Paper short abstract:

To decipher the authoritarian shift taking place globally despite the liberalisation rhetoric, I examine how in recent Greek history middle-class subjects are shaped around homeownership against a parasitic “other”, and I look into the current implementation of governance through precarisation.

Paper long abstract:

To gain insight into the current authoritarian shift, taking place globally despite the rhetoric of economic and political liberalisation, I examine the ways in which liberal and authoritarian processes of subject formation intersect and overlap in recent Greek history.

I put forward a brief retrospect of the past seven decades in Greece, combining the insights of both political and subjective economy to scrutinise the relevant middle-class subject positions in each era. I take into account both objective and subjective aspects of middle-class formation, that is, both structural positions within productive processes and self-adscription through the symbolic practices of individuals. In different historical eras and through different modes of statecraft and capitalist development, the middle-class subject has been shaped within the context of possessive familialism, defined around property ownership and against a wasteful and parasitic “other”.

The aforementioned social contract began to break down with the 2010 debt crisis and the ensuing austerity program. Formal and informal sources of welfare were dismantled, and homeownership, the main signifier of middle class belonging, came under direct attack in the context of odious taxation and overindebtedness. This disruption is indicative of a broader shift away from both welfare capitalism and neoliberal governmentality, towards a new mode of governance through guilt and precarisation. I conclude that the current reaffirmation of reactionary values and the re-emergence of nationalism, racism and patriarchal values are not antithetical to the proliferation of individualism, competition and market mentalities, but a corollary to it.