This paper examines the contradictory relationship between the political economy of neoliberalism and the politics of the far-right. It seeks to identify and explain the divergence of the 'economic' and the social/cultural spheres under neoliberalism (notably in articulations of race and class and the 'politics of whiteness') and how such developments play out in the politics of the contemporary far-right. Through this we also seek to examine the degree to which the politics of the far-right pose problems for the consolidation and long-term stabilization of neoliberalism as a social regime of capital, through acting as a populist source of pressure on the conservative-right and tapping into sources of alienation amongst declassé social layers. Finally, we locate the politics of the far-right within the broader atrophying of political representation and accountability of the neoliberal era with respect to the institutional and legal organization of neoliberalism at the regional and international levels, as most obviously highlighted in the ongoing crisis of the EU and Eurozone.
Since the world system emerged in the mid-19 th century, the stages of capitalist development and 'social' periods prepared the way for the current 'crisis' period, by restricting the options available to political and state managerial representatives of capital. By reorganising political economy in such a way that states respond to short-term demands by key sectors of capital rather than the needs of the system as a whole, neoliberalism has inadvertently undermined the accumulation process, producing permanent 'states of exception' as the only means of containing the resulting social crisis.
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