Tag Archives: countermovements

F&L Blog – The Hegemonic Project of the Right

November 12, 2026F&L Blogcountermovements, hegemony, Neoliberalism, polanyi, reactionary rightIKPS

The Hegemonic Project of the Right: Why the reactionary Right is more than a Polanyian countermovement

by Andreas Novy

12.11.2026

The reactionary Right has emerged as a powerful political movement promoting two forms of supremacist rule: disruptive capitalist governance and a traditionalist cultural order. This is why Andreas Novy critiques interpretations of Polanyi that understand contemporary reactionary movements solely as regressive “countermovements” seeking protection against immigration and a cosmopolitan liberal elite. Instead, he argues that we must recognize their aspiration to establish hegemony. An adequate response to this unruly alliance of neoliberals and traditionalists therefore requires an alternative hegemonic project of the political Left – one that ensures access to affordable foundational goods and services for all.

Contemporary actors of the reactionary Right, from Trump and Milei to Le Pen and Meloni, present themselves as ‘anti-establishment’, uniting diverse reactionary, supremacist, and fascist movements. While they cannot simply be equated with twentieth-century fascism, important parallels nevertheless exist. Both, historical fascist movements and the contemporary reactionary Right, profit from the failures of a liberal and globalized form of capitalism – then “laissez-faire” and now neoliberal – marked by austerity, unemployment and existential insecurity. And both appear as alternatives to this socioeconomic order – as anti-systemic “countermovements” against the cosmopolitan liberal mainstream, advancing a non-cosmopolitan form of capitalism instead.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, Karl Polanyi’s concept of the “countermovement” – originally describing a response to the alienating and disruptive forces of globalized capitalism – has been increasingly employed to describe a range of political developments, including the resurgence of reactionary Right movements. In this article, I will discuss the political implications of (mis-)using the Polanyian concept of “countermovement” in understanding and combatting neoliberalism as well as the reactionary Right.

The Limits of Countermovements for Protection

In his 1944 book The Great Transformation Polanyi introduces the idea of the “double movement” – a central concept of his work. According to Polanyi, this double movement consists of, on the one hand, movements fostering capitalist improvements by expanding markets and, on the other, countermovements fostering habitation, meaning secure and familiar forms of life, by expanding social protection to alleviate the perils of globalized markets. Polanyi describes how the liberal laissez-faire regime became increasingly contested, especially once parliamentary democracy was implemented after World War I. While democratic governments aimed at introducing policies to foster social protection for its citizens, business fiercely opposed any regulations by democratic policymakers.

In the 1930s, democratic economic liberalism finally collapsed, giving rise to what Polanyi calls the “great transformation”. It was characterized by the takeover of anti-cosmopolitan and state-centered political movements that reclaimed control over the economy in different ways: fascism as a war economy in Germany and Italy, nation-state-centered authoritarian communism in Soviet Russia and the social-democratic New Deal in the US. After World War II, heavily discredited capital factions agreed on a class compromise resulting in welfare and developmental states. Readers of Polanyi have interpreted this development as a pendulum swing towards social protection, followed by another pendulum swing in the 1970/80s towards marketization, introduced by strengthened globalized capital factions.

In the following, I will contest this reading. The Polanyian double movement of marketization and social protection is not an eternal pendulum but constitutes a contradictory entanglement in capitalist development. Instead, I propose an understanding of Polanyi’s double movement as a back-and-forth between more and less liberalized forms of capitalism, leaving the underlying logic of capitalism – its property relations and supremacist structures – intact.

"Polanyi aspired to societal transformation, not only to protection in a disordered world."

This understanding is important, as in a capitalist order no reform is possible that only creates institutions of social protection without also transforming capitalist institutions such as markets and property. As Claus Thomasberger correctly points out, Polanyi opposed economic liberalism – namely its defense of private property rights and reliance on the market as the solution, as it weakens our capacity to meet the challenges of a complex society [1]. Thus, Polanyi aspired to societal transformation, not only to protection in a disordered world.

Therefore, countermovements that merely seek to foster protection in the neoliberal status quo can neither be the heroes of history nor the primary source of hope. Rather, they are societal pushes to implement forms of social protection by diverse actors, diverging means, and for diverse objectives [2]. Polanyi even uses the term “move” as a substitute for countermovement, when talking about the “purely practical and pragmatic nature of the ‘collectivist’ countermove” [3]. The “move” from laissez faire to more collectivist forms of politics, heavily contested already in the 19^th century, was pursued by heterogeneous actors. There were socialist actors like trade unions and the cooperative movement, but also conservative actors, such as Bismarck introducing social security, or reactionary ones, for example culturally reactionary farmers defending an entrepreneurial market ideology while implementing tariffs to limit globalization.

Despite this diversity of historical experiences, an enthusiastic but often reductionist focus on progressive countermovements for protection has inspired a generation of researchers and activists under neoliberal globalization [4]. These movements and related research are based on the conviction that our world is not for sale, that not everything can or should become a commodity, and that there must be limits to the expansionary and extractivist logic of capitalism. There are diverse examples of such grassroots-oriented countermovements that either organize resistance or prefigure a society beyond market fundamentalism, under the label of solidarity- or care economy, commoning, or other forms of cooperatively organizing livelihoods.

Such protectionist countermovements, historically as well as today, have been decisive in securing livelihoods, guaranteeing survival, and sustaining human dignity. However, they face limitations. Often arising as crisis responses, they tend to represent sectional or communitarian interests, for example communities opposing data centers, workers demanding higher wages, landless getting access to land, or households demanding price caps on housing and petrol. While often seeking to satisfy immediate existential needs, grassroots actors tend to lack strategic orientation regarding how to achieve broader societal transformations. They generally lack a hegemonic project. Following Polanyi’s insight that “no society is possible in which power and compulsion are absent” [5], it is imperative to move beyond strategies focused exclusively on civil society actors and to develop a counterhegemonic project that extends beyond countermovements.

The Hegemonic Project of the Reactionary Right

For Polanyi, conservative and reactionary movements were always more than mere countermovements against globalized, cosmopolitan capitalism. Instead, they offered solutions to the contradictions of the double movement, by reconciling economic growth and protection, technological progress and habitation. This was the case with Austrofascism, the manifestation of radical economic liberalism described in The Great Transformation which went hand in hand with political Catholicism, antisemitism, and anti-scientism. And it was the case with neoliberalism, which Stuart Hall already in the 1970s described as “authoritarian populism”, a unique alliance of the elites with the masses [6]. This “neo”-liberal alliance was necessary for the democratic implementation of the “old” economic-liberal recipe of austerity and privatization.

In the 21^st century, faced with the ongoing crisis of neoliberal globalization, not only the above-mentioned left-wing political movements were mobilized. Powerful conservative and reactionary actors too have emerged in opposition to the alleged “establishment” of a cosmopolitan liberal elite. They pursue fundamentally different objectives from those pursued by progressive actors – one need only consider the contemporary “protectionism” of the Make-America-Great-Again movement. Nevertheless, taking up Polanyi’s terminology, theorists have labeled both types as “populist” countermovements of protection.

"These hegemonic projects of the Right link a new wave of market expansion driven by AI, digital platforms, and cryptocurrencies to cultural movements for white supremacy, masculinism, and reactionary forms of religion."

This analysis is fallacious: contemporary reactionary Right-wing movements are not simply countermovements, seeking protection against migration and a cosmopolitan elite – even though they might claim to be. They are also movements for an aggressive form of marketization, centered on private property and profit. Combining elements of movement and countermovement they seek to establish hegemony based on two types of supremacy: disruptive capitalist governance, often by means of neoliberal policies, as in Argentina, and a traditionalist cultural and religious order. These hegemonic projects link a new wave of market expansion driven by AI, digital platforms, and cryptocurrencies to cultural movements for white supremacy, masculinism, and reactionary forms of religion. Combining “markets and morals”, to refer to Wendy Brown’s precise analysis [7], today’s reactionary Right has found a regressive way of reconciling the double movement’s strive for market expansion on one hand and protection on the other. This project has greater hegemonic potential than the laissez-faire liberalism of the 1920s and the progressive neoliberalism of the 2010s, i.e. the cosmopolitan but anti-egalitarian form of liberal globalism.

The good news is that historically and today, economic programs of the reactionary Right, such as the Heritage Foundation‘s Project 2025, appear coherent, while actual policymaking suffers from erratic leadership and a resultant authoritarian yet highly fragmented, governance – think of Trump and Milei’s policy disasters and Bolsonaro’s political cowardice. As a consequence, governments of the reactionary Right often abandon the pursuit of legitimacy through consensus. They either lose support, as in Hungary and the US, or replace hegemonic aspirations with ever more violent and repressive means to sustain their domination, as in Turkey and Argentina.

The Need for an Egalitarian Hegemonic Project

This hegemonic project of the reactionary Right, centered on the restoration of sociocultural and politico-economic hierarchies, cannot be overcome solely by grassroots initiatives, or so-called progressive countermovements, regardless of their laudable intentions. Social and political movements only become effective in interaction with the institutionalized political order of parties, interest groups, and the state, its laws, and public bureaucracies. This interaction is often conflictive, leading to confrontations and resistance to state institutions, for example the police or judiciary, but could also result in alliances with political parties and certain public institutions, ministries or public companies. A hegemonic project in the Gramscian sense, therefore, must not juxtapose civil society and the state but must seek to transform both.

Polanyi himself was never solely interested in social protection. His more ambitious concern was an egalitarian hegemonic project based on the equal freedom for all – a project for a new era of “the common people” as Isabella Weber highlights in her 2026 book [8]. Polanyi’s intention is expressed in the title of the posthumously published “The Common Man’s Master Plan”, an outline for an egalitarian post-war order that he wrote in parallel with The Great Transformation in the 1940s [9]. Since his involvement in the so-called Socialist Calculation Debate in the 1920s, Polanyi had tried to understand how “common people” could gain sufficient “overview” in an increasingly complex world.

Polanyi’s overriding aim was securing habitation for all, recognizing that this required democratic coordination to overcome the reliance on disruptive capitalist market forces. Therefore, his socialism was gradualist, liberal and democratic, based on trust in common people, their wisdom, and sense of responsibility. This implies that his socialist vision was also modest, acknowledging that existing capitalist institutions and traditionalist values lead to socio-cultural inertias and resistance to change. As supremacist political movements seek to exploit these conservative leanings among common people, egalitarian alternatives must offer an attractive and comprehensive response, in other words, a genuine hegemonic project.

"Polanyi's socialism was gradualist, liberal, and democratic, based on trust in common people, their wisdom, and sense of responsibility."

At its core, this egalitarian hegemonic project must provide access to foundational goods and services for all – to food, energy, housing, healthcare, and education. This cannot be achieved solely by grassroots and municipal actors, even while acknowledging the value of radical projects that create islands of habitation in a sea of capitalist exploitation. However, without embedding local alternatives in more favorable national policies and an international order conducive to peaceful cooperation, they risk failure. This was the fate of Polanyi’s “Red Vienna” and might again be the fate of other progressive municipalist projects, like Mamdani’s in New York.

The adequate response to the reactionary Right’s aspirations to dominate is an egalitarian hegemonic project that transforms and transcends the existing socioeconomic order. However, egalitarian projects aspiring to provide essential goods for all also need to take Polanyi’s insight into account that “no society is possible in which power and compulsion are absent”. A hegemonic project needs to impose limits on resource use, but also on the obstructive potential of opponents, including billionaires and the reactionary Right. Therefore, an alternative macroeconomic regime, including progressive taxation, credit steering, anti-trust regulation, and an industrial policy guided by the principle of sufficiency is needed. Today, growing numbers of (ecological) economists are calling for the democratic planning of investments and production, including the planning of global supply chains, communication technology, and AI. According to thinkers like Cédric Durand, democratic planning must combine top-down and bottom-up approaches to limit and regulate markets and private property [10].

Recent Brazilian and US elections offer reasons for hope as well as food for thought. They were victories over the reactionary Right and the election campaigns contained the incipient elements of hegemonic projects, particularly in the way they foregrounded the aspirations and needs of common people, and emphasized affordability, dignity, and the defence of public institutions. These elections showed that no progressive hegemonic project is possible without connecting to the common sense of working people – including its conservative traces – as well as to their everyday lives.

References

Thomasberger, Claus (2018). Freedom, Responsibility and the Recognition of the Reality of Society. In M. Brie & C. Thomasberger (Hrsg.), Karl Polanyi´s Vision of a Socialist Transformation (S. 52–66). Black Rose Books, p.64.
Alcock, Rowan (2026). Polanyi’s non-ideological countermovement: One step forward, two steps back. Globalizations, 1–18. Link
Polanyi, Karl (2001). The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times. Beacon Press, p.153.
For a good overview of the potential of progressive countermovements, see Goodwin, Geoff (2022). Double Movements and Disembedded Economies: A Response to Richard Sandbrook. Development and Change, 53(3), 676–702. Link
Polanyi, Karl (2001). The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times. Beacon Press, p.266.
Hall, Stuart (1979). The great moving right show. Marxism today, 23(1), 14–20.
Brown, Wendy (2019). In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. Columbia University Press.
Weber, Isabella M. (2026). Anti-fascist economics: In defence of affordability, dignity and democracy. Penguin.
Polanyi, Karl (2017). The Common Man´s Masterplan. In M. Brie (Hrsg.), Karl Polanyi in Dialogue. A Socialist Thinker of Our Times (S. 79–94). Black Rose Books.
Durand, Cédric (2026). The problem of knowledge in the Anthropocene. Globalizations, 1–20. Link

F&L Blog – A Fascist “Solution”?

April 30, 2026F&L Blogcountermovements, fascism, Neoliberalism, welfare stateIKPS

A fascist "solution"? A Polanyian Reading of the Fascist Backlash

by Roland Atzmüller

30.04.2026

As commentators struggle to make sense of the rise of the far right and its entanglements with the neoliberal project, Roland Atzmüller turns to Karl Polanyi’s analysis of fascism and liberalism a century ago. In Polanyi’s view, fascism was a reaction to emancipatory social struggles that challenged the unchecked expansion of capitalist market society and demanded greater democratic control, universal equality, and individual freedoms. Fascism, in turn, came to the rescue of capitalism, ending the social and political blockages by reinstating inequality — especially along racial lines — as a principle of governance. According to Atzmüller, Polanyi’s analysis sharpens our understanding of both neoliberalism as a project to suppress or absorb egalitarian movements in the name of economic recovery, and contemporary processes of fascisation as efforts to reverse an alleged Western decline by attacking “wokism,” reasserting white supremacy, and defending the capitalist development model.

(Mis-)interpretations of the Far Right

Since the beginning of the second Trump administration and its attempt to remodel U.S. society and democracy along authoritarian lines, public and scholarly debates concerning the appropriate interpretation of the far right’s recent electoral successes and governing projects have intensified. The debates centre on whether these phenomena should still be understood as right-wing populism, or if they are better described as processes of fascisation (Faschisierung, to use the German term) in the light of their radicalization – or even a new fascism. These debates build on earlier controversies about how the hegemonic neoliberal governing projects of recent decades in many countries are related to the growing successes of (increasingly radicalized) right-wing parties and movements.

Although originally, many right-wing populist parties were combining anti-migration sentiments with (authoritarian) neoliberal economic and social policy ideas, they developed increasingly encompassing and distinct programs and narratives for fundamental social change, particularly in the last one or two decades – albeit with considerable national variation. The emerging programmatic extensions of far-right parties have been particularly notable in certain sociopolitical fields such as welfare policy. Of course, these extensions remained closely aligned with ideologies which had been central to the (post-war) far right from the beginning, particularly concerning the rejection of immigration and a racist and even “völkisch” conception of the nation. However, since these programmatic expansions usually entailed assigning the state an important role in economic and social policy, certain public and social-scientific debates (for references see Atzmüller and Decieux, 2019) advanced the view that these actors should no longer be classified as right-wing, as their positions appeared closer to those of centre-left parties in these policy fields. This argument was linked to the fact that, in some countries, far-right reform policies hardly – or did not – reduce expenditure levels in certain policy areas, such as welfare.

In the course of such debates, two things are often ignored. First, and this is particularly overlooked in journalistic contributions, the far right – beyond all social rhetoric – draws on long standing traditions of authoritarian statehood that do not have too much in common with the idea of a democratic, social, and inclusive state. Second, a perspective that mainly focuses on state expenditure levels – which is itself a sign of neoliberal hegemony in certain debates – tends to ignore the qualitative policy-changes implemented by far-right parties to foster authoritarian change.

Polanyi’s Interpretation of Fascism’s Rise

Karl Polanyi’s writings from the 1930s and 1940s on the role and consolidation of fascist regimes and their political and ideological “essence” offer considerations and insights that are of remarkable relevance for interpreting today’s rightward shift in many societies. Their significance stems from the fact that Polanyi engaged with these questions in particular during the period in which the democratic constitutional state was being displaced by a far-right movement and the establishment of a fascist regime. In his analyses from the 1930s onwards, Polanyi demonstrated how fascism sought to impose itself as an authoritarian and antidemocratic “solution” to social crisis dynamics and political deadlocks resulting from the contradictions and dynamics of the unbridled expansion of capitalist market society. Fascism, in Polanyi’s theoretical framework, constituted itself as the rescue of capitalism as a whole. Hence, Polanyi ascribed fascism a systemic role oriented towards society in its totality. For him, fascism was a reaction of certain social forces to progressive developments resulting from social struggles against the crisis-prone effects of unrestrained market expansion in the decades before.

Polanyi’s fundamental critique of fascist philosophers such as Othmar Spann or Ludwig Klages in the 1930s therefore does not simply constitute a scholastic refutal of their attempt to formulate a philosophical essence of fascism. Rather, their authoritarian and antidemocratic philosophical musings about concepts such as freedom or in/equality referred to a range of real social developments which became the target of fascist politics to rescue capitalism. These concerned first, the expansion of democratic structures; second, the extension of individual freedoms; and third, their grounding in ideas of universal equality.

"because the “liberal creed” was unwilling and unable to react to the outlined progressive countertendencies and to accept democratic control of the economy and society, a profound social crisis and political blockage emerged"

Thus, even if his formulations – particularly in The Great Transformation – were not entirely unambiguous, Polanyi did not simply conceptualize fascism as a “countermovement” similar to more progressive counterparts such as trade unions and working-class parties which aimed at securing the protection of society against the “liberal creed” and the consequences of market dynamics. Rather, because the “liberal creed” was unwilling and unable to react to the outlined progressive countertendencies and to accept democratic control of the economy and society, a profound social crisis and political blockage emerged. According to Polanyi, from a fascist viewpoint, the progressive countertendencies were responsible for the manifestations of crisis and political paralysis. The fascist “solution” was thus aimed at the abolition of democracy and individual freedom in order to subject individuals to violent re-education and, ultimately, to reimpose inequality – not least (but nationally varied) along ethnicized and racialized lines – as a mode of dominance. The attack on democracy and politics sought to absolutize the economy and to destroy all forms of democratic control and participation not only at the level of the state but also within the economy. In this way, as Polanyi wrote in 1933, economic dynamism was to be restored and society embodied in the economy.

Understanding the Neoliberal Project with Polanyi

"Polanyi’s approach can help to understand the political impetus of neoliberal governing projects which saw these developments as obstacles for economic recovery."

What, then, is today’s relevance of Polanyi’s reflections on fascism? In my view, the social countertendencies he identified as responses to the unrestrained imposition of market society resurfaced in the social struggles and movements of the post-war period – in particular in 1968 and the social reform projects of the 1970s. The expansion of individual freedoms sought to realize the “utopian promise” of social inclusion in the words of Jürgen Habermas, individual freedom, and recognition in the democratic welfare state. They became the basis of emancipatory aspirations “not only” of the (traditional) working class, but also of women, ethnic minorities and other “minority” or marginalized groups and extended to struggles around sexual self-determination and gender identities.

Polanyi’s approach can help to understand the political impetus of neoliberal governing projects which saw these developments as obstacles for economic recovery. From the outset, neoliberal projects curtailed codetermination rights and trade-union activities, targeted the dismantling of economic-democratic institutions and control mechanisms, and sought to remove the economy from political control as they regarded these developments as obstacles to overcoming economic crises. Furthermore, through welfare-state cutbacks and reorganization, neoliberal policies aimed at recommodifying labor power and intensifying social inequalities. In the name of individual freedom on global markets, the autonomy gains of subjects vis-à-vis market dynamics (as well as traditional family ties and other personal dependencies and subordinations) were to be rolled back.

"The alleged universalistic promise of economic individualism of so-called progressive neoliberalism ultimately collapsed – confronted with the reality of the market dynamics it promoted."

For neoliberal projects, allegedly focusing on individual freedom on markets, the expansion of minority rights could be legitimate only insofar as it proved its economic profitability. This points to the attempts of “progressive neoliberalism,” which since the 1990s sought to make market society more socially sustainable through inclusion and diversity and in particular equal opportunity to participate in markets. However, the alleged universalistic promise of economic individualism of so-called progressive neoliberalism ultimately collapsed – confronted with the reality of the market dynamics it promoted. Rather, these dynamics contributed to reproducing social inequalities and hierarchies along race, class, and gender, which deepened in numerous countries after the 2008 financial crisis. This reflects two fundamental conditions: first, that a democratic, diverse, and inclusive society cannot be achieved on unregulated, expanding markets; and second, that the basic structures of capitalist market societies were not challenged in neoliberal societies based on the Thatcherian claim that there is no alternative.

Contemporary Fascisation as “Solution” to Social Crises

In light of the failure of progressive neoliberalism, the new far right developed a comprehensive set of authoritarian “solutions” to social crises and political blockages, replacing market individualism through national and religious – i.e., Christian – homogeneity. As can be seen almost paradigmatically in the actions of the second Trump administration, this “new fascism” strives to gain extensive control over political structures in order to restrict political influence over economic domains and to reduce the significance of democratic processes or even destroy them. Social inequalities are deepened by cuts to social programs, the abolition of affirmative action, attacks on the public sector, and the like. The expansion of freedoms and opportunities for the inclusion and participation of all members of society – grounded in comprehensive concepts of equality and emancipation and the extension of anti-discrimination provisions won by social movements – has become a prime target of an increasingly authoritarian and fascistoid restructuring project that centres around the white, male-dominated, Christian nation.

"The expansion of freedoms and opportunities for the inclusion and participation of all members of society [...] has become a prime target of an increasingly authoritarian and fascistoid restructuring project that centres around the white, male-dominated, Christian nation."

From this (Polanyian) perspective, the question arises whether the outlined policies also have a systemic dimension oriented towards the rescue of capitalism, as did their historic counterparts. Since fascist “solutions” never intended to save capitalism as such but rather a specific national social formation – and since crises are always also socially constructed – a systemic justification of imposing an authoritarian “solution” for western/northern capitalism is part of the self-understanding of the far right or the new fascism.

To begin with, there is the far-right claim – especially in the Global North – of a decline of western societies under the sway of so-called “woke” ideologies and an allegedly migration-induced “great replacement” attributed to certain global elites. This is said to undermine entrenched patriarchal, white, and class-specific “natural” hierarchies. In addition to these phantasmatic perspectives, the political positions of the contemporary far right or “new fascism” involve the preservation of the capitalist development model of permanent growth based on private enterprise and fossilism, combustion engines, and unrestrained meat consumption – against their projections of an allegedly looming ecological dictatorship. Amongst others, they aim to create the political and ideological conditions to secure access to (fossil) resources against global competitors such as China amid an escalating climate crisis – if necessary, by means of warfare. To implement these policies, they furthermore try to re-educate individuals by reasserting for example entrenched masculinist and racist hierarchies. Members of society are to acquire those subject dispositions that make them willing to accept – or even enact – the violent defense of borders against climate refugees, rather than merely “enduring some cruel images”, as Sebastian Kurz, former Austrian prime minister and now staffer to a representative of the fascistoid tech-oligarchy, once emphasized.

Only if – opposed to what Polanyi calls “freedom’s utter frustration” – the connections between individual freedom, universal notions of equality, and the extension of democracy can be restored in all their already attained complexity, can a new perspective on freedom in a global, complex society be opened.

International Karl Polanyi Society