A Year in The Ruins: An Interview with Wendy Brown

In 2019, Wendy Brown’s In the Ruins of Neoliberalism was published. In it, she analyses the way in which right-wing and demagogic forces in the US and elsewhere have performed a ‘multi- pronged assault on democratic values’. Brown argues that such anti-democratic practices were present from the inception of neoliberalism: always flirting with ‘authoritarian liberalism’ and repelling ‘social justice claims through appeals to market freedom and morality’. Here Brown reflects upon the coalescence of neoliberal and neoconservative politics in the US over the past 40 years, the nihilism that persists within that context today and the importance of fighting for democracy within social movements. Finally, Brown describes the movement for Black Lives as one of the most formidable in recent decades and warns that strategic change is as urgent as ever