Democracy’s Long Goodbye: Neoliberals Set the World on Fire—Now the Far-Right Owns the Ashes
The Far-Right Is Winning. Democracy Is Dying. Will Anyone Fight Back?
Friedrich Merz gives the thumbs-up sign at an election rally.
Photograph: Volker Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images
Well, fuck. Another blow to democracy—this time, straight to the crotch.
Germany’s elections just handed a major victory to conservatives and a historic result to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Friedrich Merz, leader of the center-right CDU, is on track to become a chancellor. But the real story? The AfD is now the second-biggest force in German politics.
This is not an isolated event. Across Europe and the U.S., the far right is surviving and thriving. From Italy to the Netherlands, from France to America, nationalist movements are not only winning elections but also pulling mainstream conservatives further right. Some conservatives resist, most cave, and others, seeing which way the wind is blowing, decide to ride the wave.
Is this the moment democracy starts to fade?
If so, how did we get here? And more importantly—why now?
The Failure of Neoliberalism
For nearly fifty years, Western democracies relied on neoliberalism, an economic model that promised stability, efficiency, and prosperity. It seemed to work for a while.
Markets were unleashed, governments cut taxes, and businesses were given free rein. Leaders across the political spectrum—from Reagan and Thatcher to Clinton and Blair—took it as gospel that free markets, deregulation, and globalization were the keys to success.
At first, the numbers seemed to back them up. Inflation, the great economic terror of the 1970s, was subdued. Trade expanded. The stock market soared. Politicians congratulated themselves for creating a world where, finally, the economy was "too modern" to fail.
But beneath the surface, neoliberalism built a fundamentally unstable economy. The wealth it generated was not shared, and the economic system it created was fragile. The faith it required—that markets, left to their own devices, would always produce the best outcomes—was misplaced.
The safeguards that once protected workers, stabilized industries, and prevented reckless speculation, were dismantled. Regulations that had kept banks, corporations, and monopolies in check were discarded in the name of efficiency. Governments stopped investing in public goods—infrastructure, housing, education, healthcare—because the market was supposed to do it better.
When those protections disappeared, the clock started ticking, we lit the fuse on a bomb, which is now detonating in election after election in the world’s oldest democracies:
UK - Boom.
Italy - Boom.
Netherlands - Boom.
France - Boom.
Austria - Boom.
Germany - Boom.
America - Mushroom cloud. Nuclear catastrophe. Total systemic collapse. A felon gets elected and a criminal enterprise takes over the largest most powerful country in the history of humanity. Kaboom!
Neoliberalism didn’t just fail to deliver on its promises—it actively laid the foundation for today’s political crisis. The collapse of the public’s trust, economics, and the rise of authoritarian nationalism, are all connected.
And yet, despite the damage, political elites—across both the right and the center-left—ignored the warning signs and kept pushing the same policies.
This is how we got here.
The Birth of Neoliberalism: A Reaction to the Great Depression
Before neoliberalism became government policy, before it led to a felon becoming President, before it led to a billionaire firing half the federal government, “dick rockets” being launched into space, a man shooting a health care executive in broad daylight, and everything else we’ve experienced in the past few years, it was an idea.
And before it was an idea, it was a reaction.
The Great Depression had shattered faith in free markets. Entire economies collapsed under the weight of speculation and financial mismanagement. Unemployment soared. Poverty spread.
Governments responded by abandoning the hands-off approach that had allowed markets to implode. Public works programs, financial regulations, and welfare systems were created to stabilize economies and prevent collapse. In the U.S., FDR’s New Deal created a social safety net where before there had been none. In Europe, Keynesian economics became the standard, blending market competition with government intervention.
At the same time, across the world, fascism and communism were rising, offering their own visions of state-controlled economies.
To some, it seemed like the West had a binary choice: state control or market chaos.
A group of economists—including Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and later Milton Friedman—believed there was a third way: a market-driven economy, but one where governments acted only to prevent monopolies and enforce competition.
Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944) warned that even mild government intervention would lead to totalitarianism. The Mont Pelerin Society (1947) was founded to promote free-market policies as a counterweight to socialism. Milton Friedman and the Chicago School (1950s-60s) refined the argument, asserting that markets—not governments—should determine economic outcomes.
At this stage, neoliberalism was not advocating total market freedom. It still accepted that the state had a role. But it set the stage for the dismantling of Keynesian economics, which had dominated since the 1930s.
The Reagan-Thatcher Revolution: When Neoliberalism Became Policy
By the 1970s, the postwar economic order was crumbling. Oil shocks sent prices soaring. Stagflation—high inflation and high unemployment—defied economic orthodoxy. Labor unions, once the backbone of the working class, clashed with governments and employers, leading to economic paralysis.
Neoliberal thinkers saw this as proof that government intervention was the problem.
When Reagan and Thatcher came to power, they put the tenets of neoliberal theory into action:
They slashed taxes for the wealthy and corporations, promising that the benefits would trickle down.
They deregulated industries, believing government interference stifled innovation.
They broke the power of labor unions, ensuring wages stayed low and business interests prevailed.
They privatized public services, shifting them into the hands of corporations.
These acts fundamentally reshaped Western economies for generations. These acts continue to shape the world economy today.
In the immediate aftermath, it seemed to work. The late 1980s saw strong growth, low inflation, and booming stock markets. But the cost was massive inequality, the destruction of labor power, and an economy designed to serve the rich. As the economy started to shift, so did the base of power. When the Democrats and Labour came to power in the 1990s, instead of reversing course, they doubled down.
The Great Betrayal: The Center-Left Joins In
By the 1990s, neoliberalism wasn’t just a right-wing project—it was the political order.
Bill Clinton deregulated Wall Street, repealed Glass-Steagall, and set the stage for the 2008 crash.
Tony Blair’s New Labour abandoned the working class, embracing corporate-friendly policies.
The European Union prioritized free trade and austerity over public investment.
By the end of the decade, there was no meaningful distinction between “left” and “right” on economic policy. The global political establishment had fully committed to neoliberalism. Elections still happened. But no matter who won, the economic system remained the same. The global political establishment had fully committed to neoliberalism.
Gore Vidal saw this coming long before the rest of us:
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt—until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.
By the early 2000s, no major party represented the working class anymore.
Think about that for a moment. Labor unions—once the backbone of economic justice—had been systematically weakened, fragmented, and politically neutralized. Across the industrialized world, organized labor ceased to function as a meaningful political force. Neoliberalism had defeated them.
And into that vacuum stepped the far-right.
But the full-scale collapse hadn’t hit yet. That process began in 2008—the moment neoliberalism’s contradictions exploded.
👉 You’ve seen how we got here. But what happens next? The collapse of trust is fueling an explosion of authoritarianism across the world. What comes next is even more dangerous.
👉 The next section unpacks how the collapse of public trust in institutions, triggered by decades of economic failure, led directly to the rise of far-right movements—and why the next financial or political crisis could be the tipping point for democracy itself. We’re left with three possible futures—economic collapse, full authoritarianism, or a political realignment—to determine the fate of democracy.
🔥 By the time the next election rolls around, the system might already be too rigged to fix.
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