The Extreme Right and Present-Day Capitalism: The Examples of Argentina and Spain

Focus Week am Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies (LIAS): Facing the Far-Right/ Zum Aufstieg der Rechten

Talk by Adria Alcoverro (Leuphana, LIAS alumni) in English

The growth of the extreme right occurs in a context defined on the one hand, by a growing competition between individuals for survival with a generalized indifference to the fellow citizen all dressed with the technocentric attires of the digital economy. On the other hand, this context is defined by the emergence of an anger rooted in atomization and inequalities that activate a fear of loss which is easily translated into essentialism and hate once exploited by the extreme right. Javier Milei's government in Argentina discursively and materially enhances these apparently contradictory characteristics fusing them to constitute what could be a new model of capitalist society in which human substance and even the idea of progress vanish within this fog of utter competition and hate trapping the present within an endless totalizing struggle for survival.