Reviving Hayek’s Dream

Abstract

This short piece suggests that the roots of the successful Brexit vote can be found in the free market purity that was implicit within the ideals behind Thatcherism. Whilst the rhetoric of populist and British (or in many parts English) nationalism were utilised in order to win support, the ideological driving force implicit within many Brexit figureheads rested in the belief that the EU watered down their visions of a harder neoliberal reality. Yet, by stimulating right-wing reactionary forces, they may have created more than they bargained for. I concur with Karl Polanyi that free market liberalism tends to generate the forces of its own demise.