{"id":89539,"date":"2026-01-30T07:16:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=89539"},"modified":"2026-01-30T07:16:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:16:40","slug":"is-neoliberalism-dying-the-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/30\/is-neoliberalism-dying-the-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Is neoliberalism dying: the debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We published a video on 25 January entitled '<a role=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/25\/neoliberalism-is-dying-whats-next\/\">Neoliberalism is dying: what\u2019s next?'\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It has been viewed 84,000 times so far. More than 1,250 comments have been made. They are not moderated. And those comments on our videos are now of increasing interest to us, and we are analysing them, especially on more popular videos where a wide variety of views are expressed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>We have tried to do this in a number of ways and have found ChatGPT useful in doing so. The analysis that follows focuses on the top 200 comments on this post, ranked by likes and responses. I thought this was worth sharing, and further comments are welcome, especially on what we might do in response.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Key Themes, Arguments, and Questions in the Comment Threads on '<a role=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/25\/neoliberalism-is-dying-whats-next\/\">Neoliberalism is dying: what\u2019s next?'\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1) Neoliberalism as a rigged system, not a neutral \u201cfree market\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A dominant theme is that \u201cfree market\u201d rhetoric is seen as branding rather than reality. Multiple commenters argue that what is sold as market discipline is selectively applied: corporations and the wealthy receive subsidies, bailouts, tax breaks, and legal advantages, while ordinary people face austerity, precarious work, and strict \u201cpersonal responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Key claims in this theme:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The market is described as structurally biased: \u201csocialism for the rich\u2026rugged individualism for the rest.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cCorporate welfare\u201d is framed as the real operating system beneath the \u201cfree market\u201d label.<\/li>\n<li>The concept of a neutral market is rejected: neoliberalism is depicted as state-enabled (rules, enforcement, bailouts), not \u201csmall government.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>This theme also includes a moral framing: the system isn\u2019t merely inefficient\u2014it is portrayed as illegitimate and extractive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>2) Neoliberalism as political project: extraction, rentierism, and \u201csubscription life\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One long comment sets the tone for a deeper analysis: neoliberalism is framed less as an economic theory and more as a political weapon designed to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>De-legitimise the state as a vehicle for collective good.<\/li>\n<li>Re-legitimise concentrated wealth as \u201cmerit.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Transform citizenship into a consumer relationship\u2014\u201crent your life.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A key concept repeated in different forms is the shift from productive capitalism to rentier capitalism:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Productive capitalism is associated with industrial innovation.<\/li>\n<li>Rentier capitalism is associated with financialisation, subscriptions, paywalls, tax havens, monopolies, and extraction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This analysis resonates with other comments that mention \u201chollowed out growth capacity,\u201d \u201cwealth concentration,\u201d and \u201cnothing makes sense anymore if you aren\u2019t asset wealthy.\u201d It\u2019s essentially a story of systemic transformation: not just \u201cbad policy,\u201d but a restructuring of society around extraction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3) Thatcher\/Reagan era as the origin story and cultural turning point<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A major narrative anchor is the 1980s\u2014often personalised through lived memory:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Thatcher is described as doing \u201cmore damage\u201d than wartime bombing (hyperbolic but expressive).<\/li>\n<li>Reagan, Thatcher, and Mulroney are named as a trio (UK\/US\/Canada) who mainstreamed the model.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Several commenters describe watching the \u201cdeification of the market\u201d and the elevation of the rich to quasi-priestly status.<\/p>\n<p>This theme includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A sense of delayed vindication (\u201cfinally the truth is coming out\u201d).<\/li>\n<li>Intergenerational tension (\u201cBoomers agreeing with the Boomers. All nonsense.\u201d).<\/li>\n<li>A broader claim that privatisation and social atomization spread globally, even through nominally \u201cleft\u201d parties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>4) The \u201csocial contract\u201d and middle-class decline<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Many comments converge on the idea that something like a social contract has broken:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A repeated framing is middle-class erosion and working-class precarity.<\/li>\n<li>One commenter directly asks whether the undermining of the middle class counts as \u201cmaking the poor poorer,\u201d even if absolute poverty declines globally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Core elements:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Housing\/rent and cost-of-living pressures appear implicitly as key stressors.<\/li>\n<li>Anxiety and overwork are emphasised (\u201cworked into the ground\u201d).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A political conclusion follows: people feel abandoned, which fuels anger and opens the door to demagogues.<\/p>\n<p>This theme often functions as a bridge between moral critique and political consequence: economic insecurity is linked to polarisation, resentment, and authoritarian temptations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5) Is neoliberalism \u201cdying\u201d or entrenched?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A substantial dispute wass about the video\u2019s implied thesis: that neoliberalism is in decline.<\/p>\n<p>Some commenters agree and frame current politics as the \u201cmask off\u201d phase.<\/p>\n<p>Others pushed back: neoliberalism remains dominant and adaptable; Carney is seen as part of it, not its undertaker.<\/p>\n<p>A specific subtheme is whether elite speeches (like Davos) can represent a genuine ideological shift or just rebranding (\u201csnake oil\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>So the argument isn\u2019t just \u201cneoliberalism is bad,\u201d but whether we\u2019re at an endpoint versus a continuation with new packaging.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6) State power: necessary tool or inevitable threat?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A major fault line emerges around the role of the state:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One camp argues the state is essential and already active: neoliberalism depends on state enforcement and policy design.<\/li>\n<li>Another camp fears state power itself as the core danger, citing historical atrocities and modern examples of repression.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This creates a recurring tension:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anti-neoliberal critique often calls for rebuilding public capacity (\u201cpolitics of care,\u201d Nordic model, protecting middle\/working classes by law).<\/li>\n<li>Anti-state critique warns that expanding state capacity risks surveillance, censorship, arbitrary power, and the erosion of rights.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This tension is one of the most important \u201cstructural debates\u201d in the threads: even among people critical of the current system, there is disagreement about whether the solution is more state capacity (welfare, regulation, redistribution) or less centralised power.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7) Democracy, \u201cuniparty,\u201d and legitimacy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Several commenters express democratic disillusionment:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Neoliberalism is described as \u201cinvented as a solution to democracy,\u201d and producing a \u201cuniparty\u201d where outcomes don\u2019t change regardless of elections.<\/li>\n<li>Others reference \u201ctoo much democracy\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The underlying sentiment is that democratic choice is constrained by elite consensus, media narratives, and institutional inertia. This theme overlaps with a \u201crigged system\u201d argument but shifts from economics to political legitimacy: the system is not only unfair, but unresponsive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>8) Climate, bunkers, and exit fantasies<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Climate appears as an \u201cultimate market failure\u201d and moral indictment:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Environmentalists were mocked; now consequences are unavoidable.<\/li>\n<li>The ultra-wealthy are portrayed as planning escape (bunkers, \u201cfreedom cities,\u201d Mars) rather than repair: an image of end-stage irresponsibility.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This becomes symbolic: elites extracting value and then extracting themselves from consequences.<\/p>\n<p><strong>9) Culture-war drift and controversial side-threads<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As in many YouTube comment sections, subthreads drift into polarising issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Speech laws, protests, and Gaza appear in the anti-state thread.<\/li>\n<li>Hungary and Orb\u00e1n appear via a \u201cstrong leader resisting pressure\u201d argument.<\/li>\n<li>Elon Musk, data scraping, and AI appear as examples of extraction and dystopian consolidation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These side-threads show how a comment section can become a convergence point for multiple grievances, even when the video topic is more specific.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10) Questions asked (explicit and implicit)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Several key questions animate the threads:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What\u2019s the solution? (Asked directly: \u201cwhat\u2019s the solution ?!?\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Does middle-class decline count as impoverishment even if absolute poverty globally falls?<\/li>\n<li>Is neoliberalism actually dying, or just mutating?<\/li>\n<li>What role should the state play: protector of the public, or threat to liberty?<\/li>\n<li>Can change happen via reform\/ballot box (Greens\/Corbyn\/reform) or does \u201crevolution\u201d inevitably produce new authoritarianism (\u201cyou get a Napoleon\u201d)?<\/li>\n<li>Who benefits from the current order, and is it intentional design or corruption layered onto \u201cfree markets\u201d?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Bottom line<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The threads cluster around a shared diagnosis\u2014neoliberalism as extractive and elite-serving\u2014but split sharply on prognosis (dying vs entrenched) and prescription (rebuild the state vs restrain it; reform vs revolution). The comment section functions as a hybrid of public catharsis, ideological sorting, and informal political education\u2014typical of YouTube, where short slogans and long essays coexist, and where a single video becomes a staging ground for broader anxieties about democracy, inequality, climate, and power.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><em>A last word<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>I should add one final comment: when I last looked, 9,339 people had liked or disliked this post (meaning 11% of those watching the video had voted), and 99% of those voting had liked the video, with 1% suggesting that they disliked it. The negative comments noted above need to be read in that light.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We published a video on 25 January entitled &#8216;Neoliberalism is dying: what\u2019s next?&#8217;\u00a0 It has been viewed 84,000 times so far. More than 1,250 comments<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/30\/is-neoliberalism-dying-the-debate\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-neoliberalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89541,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89539\/revisions\/89541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}