy (2021). Naty and Maxx affirm Tooze’s characteristically thorough demonstration of the myriad ways that the world-wide response to the pandemic, however inadequate, dismantled the pillars of neoliberal governance. Yet they also critique the elitist complicity of Tooze’s methodological commitment to historical immanence and inevitability, tracing such impulses to back to John Maynard Keynes’ fatal dismissal of Abba Lerner’s proposal to do away with balanced budgets and revenue-constraints. For the Superstructure crew, by contrast, proceeding “in medias res,” as Tooze puts it, requires an abolitionist attunement to genuine conditions of injustice and possibility, from #Defund and ongoing labor strikes to contests over #MintTheCoin and the Green New Deal. During the conversation, wisecracks and burns abound, per usual. This one, too, is packed with citations, including loving shoutouts to David Stein, Jakob Feinig, Mariame Kaba, Dan Berger, Emily Hobson, Alex Yablon, Nathan Tankus, and Rohan Grey.

Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Music: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting.
http://flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.com
Twitter: @actualflirting

Superstructure 28: We Have Never Been Neoliberal, What Now?

Enneagram 3 Achiever, Motivator, Performer, Professional, Charmer - clips of Jesse Jackson at the 1988 DNC Convention, a 1991 Whitney Houston interview,
and an '88 interview with Bill Hicks.

How the 3 tries to be *somebody¨via tasks that make them worthy to their people. Jackson's childhood tales parallel Don Draper on Mad Men. Whitney ably demonstrates the chameleon-like quailty of 3s, shifting to promote tasks. Bill Hicks on truthfulness and deceit, and the 3 connection to its security point of Loyal 6 Skeptic / questioner. 

We've been out of the loop for awhile but we'll be back and updating the project again soon!

JESSE JACKSON, WHITNEY HOUSTON, BILL HICKS --Enneagram 3 Achiever Motivator Performer

Embarking on a deep dive into intersections between the work of philosopher Giorgio Agamben and reductive Marxist discourses around capitalism and nature, hosts Will Beaman and Maxximilian Seijo trace a historical, political and economic lineage for the widely used COVID19 meme: 'Capitalism is the virus'.

Superstructure 28: We Have Never Been Neoliberal, What Now?

Superstructure

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