Neoliberal politics promised growth, efficiency, and renewal. What it has delivered is inequality, insecurity, and democratic exhaustion. The right has failed.
But, as this video explains, much of the left has no alternative to offer. Labour's fiscal rules, growth-first economics, and treatment of public services as costs are not left-wing ideas – they are neoliberalism with a softer tone.
No wonder most people are alienated from the whole political process: it has run out of road.
Without care at the centre of economic thinking, markets fragment society, trust collapses, and democracy weakens. Better management is not enough. We need care as a new organising principle.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
The political right wing has failed. Donald Trump has proven that. At the same time, the left wing has no answers. Whether that's in the UK, where the Labour Party is all at sea, or in the USA, where the Democrats are frankly well, floundering. The obvious point is that neoliberal politics, as now embraced by so-called left-wing parties, is out of road, and that matters, and that is what this video is all about.
For the last year, politics has been dominated by the right. Trump, culture wars, blame, authoritarian instincts, all of them have been dominant in our political narratives. And now we can see the result: chaos, instability, economic incoherence. But there is a problem that no one wants to face, and that is that this has left the left wing of politics cruelly exposed without any answers to any of the questions that now arise.
Let's be clear, the right-wing's moment is over. I know that it won't be dying as yet, but the point is, the current political conversation was set by the right. They promised growth, strength, and national renewal. What we have got instead is institutional breakdown, policy incoherence, economic nationalism without an economic plan, and personalised power replacing competence.
Trump is not an aberration. He is the logical outcome of right-wing neoliberal populism, just as much as the right-wing leaders of European equivalent parties are, from Nigel Farage onwards. And what is clear is that the right-wing has failed in the USA just as much as it will in Europe because it has no theory of care.
There is no commitment within right-wing politics to public institutions.
There is no concern within it for the distribution of income or wealth.
There is no understanding of economic independence within their thinking. They presume everyone is an isolated individual with no relationship between the two.
And there is no respect for limits, whether they be social or those imposed by our planet.
They claimed markets were meant to solve everything. But the truth is, as we can now see, markets have solved nothing, and voters are rightly turning away from those who promised them something, which has turned out to be hollow.
So the consequence is that the right is failing, but the question is left: what can the left offer instead? And this is where the real crisis begins, in my opinion, because when asked for answers, Labour has none.
It's very clear Keir Starmer is clueless as to why he is in office as Prime Minister, and none of his leadership team have any answers either. Nor does Andy Burnham. The great saviour from the north does, in fact, share the same economic philosophy that has left the rest of Labour in trouble because he, like them, is a neoliberal.
Strip away the rhetoric, and what is left?
Labour talks about fiscal rules that prioritise markets over people. That is all Rachel Reeves has ever said she'll deliver.
Growth is treated as the only objective of economic policy, irrespective of who gets the gains, and we know that the rich have always captured them.
Public services are treated as costs, and care is treated as if it is a private problem and not a matter for collective concern.
This is not a left-wing programme. It is neoliberalism with a softer tone, and neoliberalism has run out of road because, quite clearly, none of these prescriptions work.
Neoliberalism assumes markets allocate resources efficiently, and that growth fixes distribution, and that the state must step back and care will somehow happen anyway. Maybe out of charity, maybe because those who need it will die and therefore fall off the end of waiting lists. Who knows? But none of this is true; without care, economies fragment, trust collapses, inequality deepens, democracy weakens, and that is the reality that we are living through.
This means that better management is not enough. Starmer offered us competence without purpose.
Burnham's offer is decency without a framework.
Neither answers the central question: what is the economy for? If the answer is still "growth first, and care later", then nothing changes, and voters will notice. That is the real crisis.
And so this is where both the right-wing have failed in practice, and the left-wing have failed in imagination.
We are stuck with a political class that cannot think beyond markets, marginal tweaks, focus groups, and the fear of challenging the power of capital.
This is not leadership. This is exhaustion.
We do not need a new leader. We need a new organising principle. One person isn't going to change everything; ideas can.
A politics of care means that the economy exists to support life itself and the life of everyone. And that public services are investments and not costs. And that care work is foundational and not residual. And that the state exists to enable resilience and not just growth.
This is not utopian. This is what is necessary, and deep down, that's what people know. That's why this whole idea that the left has nothing to say in response to the right is so well known in the community at large. In fact, you hear it in so many interviews.
They say, "They all say the same thing," and they're right, they do. If all you have is neoliberalism, then in 2026, you are definitely out of road. The right has proved it. They have failed. The left is about to because they've got no answers, and until politics is rebuilt around care, this crisis will not end. That is the conversation we're having here, even if no one else is anywhere else, because this conversation is the one that's going to change the political narrative and make it relevant again.
What do you think? There's a poll down below.
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Thanks to all for anther pressingly perspicacious article.
Might the ever more obvious failures of elected politicians to present sound, transparent theory and practical practices which are whole-society beneficial, plus effective and transparent assessments of such, indicate failures in our (alleged) democratic set up?
Might such falures/vulnerabilities inclde a state educacion set up which promotes gullibility in its students and a main stream media which has a cartel-like relationship with main stream politics?
“There is no concern within it for the distribution of income or wealth.”
The tax take is at an all time high!
No it is not.
And, what is the point you are seeking to make?
That people are taxed enough.
Why? What does that mean? What is it you want to be rid of spending on to supposedly permit a tax cut, and why? And please quantify your claims. And nit evidence is overwhelming that migrants contribute tax revenues so don’t claim anything related to that issue.
‘A politics of care means that the economy exists to support life itself and the life of everyone. And that public services are investments and not costs. And that care work is foundational and not residual. And that the state exists to enable resilience and not just growth.’
The issue is to have this sort of advocacy in politics itself – for example seeing public services as an investment – which as you point out it does not. What we have in contemporary politics is a post-Giddens political culture whereby politics helps the market to solve these issues. And markets then essentially just help themselves. Without advocacy there is no ‘agonism’ – a competition for ideas that is a more pluralist, accepting of the right for other ideas to exist. In fact, Giddens and the Third Way was essentially a philosophy of monopolist Neo-liberalism which whilst advocating competition in reality always seeks to dominate the opposition and push it out.
Thus, the real political failure is to not have such arguments anymore and enable the people to decide. As Chantal Mouffe has pointed out, if you take argument and contest out of politics, politics ceases to exist and then so does democracy. What we are left with are arguments over side issues – woke, immigration, management of decline, more marginal issues, Zionism, nationalism – you know what they are, its just theatre.
The other political failure is the nature of any debate. The debates now are not driven by ethics or facts or morals or principles or fine words or plans in order to win; no.
The driver now in politics is money, which can be used to swamp the zone with shit and thus destroy any counter argument that threatens the domination or body anti-politic of monopolist Neo-Liberalism which just wants obedient politicians and consumers. This is the elephant in the room as I see it – the unacknowledged differences in money-power that means you can be out-spent into oblivion instead of out-argued or out-rationalised. What Neo-liberalism lacks in argument it just makes up for with raw economic power to shut you up. And that is not politics at all. It is elitism folks and you can extrapolate from there (dictatorship, authoritarianism, fascism, knock yourself out).
Thanks, and much to agree with.
A teacher of mine defined love as wanting the best for the other person (both in singular and plural senses )
Patriotism I think of as wanting the best for all of one’s country. Not just a class or hard working people.
That is the politics of care.
The ‘patriotic’ parties wave flags. Starmer is almost as addicted to them as Boris and his ministers.
It reminds me of people who claim respect because they drive an expensive car.
Proclamations of virtue need to be enacted in the real world.
Who said “by their fruits you will know them”?
The advice has been around for a long time but it is still as true.
Thanks, Ian
Patriotism is wanting the best for your country as someone wants the best for their parents or children. It is not blind faith that they are always good and do no wrong.
I have not the slightest idea what you mean when saying that. Sorry, but I have only posted this to ask what you do mean. I want the best for my children. They have most certainly done things wrong. As have I, from their perspective.
I have – perhaps ill-advisedly – signed up to email notifications from the new Observer snooze paper and had one just come through telling me that democracy is ‘under attack’ because (wait for it!) the assisted dying bill is being thwarted by the Lords.
I have found a philosophy to cope with this from reading Samuel Beckett and Thomas Hobbes and now would categorize stuff like this as absurdist. Setting the argument around the bill aside (there will be many valid views I know), it amazes me that the Observer would think that the attack on democracy would be centered on this one thing – a discussion about a death. Yes – I know, having had parents and in law parents succumb to awful and precipitous mental decline – it is also a debate about a ‘good death’ and the politics of care has a role in that – but death it still is. And death and life go hand in hand.
One thing I wish for from the Observer and other outlets is more being said on the lack of democracy over the allocation of resources like money and care in the service of life. Now wouldn’t that be nice? Whether waiting for your cancer treatment or just wanting your rivers to be dredged to stop you being flooded – it would be nice wouldn’t it? Instead we get this.
Is it just me, or do we have some sort of death cult in our society? It seems that we are more certain about it than ever before, more than the possibilities of life. And that is profoundly sad – to me at least.
Sorry to post again.
Post as often as you like.
And much to agree with in this one.
Is this doggerel suitable?
IS THERE A “BLACKHOLE”?
Government spending is government investment
Government investment gives essential services
Essential services provision gives people jobs
Peoples jobs gives people money to spend
Money to spend gives company profit
Company profit gives company tax and shareholder dividends
Shareholder dividends gives shareholder tax
Company profit produces company investment
Company investment gives jobs for the people
Jobs for the people produces income to tax
Tax owed by workers, companies and shareholders
is often greater than the original government investment
Government investment can produce more tax than it spends.
But companies often cheat on their legitimately owed tax
Tax evasion and money ”off shore” as our government is lax
Unclosed loopholes leading to unpaid tax
HMRC inefficiency in collecting legitimately owed tax
There is no such thing as a “BLACKHOLE”
Antisocial neoliberal economic misinformation is fact
And HMRC and Government is failing to act.
But I may be wrong, perhaps there is a blackhole
The antisocial neoliberal economy going down the plughole.
On this, Starmer and Reeves are brain dead
The only BLACKHOLE is in their head.
It works for me
There is a general perception of labour as a “left wing” party and I often see right wing politicians framing them as such.
Left wing politics is therefore discredited by an ineffective right wing labour party. I assume that’s why so many people now see the ultra=right reform party as the only option.
People need a little more imagination, including to see through the BS from Labour and the right about it being a left wing party when it long ago ceased to be any such thing.
Neoliberalism’s genesis included eugenics and a belief in the divine right of the ubermensch to own and use the world’s assets, including people.
Neoliberalism was always the midwife for Fascism.
Agreed
One thing I can’t decide right now is about authoritarian government, & repression of protest, often by manipulation of the boundaries of free speech (eg the word, intifada, or that ambiguous phrase “from the river to the sea).
Is the current trend towards repressive authoritarian crushing of dissent both in parliament, councils, political parties and on the streets, on social media, academia, schools – are these the dying gasps of our broken system, before something better soon replaces the current weakening, failing neoliberal hegemony,
OR
are they the early indicators of a very repressive totalitarian fascism, setting the tone for a lengthy spell of repression?
Either way, I think it is going to get worse or much worse, before it gets better, on both sides of the pond and we should keep objecting vigorously.
Had a good church lunch discussion (and a good church lunch) today on listening to the grievances of the left behind” and the “politics of care”.
The Jewish Chronicle was particularly grim this Friday, with a front page bundle of misdirection about the Damien Egan Bristol school visit (omitting their favourable Ofsted report regarding antisemitism). more on who CAN’T be allowed to be Labour group leader in Birmingham, some vague Islamophobic scare-smears about Sadiq Khan, and an ongoing smearing of the Greens. JC overused word of the week, “outrageous”.
Notwithstanding the above negativity, I think the neoliberal edifice is crumbling, and perhaps faster than we think.
Agreed
I have been thinking about these issues a lot this weekend.
The ‘donors’ that are now controlling all the main political parties are paying them not to understand how the economy works, and in particular , to hollow out and/or privatise the public sector and to keep financialization and rent extraction and surplus profit going.
As you say Richard, it is running out of steam, so we are entering very dangerous territory – looks like only the Greens are showing some curiosity in how to reframe how the economy works and maybe having a chance of instituting something like a politics of a care . But will they campaign to get rid of the dark money corruption our democracy from top to bottom?
Good question.
We have to live in hope.
The weird thing is, we now have to look back in the Caroline Lucas years as ones of lost opportunity.
The front page of today’s Observer shouts “The plot against democracy”. Then beneath in smaller print “Inside the campaign to kill off the assisted dying bill”.
If this is the end of democracy as seen by the Observer it does not say much for the editor and owners.
The UK main stream media seems to be wilfully incapable of challenging the neoliberal elites view.
Possibly the only sensible comments in the Observer this week are those of Kenan Malik who writes about UK reactions to the recently published report by Will Johnson of Southampton University on ” what the English think about their local area”. Rather than take seriously people’s concerns about deprivation and decay. “Cynicism rules” No steer and the rest are blind to people’s lived reality. They only seem to want turn the “deprivation into a vehicle to stop Reform” rather than take “seriously people’s concerns about their lives”
The impression is crudely ” they don’t give a shit”.
Much to agree with