Power, Not Economic Theory, Created Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism didn’t win an intellectual argument — it won power. Vivek Chibber unpacks how employers and political elites in the 1970s and ’80s turned economic turmoil into an opportunity to reshape society on their terms.
“Ideas become influential when they’re latched to the correct constellation of interests. Without that, they remain in the wilderness forever.” — Vivek Chibber on why capitalism made the neoliberal turn. (Dirck Halstead / Getty Images)
Neoliberalism’s victory over Keynesianism wasn’t an intellectual revolution — it was a class offensive. To roll it back, the Left doesn’t need to win an argument so much as it needs to rebuild working-class institutions from the ground up.
On this episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber unpacks how employers and political elites turned economic turmoil into an opportunity to reshape society on their terms.
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
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