Irrational Capitalism: The Social Map, Neoliberalism and the Demodernization of the West

Abstract

This article argues that the current trajectory of neoliberal led global development can be seen to have unleashed a regressive process of ‘demodernization’ within Western ‘developed’ economies and beyond. Informed by a developing ‘neurosociological’ theory, the article sets out to offer an original perspective on some widely debated issues, namely why the current era can be seen to have been marked by a regressive decline in ‘modern’ rational order, progress and faith in the future and a concomitant rise in irrationality, short-termism, mindless bureaucratization, instability, de-structuring and unpredictability. This trend, it is argued, due to its incompatibility with fundamental human ‘needs’, has dismantled the necessary conditions for personal and communal well-being, undermining socio-economic stability and social cohesion within the neoliberal societies that fostered and embraced this doctrine and, to a greater or lesser extent, within all nations connected to the global economy.