Quinn Slobodian Hayek's Bastards : The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right

A revelatory exploration of how todays rightwing authoritarianism emerged not in opposition to neoliberalism, but from within it FINALIST FOR THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS Bracingly original... Hayeks Bastards demonstrates how a history of ideas can be riveting... His book offers an illuminating history to our current bewildering moment, as rightwing populists join forces with billionaire oligarchs to take a chain saw to the foundations of public life, until theres nothing left to stand on Jennifer Szalai, The New York TimesAfter the end of the Cold War, neoliberalism, with its belief in the virtues of markets and competition, seemed to have triumphed. Communism had been defeated and Friedrich Hayek, the spiritual father of neoliberal economics, had just about lived to see it. But in the decades that followed, Hayeks disciples knew that they had a problem. The rise of social movements, from civil rights and feminism to environmentalism, were now proving roadblocks in the road to freedom, nurturing a culture of government dependency, public spending, political correctness and special pleading. Neoliberals needed an antidote. In this illuminating new book, historian Quinn Slobodian reveals how, from the 1990s onwards, neoliberal thinkers turned to nature, in an attempt to roll back social changes and to return to a hierarchy of gender, race and cultural difference. He explores how these thinkers drew on the language of science, from cognitive psychology to... | Quinn Slobodian Hayek's Bastards : The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right