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Zuckerberg=Trump?



Thinking today about Mark Zuckerberg’s “free speech” turn and the refashioning of Facebook in the mold of X. It seems like the cultural dominance of MAGA is challenging the direct rule of neoliberal capital with grass roots ideology—whether you think that ideology is good or not (I think its very dumb). 


But is that true? I was listening to the Ezra Klien podcast and he was talking to an author who, one of many, finds analogues in the Trump story with other populist/ personality driven leaders around the world (not a groundbreaking observation, I know). But hear this idea all the time, Francis Fukuyama should be shaking his fist at the sky—history has started again. 



But this got me thinking: is ideology making a comeback against neoliberalism in the way people think? Or, is it expected as neoliberalism unfolds? Below is a sketch for why we, maybe, shouldn’t be surprised. 


If neoliberal politics since Nixon have worked to break down barriers (social/politcal/cultural) to capital (the removal of the gold standard/ NAFTA/ importing labor/ slack immigaration policy/ Citizens united v election comission), then neoliberal politics have become more autocratic (the growing identification of political capitol with capital-capital). As those with money grow richer under neoliberalism, they gain more politcal cache. 


However, this might have an unforseen (until now) consequnce for our politcs. As power concentrates in the economy, the politicians in control of economic regulation find new outlets for power which are not political, but economic. In other words, neoliberalism works both ways. Not only does the market become the organizing principle of neoliberal cutlure, neoliberal culture becomes governed by politicians through the market, and not politics. To the extent politicians inflect economic policy, they weild the power of, not the government, but the market. Shareholders rule the world, but their monopoly on power is sanctioned and regulated. 


This, perhaps makes sense of Trump governing from Mara Lago, granting favors and making Kings. Neoliberalism, in an effort to break up autocracy, ends up encouraging it. This may reveal a basic counterpoint in the neoliberal project more generally: the markets protected and encouraged by policy end up needing government, and therefore government leaders, to maintain those markets. Trump may be just the first politician who has wised up to this fact. 

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