Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

The Neoliberal Roots Of The New Austrian Right-Wing Government

Andreas Rahmatian 23rd January 2018 2 Comments

Andreas Rahmatian

Andreas Rahmatian

Soon after the newly elected Austrian government was formed as a coalition of the conservatives and the far right in December 2017, an appeal to boycott the far right Austrian ministers was published in Le Monde in France, while the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, received the new Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz most warmly. This was very different from the unfriendly reaction of the EU to the first conservative-far right Austrian government in 2000. It is too simplistic to say that Europe has meanwhile moved much more to the right. Rather, the omnipresent neoliberal – more accurately, market-fundamentalist – ideology has swallowed up all political parties, from the social democratic left to the Christian democratic right, and has now found its true political destination.

The programme of the new Austrian government illustrates well this political evolution, and the current Austrian social democrats in opposition could have subscribed to three quarters of this programme – indeed, some of them even discussed the possibility of a left/far-right coalition. Market-fundamentalist doctrine rejects any intervention of politics in the market forces which apparently operate independently from human interference according to supposed natural laws that economists seek to describe mathematically. So, the core duty of any government – implementing economic policy along the lines of its ideological convictions – is taken away. Governments now see themselves as managers who administer and protect a free and unrestrained development of markets and analyse their changes and moves, like zoo-keepers commenting on their growing animals. Governments are expected to facilitate, not to govern, and so it increasingly matters little whether the ruling political party is named socialist, liberal, conservative or far right.

A neoliberal economic policy necessarily leads to a redistribution of wealth from the poorer to the richer, and to widespread impoverishment and alienation as a result of the workings of the unimpeded (supposedly immutable) rules of the market and the financial and monetary system. To maintain such a system of economic, and eventually political, inequality a government must set the poor against the poor to keep them preoccupied in fights against one another on the Internet or in the streets – for example, poor citizens against poor foreigners and refugees. At the same time, that government must eradicate vestiges of social solidarity and financial redistribution by deregulating the markets further and by introducing tax cuts. The programme of the new Austrian government does exactly that (e.g. pp. 23-24, 29-35, 41-42, 47-48, 76-77, 118, 127-146): Deregulation of the market (reduced state intervention) is coupled with a law-and-order agenda, nationalism, and assertion of the own identity against the foreign outside (increased state intervention).

If a neoliberal economic order wants to remain well-entrenched, it must ultimately be founded on an authoritarian form of government with traces of modern types of fascism. Critics have to be silenced, either by declaring them as irrelevant and biased experts, or through violence like in South America in the 1970s, so that market fundamentalist ideology will not be questioned: this cannot be achieved in a liberal democracy in the long run. Furthermore, people must be kept busy with narratives of fear and combat, of “them and us”, “citizen-foreigner”, “friend-foe”, “white-black”, as in classical nationalist, racist and xenophobic rhetoric, and so the popular mind is diverted from growing poverty and inequality. That rhetoric ties in well with market fundamentalist thinking, for what else does “healthy competition” between all in every area of society mean if not a brutal fight for survival against the competitor-enemy? And everyone has to be competitor and enemy: solidarity and compassion become hostile acts against the nation or the “people”, that is, atomised consumers enjoying commodified individuality. Ironically, this totalitarian glorification of economic relations is something market fundamentalism shares with Marxism-Leninism of the 20th century. The appeal in France for a boycott of the far-right Austrian ministers appears out of place: the French president Emmanuel Macron is an exemplary sort of politician who paves the way for a far-right neoliberal system, like Merkel in Germany. Austria is only a few years ahead. As the Austrian satirist and critic Karl Kraus (1874-1936) already remarked: Austria is the experimental station for the end of the world.

Andreas Rahmatian

Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law, UK, specialising in intellectual property law and commercial law. Research interests comprise comparative intellectual property law, comparative private and commercial law, property theory and intellectual history and the law. Originally from Austria, where he completed his law studies, he has lived in the UK since 1997.

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.
Home ・ Politics ・ The Neoliberal Roots Of The New Austrian Right-Wing Government

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa
hydrogen,gas,LNG,REPowerEU EU hydrogen targets—a neo-colonial resource grabPascoe Sabido and Chloé Mikolajczak
Big Tech,Big Oil,Big Pharma,agribusiness,wealth,capital,Oxfam,report,inequality,companies Control the vampire companiesJayati Ghosh

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube