Neoliberal Nightmares

Year 2015, Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 78 - 90, 11.05.2015

Japhy Wilson

Abstract

Neoliberalism died in the financial crisis of 2008. But it has risen from the grave. This uncanny
persistence has coincided with an increased interest in gothic themes in the realms of popular culture
and critical political economy. This paper presents a psychoanalytic diagnosis of this unsettling
scenario. Gothic monsters are identified as symptoms of the Real of Capital as an abstract form of
domination. Neoliberalism is then theorised as a form of obsessional neurosis, which evolves through
its failed attempts to conceal the traumatic dimensions of the Real of Capital. This argument is
illustrated through the strange case of the celebrity development economist Jeffrey Sachs, and his
peculiar transformation from Dr Shock into Mr Aid. I conclude with some reflections on the
nightmarish phenomenon of zombie neoliberalism. 

Keywords

Neoliberal ideology, Spectres of Capital, Economics of Anxiety, Washington consensus, Financial Crisis of 2008

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