From neoliberal moralism to a revolution of values?

The great Anglo-American (and later global) social transformation characterised by Stuart Hall as a 'neoliberal revolution', which began in the Thatcher-Reagan era, is most often understood and explained in the terms of political economy. It is traditionally represented as a shift in the politics of economic regulation, ownership, and redistribution. Since the late 2000s, however, a growing literature has highlighted some of the moral and moralising dimensions of neoliberal discourse. Marxian, Foucauldian, and postcolonial approaches have shown how neoliberalism demonises and disentitles the poor and marginalised, and valorises or re-enchants the rich and powerful. This paper extends this critical project to consider how neoliberal moralism is resisted by social movements, and how the political-economic system it seeks to justify might be overcome. To do so, it engages with the politics of values, and with the notion of a 'revolution of values' developed in the work of Martin Luther King, and bell hooks. The paper argues that a revolution of radically inclusive anti-racist, feminist, and anti-capitalist values threatens the edifice of neoliberal social life today, and that the rise of both liberal / 'centrist' and far-right reactionary tendencies constitutes a rearguard or counter-revolutionary movement to defend the neoliberal project. It is argued that the apparently Faustian pact that sees professed liberals aligned with neo-fascists is in fact a window on the deep contradictions of liberal morality that neoliberal moralism has laid bare.