Neoliberal Self-Entrenchment: “The Activist” Game Show

How does an economic philosophy survive 3 recessions in less than 30 years? Eliminate all opposition.

Generally, countermovements can apply pressure from outside the dominant systems to force a particular type of change. Social progress is usually incremental, but strikes and boycotts have historically been a way to break from the status quo and achieve substantive progress.

In a neoliberal world, however, that’s no longer the case. An achieved neoliberal hegemony means commercialization dominates all forms of social organization, including activism.

Three companies alone (Twitter, Facebook, and Google) control virtually all mass communication and each platform has a tremendously picky algorithm that dictates which posts they promote, and in turn, which activists build an audience.

Instead of focusing on the human reasons that motivated the social movement in the first place, posts must compete in an attention economy. The value of your message is now determined by its engagement metrics.

Oligopolies influence our lives in other areas too — effectively eliminating consumer choice when it comes to our food, drinks, utilities, toiletries, ISPs, TV shows and movies. In many areas, it’s impossible to boycott a particular good because alternatives are either inaccessible or nonexistent.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, people tried supporting the Occupy movement by buying clothes and repping the slogan everywhere. But this only meant that fast-fashion and e-commerce giants made an easy profit. Spending a night in a tent soon became a Coachella-like rite-of-passage, and the well-intentioned Occupy movement was ultimately absorbed into the neoliberal self-entrenchment machine.

Neoliberal hegemony works to incapacitate any potential countermovements. Neoliberalism eliminates opposition by absorbing it.

“The Activist” is the latest example of this. It’s a formalization of what social media has been incubating for a while. Contestants compete for likes on posts related to “social justice.” Substance is replaced with sharability. The show commodifies activism as just another way to make a wage firmly within the working class of the unchanged system. And it attempts to shape public perception of activism as a stage-managed pitch where the working class asks permission from the ruling class for some moderate change (which may or may not come to fruition).

Fortunately for audiences and anti-neoliberals, CBS is going to “reimagine” the show after it was absolutely toasted on the internet.

Nevertheless, these are some of the very real ways neoliberal hegemony works to stifle potential threats to the neoliberal order. But this work can be undone.

The first step is recognizing the ways neoliberalism strips countermovements of their potency. The next step is organizing highly adaptable, well-aligned groups to resist neoliberal influence and build post-neoliberal businesses.

At the moment, Amsterdam is leading the charge for a post-neoliberal world with their adoption of Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Model of Economics (instead of focusing on endless GDP growth, this model focuses on structuring the economy to balance quality of life with innovation and growth). Their short-term target is to transition into a fully circular economy. All vendors that work with the city must have a certified circular supply chain and they established a cross-industry collective to share best-practices and help this initiative succeed. Simply shifting to a circular economy will greatly reduce their impact on the environment by eliminating the city’s demand for the extraction, processing, transportation, and storage of new raw materials.

Amsterdam is implementing an iterative plan, so they will set future milestones based on the lessons learned from their first “design sprint.” We’re excited to see how this project goes and hope to see it inspire similar initiatives around the world.

It’s entirely possible, however, that this movement will be absorbed into the neoliberal self-entrenchment machine, as we saw with the Paris Climate Accord. To prevent this, we must continuously support Amsterdam and other post-neoliberal cities in their efforts to resist the powerful pull of neoliberalism. We must publicly praise decisions to put quality of life before profitability when it comes to urban design, healthcare, housing, transportation, and the integrity of basic household goods. Whether or not we have the ability to conduct a perfect boycott of their products, we must publicly condemn companies like Johnson & Johnson for concealing the fact their baby powder causes cancer. We must condemn Exxon, Shell, and the entire collective of petroleum companies who learned about their contribution to climate change, promptly changed the design of their off-shore oil rigs to accommodate rising oceans, then spent decades lobbying Congress and sponsoring climate change denial in the media. Public support is a powerful tool for building momentum in the post-neoliberal movement. Neoliberals maintain the status quo, however, through the lasting influence of money once that public support has passed.

Almost certainly, once the Doughnut Model catches on in multiple cities, people invested in raw-material-related companies will challenge the legality of mandating a circular economy. It’s easy to imagine the lawsuits that will invoke “free trade” to rationalize their opposition to an environmentally friendly economy. Only with enough public support behind the principles of Doughnut Economics can we reject the cash grabs of these rapacious laggards.

Adaptive persistence is how we fight against neoliberal self-entrenchment.

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