What’s in a name? Political antagonism and critiquing ‘neoliberalism’

The concept of neoliberalism has been central to critiques of the dominant social order over the last 20 years. The use of the term itself is often a focus of repetitive debates, between those who affirm its conceptual validity and those who highlight its vagueness. Informed by Laclau’s concepts of antagonism and heterogeneity, this article offers a theoretical account of how the term is articulated, especially in left-wing discourses (including scholarly discourses) that prioritize neoliberalism as an object of critique. I affirm the use of neoliberalism as a critical shorthand for naming an oppressive social order, but also highlight the potential political and strategic problems with catch-all critiques of neoliberalism from within a radical left imaginary. I suggest another mode of critiquing neoliberalism that is cultivated through an ability to talk about how different social phenomena that might be one-dimensionally named as ‘neoliberal’ could be reconstituted in a coherent anti-neoliberal programme.