JF

In policy terms, this is maybe half true. The opposite pole of NL was led by Deng furiously building up industrial capacity and proletarianizing, allowing Reagan etc to hollow out their traditional industrial sectors and destroy shop floor solidarity in the process. https://t.co/L0nBLCM81F 

But that's not all neoliberalism means. The neoliberal era, starting with the end of Bretton Woods, is the era not only of right-wing ascendancy but left-wing retreat. The CRM was over, leaving virtually no remainder of formally unequal treatment in US law.

Market forces disciplined Carter, who was acting under the aegis of a keynesian consensus that no longer appeared viable. The existing worker-oriented left, it seemed, had two options: overthrow every state on Earth or do nothing.

Even at the high point of trade union and anarchist agitation, the US state had never been existentially vulnerable to its left. The thoroughly compromised set of institutions remaining by the 70s didn't stand a chance. They thus dutifully went to work finding ways to do nothing.

Satanic abuse, political correction, sexual harassment policy, violent media, vulgar music, "crime." The Panthers, the CRC. Settlers. The left and right agreed: it was time for the fatcat workers of the privileged core to take their medicine.

These became signature platforms of a left which would stake no claim on the loyalty of the working class beyond the most facile moralizing and lesser-evilism. A neoliberal left.