The pie chart below (Figure 1) shows how the logics (blue hues) and counter-logics (red hues) of neoliberalism stacked overall in 2006–2013. Out of all the logics identified from the articles, 63 percent were supportive of the neoliberal hegemonic discourse.
While the amount of counter-logics was somewhat larger (Figure2) during and after the crisis than before it, supportive logics remained dominant all the time.
Market determination and financialisation (both 15 percent) were the strongest individ-ual logics present. Both are essential elements of neoliberalism. Absolute, almost reli-gious belief in the infallibility of the free markets has come to define capitalism only since the time of Reagan and Thatcher. Financialisation started around the same time due to the liberalisation of the markets as well as the advances in technology (as ex-plained in depth in Chapter 4). It is no wonder that these two logics dominate the cur-rent hegemonic discourse. The third strongest logic, competition (14%), is a typical logic of capitalism of all times.
Figure 1 Logics in Businessweek and the Economist 2006–2013
15%
15%
14%
13%
6%
13%
11%
6%
5% 2%
Market determination Financialisation Competition Self-interest Individualism Government direction Communality Humanisation Cooperation Altruism
What is perhaps a little surprising is how strongly present the logic of government di-rection was in the articles (13%). It was by far the strongest counter-logic and almost equal in size to the largest supporting logics. This is mostly due to the crisis. When something shocking happens, even the supporters of the neoliberal hegemony, are prone to cry the government for help. Government help is not only needed when there is a threat of violence or political disturbance – economic crises trigger the need for govern-ment as well.
The logic of government direction was already present before the crisis. This implies that even though neoliberal voices often tend to disparage government involvement, public sector still has a large role even in peaceful times in creating the rules for the market to operate, maintaining the social structures, and guiding business interest to-wards useful goals, such as preventing global warming.
Altruism was clearly the weakest of all counter-logics to neoliberalism. It might indicate that if neoliberalism were to evolve into a new kind of discourse, selflessness would still remain antagonistic to that discourse. Usually, the articles did not even consider the pos-sibility that people, especially politicians, could ever have altruistic motivations. Self-interest, after all, is a staple to capitalism. The problem with this thinking is that it feeds the idea that every decision maker should protect only her own interests and interests of her closest allies. This hinders leaders from taking a long-term view and forming global alliances in order to, for example, prevent tax avoidance.
According to neoliberal ethos, self-interest is the force that guides the invisible hand and organizes our economies. However, there is some indication in this research data, that more government direction and especially communal and global guidance is be-coming more acceptable. Especially in the midst of the crisis neither magazine thought that the government should not get involved. On the contrary, they acknowledged that it was necessary for governments to try and fix the distortions in the free market capital-ism, even if it meant nationalisations of large financial institutions.
When dividing the research period in three sections, we get to see how the dominant logics developed before, during, and after the financial crisis. The section are: 2006–
2007, 2008–2009, and 2010–2013. The last section has double the amount of articles as the other two. Because of that I have divided the points for that section by two to make it comparable with the others.
Although the crisis started to spread already during 2007 in U.S., the realization of the seriousness of the situation only happened next year. That is also when the crisis be-came truly global. That is why I’ve included the year 2007 in the first section.
While the research material is not extensive enough to draw solid conclusions, these re-sults suggest that counter-logics antagonistic to the neoliberal hegemony gained power after the crisis. In Businessweek, the share of counter-logics kept growing even few years after the crisis, while in the Economist the momentum for change gained quickly ground in 2008–2009 but started dying once the immediate danger was over. This may be explained by strong liberal roots of the Economist. The magazine has supported the free market capitalism since 1840s. However, the capitalism has changed its form many times during the lifetime of the Economist. The hegemonic discourse has also trans-formed several times. It is concerning that the magazine regresses back to the conserva-tive protectionism of neoliberal values, which caused the crisis in the first place.
Both magazines started to talk seriously about the faults in the capitalist system after the crisis. Often the conclusion was that the regulatory changes needed would be mostly negligible and that the free markets still maintained their magical self-corrective pow-ers. Still, the crisis started a broad conversation, which has had an undermining effect
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Figure 2 Development of logics in 2006–2013
Market determination Financialisation Individualism Competition Self-interest Government direction Humanisation Communality Cooperation Altruism
for the current hegemony. The public discussion has certainly nudged societies closer to a discourse shift.
Overall though, the business magazines are in a state of confusion. At the peak of the crisis, both Businessweek and the Economist were demanding strong government ac-tions (e.g. BW 1.12.2008 & Economist 4.10.2008). After the crisis, cries for govern-ment involvegovern-ment abated and were replaced by confusion. Was the crisis significant af-ter all? Should anything change? Businessweek even called the crisis “cosmic confu-sion” and “epic abnormality”.
It is easy to shrug major economic quakes as freak abnormalities or worse – natural part of capitalism. Both ways of thinking result in passivity – there is nothing we can do.
This apparent lack of optionality is what politicians often cite when they succumb to more fiscal austerity, for example. This seems to become the mainstream way of think-ing. It is difficult for business magazines to commit to the idea that there is something wrong with the system and the way we think. There are some slight signs of a possible discourse shift in the articles, but the likeliest outcome is that we are “set for a dramatic return to traditional patterns”, as Businessweek put it (5.10.2009). We may have to en-dure another crisis, before the mistakes in the current hegemony will be properly ad-dressed.