The advance of the right and the crisis in the neoliberal system

By Jesús Arboleya Cervera

The advances made by the right in the midterm elections in the United States correspond to what has been happening in Europe in recent years.

Perceived by many as an exponent of a “good socialism” that could counterpoise neoliberalism, and accepted by the oligarchy as a lesser evil to appease the radical anti-globalization protests that shook Europe in the 1990’s, social democracy established governments across the continent.

But social democracy’s inconsistency did not satisfy either side. It tried to manage the neoliberal model of the conservatives and took the blame for the crisis, without earning the appreciation of the oligarchy, always suspicious of its leftist delusions. In turn, it alienated much of the popular vote, determining levels of abstention that placed the electoral contests in the almost exclusive domain of the middle class.

Located from the beginning “between the powerful and the people” in modern capitalism, the term “middle class” began to be used to define the best-paid sectors in the periphery of the economic structure, say small businesses and merchants, as well as the working-class aristocracy, professionals and college students.

However, to the extent that neoliberal globalization shifted much of the industrial workforce to the Third World, this classification was added to the skilled workers in new technologies, increasing the specific weight of the middle class in the economic base of the system and the political balance of the more developed countries.

Add to this its symbolic value. Considered a model of welfare and alleged superiority of the model, the culture of the middle class drags along other sectors of the population, serves the influence of the hegemonic countries in the Third World, and even the rich sometimes disguise themselves as middle-class when they appear in public.

Largely the result of subsidies provided by the welfare state, of which it was the main beneficiary, the middle class now repudiates this system because the contributions of the great capital to the public funds have diminished, placing on its shoulders the cost of caring for the poorest. Hence the middle-class revolt against taxes, siding with the oligarchy, which supports the same, but for other reasons.

Many in the middle class have been convinced that their enemy is not the financial oligarchy, but the poor who take away their jobs, live from their income, disrupt their cultural standards and threaten their families, either through terrorism or crime. The fear of others, especially minorities and immigrants, is the leading cohesive factor of the middle class.

The more precarious the situation of certain sectors of the middle class, the more these fears take hold in them, generating xenophobic, racist and fundamentalist reactions that turn them into the social base of the far right, reminding us that fascism is not dead.

Some on the right openly define themselves as fascists and even use diabolical garments to stand out, but other, more insidious, present themselves as respectable politicians and have come to occupy positions in the parliaments of Europe and the United States with the support of the middle class that voted for the wolf, thinking it was the grandmother.

In fact, for most of the middle class, fascism is an unthinkable, even disgusting option. A ghost invented by the left to counterpoise their own fears to the fears encouraged by the right.

But this is a cultural reflection that ignores the objective and historical factors that push society into this position. Fascism was not a collective madness exalted by lunatics like Hitler and Mussolini, but the reaction of the middle class to the global economic crisis of the 1930s and its attempt to climb aboard the wagon of the big bourgeoisie, to benefit from the crumbs of conquests. Hence the popularity level it reached at that moment and the weight it can achieve today.

The weakness of the left in the First World is another factor that opens the way to the right. Bewildered by the collapse of communism in Europe, betrayed by social democracy and reduced in its traditional class-conscious structures, the left has not been able to articulate an inclusive movement that can steer toward political power the discontent expressed in the strikes of workers and massive street protests, involving large sections of the middle class.

The novelty of the present situation is that, even though neoliberalism has been discredited, the right does not have a sustainable political project, not even among the “moderates” to stem the popular rebellion, so it will have to do it by itself, polarizing political confrontation to the extreme. The moral is that, no matter how much it advances, the right is the big problem, not the solution to the crisis of capitalism.