Risk in the Age of Neoliberalism: Why the Future Is Fragile
Written by Elisa Garbil – 11.08.2025
We live in a century overshadowed by risk. Not just the routine uncertainties of markets or weather, but layered, interconnected threats that ripple across borders and systems. From climate breakdown and cyber conflict to inequality and democratic erosion, the risks humanity faces today are no longer discrete, they are systemic. This new landscape demands more than technical fixes. It requires interrogating the ideologies and economic models that have made societies more vulnerable, not less.
Neoliberalism, with its deep faith in markets and minimal state intervention, has shaped global governance and economic life for more than four decades. But its legacy is now under scrutiny. Not only for the inequality and dislocation it leaves in its wake, but for the ways in which it has amplified risk across social, ecological, and political spheres. Dominic and Elisa discussed Neoliberalism in Episode 256.
The Global Risk Map: A World of Interlocking Threats
According to the Global Risks Report 2025, the world is entering a period of “persistent polycrisis”, a condition where multiple, simultaneous global threats interact and intensify each other. Immediate concerns include state-based armed conflict, misinformation, cyber insecurity, and economic instability. But over the longer term, the gravest risks are ecological: critical Earth system changes, biodiversity loss, and widespread climate-driven disruptions.
This evolving risk landscape is not speculative, it is unfolding in real time. Extreme weather events are increasing in both frequency and severity. Political fragmentation and armed conflicts are reshaping entire regions. Misinformation is undermining trust in science, governance, and even basic facts. Technological advances are often underestimated, given their invisible or delayed consequences. What’s most alarming is not just the nature of these risks, but their interdependence. A drought in one part of the world can destabilise global food systems, spark mass migration, and trigger geopolitical tensions thousands of miles away. A financial shock, caused by overleveraged markets or rising debt, can paralyse essential services, just when social cohesion is already strained.
In this volatile context, the question isn’t merely how to respond to individual threats, but how societies became so structurally exposed in the first place. The answer, in large part, lies in the global embrace of neoliberal economics.
Neoliberalism: Efficiency Over Resilience
Emerging in the late 20th century as a response to the perceived failures of postwar Keynesianism, neoliberalism proposed a radical reordering of society: cut taxes, privatise public services, deregulate industry, and let free markets govern themselves. Under this ideology, governments were no longer expected to buffer citizens from economic shocks or ensure equity. Their role was to serve the market: facilitating growth, attracting capital, and minimising interference.
In practice, this meant hollowing out public institutions, weakening labor protections, and slashing welfare systems. The result? Economies became more “efficient” in the short term, but far less capable of absorbing crises. Health systems, for example, were streamlined to reduce “waste”, leaving no room for surge capacity when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Supply chains were globalised and optimised, but proved catastrophically brittle under pressure. Local food systems collapsed in the face of global commodity fluctuations. Risk, in the neoliberal framework, was supposed to be managed by individuals and markets. But that assumption has repeatedly failed.
Inequality: A Manufactured Vulnerability
One of the defining features of the neoliberal era is soaring inequality. As public sectors shrank and capital became more mobile, wealth flowed upward. It concentrated power among a small elite while eroding the material foundations of the middle and working classes. Far from being a natural byproduct of economic progress, this inequality was structurally produced through tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of finance, and the dismantling of redistributive policies.
But inequality is not just an ethical concern. It is a risk multiplier. When large swaths of the population lack access to basic services, secure employment, or political representation, social cohesion erodes. Polarisation takes root. Trust in institutions fades. In such a landscape, disinformation spreads more easily, populism flourishes, and democratic norms begin to break down. This dynamic has been seen across the Global North and South, from Brexit to Bolsonaro, from anti-vaccine movements to reactionary culture wars.
Inequality also undermines collective action. In order to address global risks like climate change or pandemics, societies need to make shared sacrifices and coordinated decisions. But when people feel the system is rigged against them, they are less likely to comply, cooperate, or even care.
The Environment as Collateral Damage
Nowhere is the neoliberal logic of commodification more destructive than in its treatment of the natural world. By assigning monetary values to ecosystem services and promoting market-based mechanisms like carbon trading, neoliberal environmentalism promised to harness capitalism’s power to “save” the planet. In reality, this approach reduced living systems to economic variables. It ignores their complexity, interdependence, and irreplaceability.
Climate change, deforestation, mass extinction, and soil degradation have all accelerated under the banner of growth. Fossil fuel subsidies persist. Greenwashing has become more sophisticated, but the underlying metrics – GDP, shareholder value, quarterly returns – remain unchanged. The idea that the same market logic that caused the crisis can now solve it is a dangerous delusion. Risk, in the ecological sphere, has moved beyond linear projections into tipping points: irreversible shifts that cannot be managed by price signals or innovation alone.
Governance in Retreat: The Hollowing Out of the State
A central premise of neoliberalism is that governments are inefficient, best kept small and focused on enforcing contracts rather than delivering public goods. Over time, this has eroded the capacity of states to manage complex risks, be it healthcare, cybersecurity, or infrastructure resilience. Public institutions have been defunded, outsourced, and politicised. Expertise has been devalued in favour of market acumen. Planning has been replaced by reaction.
This vacuum of authority is especially dangerous in a world of transboundary threats. Climate change doesn’t respect borders. Cyberattacks can paralyse multiple countries simultaneously. Misinformation campaigns exploit global media networks. In all these cases, robust public institutions are essential for coordination, regulation, and response. Yet neoliberalism’s long war against the state has left many governments weakened, fragmented, and reactive, when they need to be proactive, integrative, and bold.
From Fragility to Resilience: Reimagining Risk
If neoliberalism has increased society’s exposure to risk – by prioritising short-term efficiency, deepening inequality, degrading the environment, and hollowing out governance – then reversing that exposure requires a fundamental shift. Risk must be understood not as something to be outsourced or privatised, but as a collective condition that demands public infrastructure, democratic accountability, and long-term planning.
Building resilience starts with reinvesting in the public realm. Health systems, education, housing, transport, and climate adaptation infrastructure are not costs to be minimised but pillars of social stability. Reducing inequality is not just a moral imperative, it is a strategy for strengthening democracy and enabling collective decision-making. Regulation of markets, especially in finance and technology, is essential to curb speculative excess and prevent cascading failures.
But even more importantly, societies must reorient their values. Growth for its own sake cannot remain the north star. Instead, wellbeing, ecological integrity, and social cohesion should guide policy and investment. This means rejecting austerity, embracing precaution, and designing institutions capable of handling uncertainty and complexity, not just optimising for normalcy.
Conclusion: Risk as a Mirror
The risks of the present era are not external shocks. They are reflections of what has been built, and what has been neglected. Neoliberalism’s legacy is not just one of inequality or economic instability, but of systemic fragility. By weakening public institutions, commodifying nature, and offloading risk onto individuals, it has left societies exposed to precisely the kinds of crises we now face.The question is not whether risks will continue to intensify – they will – but whether we can reclaim the capacity to respond. That will require more than technical reforms. It will demand a reinvention of governance, economics, and citizenship itself.
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