Austerity as Public Mood: Social Anxieties and Social Struggles (Radical Cultural Studies)

Austerity as Public Mood explores how politicians and the media mobilise nostalgic and socially conservative ideas of work and community in order to justify cuts to public services and create divisions between the deserving and undeserving. It examines the powerful appeal of these concepts as part of a wider public mood marked by guilt, nostalgia and resentment – particularly around the inequalities produced by global capitalism and changes to the nature of work. In doing so, the book engages with urgent questions about the contemporary political climate. Focusing on the UK, it challenges accounts of neoliberalism which frame it as primarily an individualising force and localist definitions of community as mitigating its damaging effects. Finally, it explores how resistance to austerity can challenge these tendencies by offering a politics of solidarity and hope, and a forum for experimentation with alternative forms of collectivity. Austerity as Public Mood 1 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction: Tightening Our Belts 12 Guilt and Nostalgia 15 What Is a ‘Public Mood’? 18 Can Austerity Function as a Public Mood? 20 1 Austerity and the Appeal of the Past 28 Why Austerity Isn’t Just about Economics 30 Austerity, Precarisation and Time 32 Austerity Melancholia 34 Austerity, Neo-Communitarianism and Socially Conservative Values 35 Who Belongs in Austerity Britain? 38 Strivers versus Skivers: Austerity and Work 40 Using an Idealised Past to Invalidate the Present 43 Conclusion: Nostalgia as Subverted Desires for a Better World? 46 2 Authoritarian Populism, Traditionalism and Austerity 50 Traditionalism 51 Authoritarian Populism 56 New Labour and the Transformation of Traditionalism and Authoritarian Populism 59 Are ‘Traditionalism’ and ‘Authoritarian Populism’ Still Relevant as Concepts? 62 Conclusion: Hall’s Work as an Imaginative Resource 67 3 The Mediatisation of Austerity and the Case of Benefits Street 72 Respectability 73 Meritocracy and the Individualisation of Success and Failure 75 Reality Television as the Scene for Divisive Politics 76 Controversies 78 Trolling or Pro-Austerity Common Sense? 81 Bad Habits and Reckless Lifestyles 83 Bad Parenting 84 Gendered, Classed Personal Attacks 85 Schadenfreude 86 Newsjacking and Other Counter-Responses 88 Counter-Pleasures 89 Developments since Benefits Street: Poverty Porn as a Controversial and Successful Genre 91 Conclusion: Twitter as a Site for Affirming or Challenging Austerity 93 4 Immigration, Austerity and the Welfare State 96 The Integration of Borders into the Welfare State 98 Metaphors of Home and the Welfare State 103 ‘Taking Back Control’ 109 Connecting Anti-Austerity and Migrants’ Rights Campaigns 113 Conclusion: Solidarity as an Imaginative Response to Xenophobia 115 5 Austere Creativity, Community and Impasses around the Welfare State 118 Neoliberal Creativity 119 Anti-Austerity Campaigns in Lewisham 124 A ‘Big Society’ Solution for Libraries 125 Austere Creativity and the Fate of New Cross Library 128 Conclusion: Creativity against Austerity? 132 6 Trade Union Activism after the 2010 Student Protests 138 Accounts of the Decline of Unions and the Need for Another Approach 142 Trade Unionism in the Aftermath of the Student Movement 146 Organisers Instead of Heroes 150 Democratic Rituals and Mis-Recognitions of Class 153 Precarisation and Politicisation 157 Workplace Politics versus the Moralisation of Work 159 Conclusion: Shifting the Public Mood in the Workplace? 160 7 Spaces of Solidarity 164 After the Square 166 You Are Not a Loan: The Debt Collective 171 Countering Isolation and Shame: The Case of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) 174 Social Housing, Not Social Cleansing: Focus E15 178 Conclusion: Towards a Politics of Interdependency and Care 183 Conclusion: From Austerity to Brexit and Trump, and the Politics of the ‘Ordinary’ 186 Right Populism and ‘Ordinary People’ 187 Can the Public Mood Be Shifted? 193 Bibliography 198 Index 224 About the Author 228 Explores how politicians and the press in the UK mobilise support for 'austerity' through appealing to socially conservative conceptions of work and community. It examines the techniques of anti-austerity social movements in challenging the prevailing mood of guilt, nostalgia and resentment and how they offer radical alternatives for social change