From left to right: Olaf Scholz; Justin Trudeau; Emmanuel Macron; Giorgia Meloni; Joe Biden; Fumio Kishida; and Rishi Sunak
If there’s one picture that best illustrates the collapse of confidence in neoliberalism it’s last Summer’s photo op of the presidents and prime ministers who make up the G7. This is an informal group of major economic powers who promote neoliberal and neocolonial economic policies and, despite the IMF’s formal ties to the UN, have their big fat fingers on the levers of the International Monetary Fund.
With the notable exception of neo-fascist Giorgia Meloni, this entire crop of investment bankers, hedge fund operators, and professional politicians pictured last Summer is either gone or on the way out — their positions soon to be occupied by conservative liberals (if ever there was an oxymoron), harsher conservatives, outright fascists, or fascist-friendly replacements. In many cases those departing came from parties claiming to be “liberal.”
Though faces may change and the parties may change, the basic government policies curiously remain the same. This is as true in Britain, Germany, Japan, or Canada as it is in the United States. You can vote for a “liberal” or a “conservative” but in either case you’ll get austerity, militarism, and neoliberalism. Just with different frostings in different packet sizes.
Here, then, is the G7 Class of 2024.
Kanzler Olaf Scholz of the German Social Democratic Party may have once been a left-leaning labor lawyer, but he soon drank the neoliberal and NATO kool-aid. Scholz suffered a no-confidence vote in December and is likely to be replaced by Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union, which has signaled its willingness to work with the the openly fascist AfD Party.
FORMER Canadian Prime Minister of the Liberal Party, a birthright PM (his father Pierre was also a Canadian PM), quickly entered politics after college. Since 1968 Canadians have had 30 years of prime ministers named Trudeau. Trudeau resigned a few days ago, offering the Liberals a chance to tap a back bench filled with bankers and economic tinkerers. But polls favor the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre, a fiscal and libertarian conservative, Friedmanite, and crypto bro.
French President Emmanuel Macron, an investment banker, created right-of-center En Marche and Renaissance parties that have imposed austerity programs and pursued militaristic policies. Macron’s party trailed Marie LePen’s fascist party by 17 points in the June 2024 European Parliament elections and then suffered major losses in the July French election. Neither Macron’s Renaissance, the left-ish New Popular Front, nor LePen’s National Rally, has enough votes to control Parliament outright. LePen is expected to run again in 2027, but the power of the National Rally party, particularly on economic issues, is growing. Macron, who is still vulnerable to no-confidence votes, is essentially a lame duck who has promised to leave major issues to referenda on which National Rally will push even harsher policies.
Who says Italian fascism is dead? Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the fascist Brothers of Italy cut her teeth as a student activist and served as a youth minister under far-right Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi. She claims to have a journalism degree but in fact Meloni studied “hospitality” at a technical college. Still relatively young (at 47) the telegenic career politician is a zealous pan-European fascist rated positively by 57% of Italian voters. The ruling class loves her as well: Forbes magazine rates Meloni the “third most powerful woman in the world.” Don’t expect her to leave office for quite some time.
FORMER U.S. President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party needs no introduction. Soft on segregation and a self-described Zionist, Biden worked for two seconds as a lawyer and makes a big deal of his working class roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. But long ago Biden ditched the working class when he began buying up houses he could scarcely afford. Among Biden’s many accomplishments are: greasing Clarence Thomas’s way to the Supreme Court by sliming Anita Hill, opposing school busing, writing broken windows policing legislation, authorizing massive expenditures for the military, pursuing a reckless foreign policy, and partnering in conducting a genocide. Biden’s participation in Israel’s war on Gaza very likely cost him the election.
FORMER Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of the Liberal Democratic Party is a former investment banker who introduced a “new capitalism” initiative that some tried to call a New Deal. But his economic reforms were undercut by austerity measures, increased military spending, and inflation. Like Biden, Kishida was a negotiator who cut backroom deals with far right nationalists to remain in power. In many ways Kishida was more popular outside Japan than inside. He survived an assassination attempt in 2023 (following Shinzo Abe’s in 2022). Last October Kishida was replaced by Shigeru Ishiba, also from the LDP. Like his predecessor, Ishiba is a conservative and a militarist.
FORMER British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the Conservative Party is a hedge fund magnate (just shy of a billionaire) who presided over a highly unpopular government which collapsed in July 2024. Sunak was replaced in the next election by the Labor Party’s Keir Starmer, a former federal prosecutor. Like Bill Clinton, Starmer has pushed his own party even farther to the right than it had been drifting. The new Liberal PM changes nothing for most Britons.
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