NEOLIBERALISM'S DEMONS: ON THE POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF LATE CAPITAL

This is an abridged translation of the chapter from Adam Kotsko's Demons of Neoliberalism: On the Political Theology of Late Capital. The author examines the political theological characteristics of neoliberalism, in which the free market appears at first glance to be devoid of any external interference, but in fact turns out to be the result of a political strategy of governance, enriching elites, humiliating racial and gender minorities, and creating poor marginalized populations. Neoliberalism, according to Kotsko, is both a social order (the structure of family and sexuality, as well as the racial hierarchy) and a political order involving law and punishment, wars and international relations. Above all, however, neoliberalism is a coherent moral system that rests on a logic of constrained subjectivity (demonization), competition (in which there must be both winners and losers), and conformity at all levels, from the individual to the global.Kotsko identifies the core principles of neoliberal politics, such as demonization, criminalization, competition, and conformism, and locates their origins in the concepts of Western theology, describing neoliberalism as a holistic self-reinforcing system of political theology. All these principles are directly related to the notions of providence and free will: while granting people political freedom, the neoliberal state restricts it in every possible way, so that poverty, illness, and other failures become not just the personal, but the ideologically declared responsibility of an individual or an entire group. Neoliberalism, according to Kotsko, becomes a trap from which it is difficult to escape, because its active forces are disguised behind a selfgoverning system of universal justice, equality, and freedom of choice.