Why is there a growing authoritarianism in 21th century?

An analysis of neoliberal making of new authoritarian leaders, Frankfurt School revisited

Abstract

In the neoliberal world of us, we are experiencing the rise of authoritarian regimes all over the world. The USA elected Donald trump, Turkey elected Erdogan, and the list goes on.  According to the mainstream approach, this is caused by the growing inequality and eradication of the middle class due to neoliberal policies. This approach treats neoliberalism in a very reductionist way and asses it solely as a new economic relationship in the world. However, these accounts cannot provide any answers to questions of how neoliberalism transforms ordinary people into a supporter of authoritarian leaders and is the new authoritarianism an anomaly of the era or a phenomenon that is a reality of our society. In this paper, firstly, I summarize the argument of Lowenthal and Guterman which analyze the tactics of fascists and psychology of their listeners. In the second part, I will show that same tactics described by Lowenthal and Guterman are used by the new authoritarian leaders. In this paper I argue that neoliberalism recreated and, fueled the relying reasons behind the authoritarian tendencies that Lowenthal and Guterman argued. Unlike the mainstream approach, I will argue that neoliberalism cannot be analyzed solely in terms of the economic relationship, it is a specific governing rationale that includes phenomenon such as discipline through debt, depoliticization of social problems, individualization of economic security. In my paper, I show that neoliberal rationality helps the new authoritarian leaders to facilitate those tactics and exploit the same emotions. This is because, firstly, the neoliberal rationale that tried to form induvial who is securing its future in the financial market and who is in debtor creditor relation creates anxiety and devastation. Financial markets are uncertain no action can secure future return for 100 percent, and it creates expansion of creditor debtor relationship in the neoliberal era create citizens who are born and die in debt. Therefore, people are more paranoid and failed in the neoliberal world. As a result, agitators effectively exploit those feelings. Also, in the neoliberal era, it is easier to distort and exploit values for the agitator because in the neoliberal era the values are deviated already by the creation of social and political sphere which is predominantly occupied by market rationality. Therefore, agitators could easily replace their distorted ideas as the inside of value is already emptied. This work helps us to understand which emotions produce authoritarian tendencies and in what ways neoliberalism reproduce them.