{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","title":"Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","id":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","uuid":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","title":"Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics","normalized_title":"democracyandotherneoliberalfantasiescommunicativecapitalismandleftpolitics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":229,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Democracy%20and%20Other%20Neoliberal%20Fantasies%20Communicative%20Capitalism%20and%20Left%20Politics","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/search"},"page":{"printed_page":34,"pdf_page":44,"physical_index":44,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"a72549c527277a9588259f6385acc4878845c6ee8a368ec5822424e60290ad49"},"chapter":"Comunicative Capitalism & Left Politics","content":"Identity politics proved a boon for the right, enabling the aliance between social conservatives and neoliberals. The former opposed the welfare state for the way it allegedly undermined morality and family values, encouraged criminality, abortion, and sex outside of marriage, and benefited the drug-addicted and lazy more than the sober and diligent. Engaged in struggles against social conservatives on all these fronts, many leftists embraced the emphasis on freedom and attack on the state prominent among neoliberals. The state seemed but another repressive authority, its provisions tied to the sexism of the traditional family and the racism of the white mainstream.24 Unions appeared corrupt, already part of a status quo limiting opportunities to the white and the male. Likewise, in the wake of more than a quarter century of anticommunism, ever fewer leftists found in Marxism a viable language for expressing political aspirations. Observing how oppression occurs along multiple axes, they argued that a focus on class obscures the diversity of political struggles.25 The economic problems plaguing the welfare state, moreover, suggested to some the 1.i:n?-ts of political attempts at regulation and redistribution. The economist Michael Perelman notes that \"by the time of the Carter admin: istration, many liberals joined conservatives in ppposing regulation:'26 Deregulation came to seem like a respectable policy. Given the imp�ra• tives of complex systems, even leftists started to agree that some form of capitalism would and should persist; what was needed were guarantees for the rights and diferences of all within capitalist societies, a more radical or participatory approach to democracy.\n\nYet as t}ley echoed the critiCisms of the state prominent on the right, leftists failed to provide a compelling vision of a new form of social solidarity. Instead, they continued to emphasize the plurality of struggles on a variety of social and cultural terrains and to afirm diferent modes of living. Such an emphasis and afirmation enabled an easy coexistence with consumer capitalism insofar as choices of fashion and entertainment could be quicldy read as politicaly significant. Antiracist? Wear a Malcolm X t-shirt. Gay-friendly? Fly a rainbow flag. The ease of political expression, the quick availability of the afective thrill of radicality, could let more people feel that they were politically engaged even as the shift in political parties from person-intensive to finance-intensive organization strategies reduced the political opportunities open to most Americans to voting or giving money.\n\n34\n\nO NE","previous_page":33,"next_page":35}