The Choice of Civil War: Neoliberal Strategy and the Politics of the Enemy

By Pierre Dardot, Haud Gueguen, Christian Laval

How neoliberal governments neutralize democracy by treating citizens as a set of social enemies

Why do neoliberal policies continue to be implemented and supported by electoral majorities, despite their obvious economic failures and the ever-increasing tensions they produce in society?

To understand this, we need to reread the history of neoliberalism less from the point of view of its economic recipes than of the construction of its political strategy to achieve power.

From Hayek to Thatcher and Pinochet, from Mises to Trump and Bolsonaro, and from Lippmann to Macron, neoliberals have drawn on ideology, constitutional economics, labor discipline, cultural wars as well as police and military force to prevent popular resistance from organizing. And whatever their doctrinal differences, they all see the state's tight control of democracy as the most effective means of defeating egalitarian alternatives.

Margaret Thatcher's "There is no alternative" was not a historical statement, but the strategic objective of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism can therefore persevere today by its ability to defeat its opponents while deepening social and cultural regression.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 180429618X
• ISBN13: 9781804296189
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.