IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/120398.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Democracy, Neoliberalism, and Financial Oligarchy

Author

Listed:
  • Nardy Antunes, Davi José
  • Tunes Mazon, Marilia

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that the conception of liberal democracy developed by Schumpeter and consecrated by American political science has always been characterized by concealing existing power structures, presuming that the political system is impervious to pressures from the economy and society. The economic, social, political, and cultural transformations of recent decades have undermined the remaining assumptions that supported liberal democracy. A true simulacrum, the political system has become a dictatorship of the rich. This work highlights two aspects of this process. The unprecedented concentration of capital and power in the hands of a financial oligarchy has eliminated power alternatives, imposing its interests through control of the mass media and suppressing the debate on the great destinies of societies. At the same time, recent technological changes, along with neoliberal policies, have disorganized the labor market and the very structure of classes by eliminating numerous jobs and careers and turning work into an appendix of the social reproduction process, where jobs are intermittent and task-based. The result has been the re-emergence of a mass of rootless, undifferentiated, and depoliticized individuals with no capacity to understand contemporary political situations and organize in defense of their interests. These are the basis for the resurgence of fascist trends in contemporary societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Nardy Antunes, Davi José & Tunes Mazon, Marilia, 2024. "Democracy, Neoliberalism, and Financial Oligarchy," MPRA Paper 120398, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:120398
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/120398/1/MPRA_paper_120398.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy; Neoliberalism; and Financial Oligarchy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:120398. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.