Better to die by the hand of God than by an artificial vaccineSlogan seen at an anti-vaccination protest in Vancouver, Canada
The global emergence of authoritarianism has, unsurprisingly, provoked analogies with the Weimar period. Yet caution must be exercised when reasoning by historical analogy. Capitalism has always embodied a sacrificial logic, and the deepening of such logic lies at the heart of its redoubled authoritarian potential today. But how are we to understand the logic of new forms of polarization based on the contradictions produced by neoliberal globalization? While we ought not so easily to be swayed by analogical reasoning, the European interwar period might yet hold some unexpected lessons for us today.
Accordingly, it is worthwhile turning to German sociologist, Max Weber’s account of rationalization and the responses to this phenomenon by thinkers of the German ‘conservative revolution’. Weber and his critical interlocutors can help us to grasp some of the key dimensions of the contemporary contradictions of globalizing neoliberalism, and the political polarization generated in its wake with the waning of a politics grounded in critical analysis of capital, class, and social totality.
Neoliberalism exacerbates the rationalization tendencies of capitalist modernization through heightened processes of institutional and ideological abstraction. This means the unceasing subordination of qualitative human needs and aspirations to the quantitative values of the logic of the market and dynamics of capital accumulation.
