2. Neoliberalism and Crisis of the Republican Pact

Neoliberal thinking has a problematic relationship with the classical liberal tradition that essentially aims at the empowerment of institutions and individuals in their ability to make decisions that are guided by their own personal interests. In proposing the autonomization of economic and financial activities in relation to social issues, and in relation to the regulatory role of national states, neoliberalism destroys the foundations of classical liberalism. This practice compromises the project of emancipation of modern societies that was the objective of the liberal theses. The fragility of the peripheral states is accentuated by the weaknesses of the national and popular pacts on the one hand, and by the anti-democratic practices of the oligarchic elites, on the other. In this perspective, neoliberalism departs from classical liberal doctrine revealing its strategic importance as the ideological basis of the new transnational oligarchies. The new oligarchic ambitions are utilitarian, anti-republican and anti-democratic, distancing themselves from the liberal ideas inspiring national republican pacts and approaching totalitarian ideas.