Bartosz Żukowski

It is noteworthy that in the current debates on the character of our times, anti-democratic and totalitarian manifestations (referred to by the neoliberals) have sometimes been assigned the position of the main antagonists, while in public media campaigns, public officials and public officials’ families are often accused of being pervs.

Undoubtedly, now they play a very insignificant role, as attention is increasingly focused on the deeds and misdeeds of the elites, on their lives, careers and property.

But this represents the real danger posed by neoliberals: they never allow themselves to be duped by misrepresentation, by assuaging and removing social anger, by protecting the enemy of the people.

At present, they are attempting to fake some crisis of conscience, an element of ‘crisis management’, by blaming it on the ‘real’ villains.

This is a well known syndrome.

The social critique of the elite is largely a matter of envy, of taking up the mantle of the poorest people, a very old-fashioned view still preserved in Hungary, or in a country that has only very recently begun to repress anger and class anger.

However, social anger is only satisfied and more quickly generated if it is understood in the terms of ‘the feeling of betrayal’, of someone being spit on or humiliated.

If the elite have been humiliated, it is only justified if the ‘victim’, the ordinary poor person, is someone who happens to play ‘an active role in the struggle’ and thus has a claim to be protected by the government.

Therefore, it is important to maintain that the real enemies of the public are not officials and ruling class but those who break public authority and cause it to collapse into chaos.

Do these elites necessarily deserve to be scapegoats? I would say No.

Those who are in charge of the huge enterprises and the executive bodies are generally respected people, not men of fame and power.

When the elites are identified with the tycoons and the monopolists that control the wealth of nations, this is indeed a propaganda device designed to deflect the populist campaign by the ordinary people of the third world into claims that they are solely responsible for the crime or the crisis.