How neoliberal governance fragmentation and corporate lobbying amplify systemic risk: A cross-sectoral analysis of political polarization’s economic feedback loops
Original framing: “How political polarization creates business uncertainty” — Phys.org
The current polarization crisis has deep historical roots in the U.S. neoliberal turn of the 1970s-80s, when deregulation, tax cuts for corporations, and the weakening of labor unions created economic instability that later translated into political fragmentation. The 1980s saw the rise of corporate PACs (Political Action Committees) as a direct response to the Supreme Court’s *Buckley v. Valeo* ruling, which allowed unlimited corporate spending in politics. This period also marked the beginning of the financialization of the economy, where short-term profit motives replaced long-term planning, further exacerbating uncertainty. The historical precedent of the New Deal coalition’s collapse under corporate lobbying (e.g., the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act) shows how institutional design can either foster or undermine stability.