The European Union (EU) is living its Weimar moment. The growing number of crises we face – environmental and climate crisis, skyrocketing inequality, care crisis, housing crisis, migration crisis, and the return of war in geopolitics – has only been matched by the growing number of electoral successes of the far and extreme right in various EU member states (MSs).Footnote ¹ Europe will not be able, however, to respond to these crises by rehearsing old neoliberal recipes: not only do they fail to offer credible solutions to the problems they have (often) themselves created, but their futility may further empower various extreme movements that embrace identitarian and anti-democratic platforms. At this turning point, we have to do better. That is what this book is about.

The gradual slide to tribalism and extremism that we are seeing today is a culmination of the era of the strange “non-death” of neoliberalism, post-2008 crisis.Footnote ² Instead of starting a shift towards a different model of political economy in the aftermath of the great financial crisis, the EU and its MSs have doubled down on privatisation and austerity, making those worst off ultimately pay for the irresponsibility of the financial markets.Footnote ³ The resulting crisis of trust is then as much a consequence of the deteriorating material reality of the many, as of the accompanying narratives of recovery and economic growth, that were presented as a reality on the basis of often casually composed metrics.Footnote ⁴

Today, following a short window of COVID-19 “public extravaganza” and energy crisis-induced largess towards both firms and residents, a new wave of austerity politics is on the table.Footnote ⁵ Not taxation or borrowing, but financial austerity is supposed to ‘pay’ for COVID-19 and energy crisis measures, through further cuts to public services and curtailing the capacity for public (green) investment.Footnote ⁶ The reasons for austerity seem to be purely ideological: at this point, even the most orthodox financial institutions suggest that, historically, lowering public spending at inopportune moments increases rather than decreases public debt.Footnote ⁷ The question that every European must ask is, however, can Europe afford another wave of austerity, mounted as I argue later on the already historic levels of poverty and inequality, and still hope to remain democratic?Footnote ⁸ If the response to this question is no, are there other alternatives to consider?

In this book, I argue that the only way to counter growing tribalism and a loss of trust in democratic institutions in Europe is to articulate and institute a new imaginary of prosperity.Footnote ⁹ Imaginaries of prosperity integrate societies around the promise of a prosperous future, placing the problems (and struggles) of political economy in the centre of the political. They stand and fall on delivering a mix of prosperity today and, perhaps even more importantly, the prospect of future prosperity.

Somewhat schematically, at this turning point of history, there are three different social imaginaries vying to (re)constitute neoliberal societies. The first imaginary continues to champion the privatised route to prosperity, as established in the latter decades of the twentieth century. While this imaginary takes on board some of the challenges we face today, such as the reality of climate crisis, it remains committed to preserving the primacy of private actors, (financial) markets, and market-driven technological innovation as the best vehicle to get us out of crises and into a prosperous future.

Ranged against this privatising, well-institutionalised but increasingly unstable imaginary of prosperity,Footnote ¹⁰ we find two contenders for change, each espousing a more collective route to a better future. On the one hand, we see the rise of what I will call tribal imaginaries:Footnote ¹¹ that is nativist and conservative imaginaries emerging in response to grievances experienced by some groups due to economic and cultural changes over the past forty years.Footnote ¹² This family of imaginaries combines nationalist, chauvinist, anti-immigrant, and sometimes racist discourses, making identity – rather than prosperity – the central axis of the political.Footnote ¹³ Above all, tribal imaginaries are contemptuous of democratic institutions, scientific knowledge, and the liberal rule of lawFootnote ¹⁴ and bent on limiting the scope of these relics of modernity.Footnote ¹⁵

On the other hand, we find a slowly emerging imaginary of shared prosperity in the EU and some of its MSs. In terms of its content, the nascent imaginary of prosperity shares some traits with the imaginary dominant in post-war Europe, building on the understanding that economy and markets are human-made, social institutions, and (increasingly) placing democratic and public bodies – rather than markets, businesses, or profit – in the driving seat of prosperity. The new imaginary of prosperity ought to articulate a novel understanding of prosperity that is both credible (in the face of the current challenges) and attractive (a world where people want to live). To successfully reconstitute society, it ought to institute not only a different mix of macroeconomic relations (a different role for tax, public spending, or welfare provision) but also a different set of microeconomic institutions,Footnote ¹⁶ including a new role for corporations in society, how and for whose benefit we govern technology, what role industry should play, or how to make consumption more sustainable in a long term. In fact, the very preservation of democratic institutions in Europe may depend on whether the EU, together with its MSs, in the short term succeeds in generating sufficient trust that they have the means to get all Europeans into a liveable, or even prosperous, future.

This book builds on three underlying arguments. The first argument is that after periods of prolonged privatisation, when imaginaries of privatised prosperity (such as neoliberalism or laissez-faire before) can no longer fulfil their socially integrative function – that is providing reasonably good outcomes today and a hope for a better future – the imaginary of prosperity must change. Such shifts require that democratic and collective institutions take greater control over the distributive outcomes of the economy, at least for the time being.Footnote ¹⁷ If society does not have the institutional channels to enable such transformation, we will see a loss of trust in its governing institutions and eventually authoritarian alternatives to democratic institutions being sought.

The second core argument is that the imaginaries of prosperity – be they privatised or shared – are co-constitutive with democracy. To start with the latter, democracy needs imaginaries of prosperity insofar as they create the right kind of social glue to hold pluralist democratic societies together. Making prosperity the anchor of the Political provides for an inclusive shared purpose, direction, and even vigour to democratic politics and collective action. But imaginaries of prosperity also need democratic institutions to maintain their (for lack of a better term) ‘output legitimacy’ and, ultimately, stability. Democratic institutions and processes, aided by scientific knowledge, are the most effective vehicles to uncover prosperity’s constitutive outsides: that is problems, issues, grievances, and constituencies that have been left out of the definition of what prosperity means or how to get there. It is critical, however, that when these outsides are discovered, they are also genuinely incorporated via democratic process – otherwise, the imaginary of prosperity will cease to fulfil its integrative function and faith in democratic institutions will diminish.

Third, if we do not see a democratic transition to a new imaginary of prosperity, we may expect a gradual dissolution of democratic societies due to the rise of tribal imaginaries, which aim at a very different mode of social integration. Such imaginaries rely on specific identity markers as social glue, making identity – rather than prosperity – the anchor of the Political.Footnote ¹⁸ Pluralism, democratic institutions, checks and balances, scientific knowledge, and critical media will be often seen as obstacles to such a form of social integration, because they disrupt what should hold society together, such as long-held values, traditions, family, common sense, or the authority of a leader. Tribal imaginaries also do not need democratic process (broadly understood) as a means to improve their ‘output legitimacy’, as the ‘failure to deliver real benefits to one’s community is forgivable so long as the other side is faring worse’.Footnote ¹⁹ What is more, I fear, war as a tool of diversion and/or a growth strategy is a far more acceptable option in this type of imaginaries.

1.1 On Prosperity

But is prosperity really what we need to hold onto going forward? This may seem like a dubious suggestion given that our current conception of prosperity implies very unsustainable forms of material consumption. I want to argue, however, that this is a historically specific and very narrow understanding of what prosperity has stood for, and still stands for, today. If anything, neoliberal imaginaries may have helped us forget that prosperity is more than (over)consumption.Footnote ²⁰

Prosperity, as ‘the good that we hope for’ (from the Latin pro/sperare),Footnote ²¹ has always been about more than just material affluence. While a certain degree of comfort and material affluence is important for a good quality of life, it is only a part of the story. Next to material goods, prosperity requires a plethora of social goods (such as healthy relations, social standing and recognition, having meaning and purpose, caring for others, and being cared for) as well as institutional goods (including personal security, a degree of autonomy and voice in collective matters, health and education, rewarding work and sufficient leisure, non-corrupt institutions, etc.). Fundamentally, more than any current level of such goods, prosperity is about collective trust that people have a prosperous future ahead, as society has both institutions and means to get there.

When ‘millennials’ complain today about the fact that they are ‘worse off than their parents’,Footnote ²² they don’t ask for luxuries, but for the basic conditions for a meaningful social life being met, today and in the future. They demand a certain material basis for life (work, housing, healthcare, and transport), a certain social basis for life (conditions to start a family, healthy relations, and acceptance in a community), and an institutional basis (competent and trustworthy public institutions and services).Footnote ²³ What seems less decisive for their discontent today is whether they are actually materially worse off than their parents were at the same ageFootnote ²⁴ and more that they seem to have lost faith that society has the means to secure a safe and prosperous future.Footnote ²⁵

While the meaning – the expectations – as to what prosperity comprises may not have changed dramatically between different generations,Footnote ²⁶ we have seen dramatic changes in how prosperity was to be realised over time. The most fundamental shift was in the understanding of how political economy works and which actors (public or private) were best placed to deliver prosperity. For instance, the post-war imaginary of prosperity can be tagged as ‘public Keynesianism’, with the state responsible for ensuring prosperity by safeguarding safe middle-class jobs and collectively delivering public services and social security. In contrast, the ‘privatised Keynesianism’ of the neoliberal eraFootnote ²⁷ aimed to deliver prosperity by reliance on private actors, markets, competition, and credit, which were meant to introduce dynamism in both the public and private sectors, while delivering an abundance of cheap consumer goods and services.

These modes of pursuing prosperity are not without consequence. The privatising push of the neoliberal era has seen many material and immaterial goods on which prosperity depends (from housing to care and transport) commodified, privatised, and financialised. The ethics of competition and market, while perhaps introducing more dynamism at first, has over time exhausted many of the social, institutional, and infrastructural resources, making the security of well-being in the future (care, trust, community, and safety) seem available only to those who have the resources to buy it.Footnote ²⁸ Even if some of the social and economic strains produced by these trends were relieved by reducing the cost of consumer goods, this was only a temporary fix – which in turn heightened both social and environmental extraction across the world, accelerating the environmental crisis.Footnote ²⁹

The evaporating promise of privatised prosperity has brought us to a crossroads, with two collective imaginaries competing: the ultimate question is whether we will manage to stay “in the corridor”Footnote ³⁰ with some version of shared prosperity or whether we will slide towards tribalism, as the other collective imaginary holds – with the destination unknown. What will be decisive, I argue, is the role that the EU will play in the upcoming years and decades.

1.2 On the Role of the EU

The slide towards tribalism is in full course in Europe. In several European countries, far or extreme right parties are at present in power or in government. Where they are not, their electoral chances are considerable in any upcoming elections. They are also expected to become a significant force in the European Parliament in 2024,Footnote ³¹ all the while the EU is preparing for another round of austerity.Footnote ³² This constellation will remind many of the 1930s of the previous century.

But there is something different this time around. We have the EU. While certainly flawed, in terms of its democratic credentials,Footnote ³³ constitutional asymmetry,Footnote ³⁴ or overenthusiasm for the ‘integration through law’,Footnote ³⁵ a perfect polity is not a serious expectation anyway.Footnote ³⁶ The EU is, I would argue, well positioned to develop a new imaginary of prosperity for several reasons: it is a deeply diverse and pluralist polity, with a layer of democratic and expert institutions that require a considerable degree of deliberation, negotiation, and consensus to act. The EU is also an entity constitutionally committed to having questions of prosperity at the centre of the Political.Footnote ³⁷ At the same time, the EU is not able to muster a credible tribal imaginary that could become the anchor of its internal politics.Footnote ³⁸

Importantly, embracing shared prosperity may also be the EU’s only alternative. If the EU continues the (modified) neoliberal path, it will only further exacerbate already existing problems, while strengthening the far and extreme right. And the far and extreme right has no real use for the EU. The second path could be to wait it out and let tribalism play out at the national level. But judging on historical experience, this is a risky path – not to mention that the EU was established in order to prevent the horrors that preceded its founding. Finally, the EU can still attempt to make serious strides to articulate and institute an imaginary of shared prosperity, which can offer responses to the many excesses of neoliberalism, start a new phase in integration, and ultimately set grounds for the protection and deepening of democratic institutions in Europe.

But the likelihood of success will depend on the political courage among EU institutions and politicians, as well as the representatives of the EU MSs in the Council.Footnote ³⁹ First, they will have to keep their “eyes on the ball”, focusing on articulating and instituting the best route to prosperity, rather than letting identity themes become central. Second, the EU institutions will have to genuinely stand up for those pulling the short straw in the current economic constellation, be they peripheral EU MSs or less privileged groups in society. Third, the EU institutions will have to take the rule of law issues more seriously: the continuous degradation of democratic institutions and the rule of law in several MSs would make the EU increasingly unable to act.Footnote ⁴⁰ This issue should not be a question of political partisanship; all parties of the broad centre must see this as their political priority.

1.3 Conceptual Framework

Let me add a couple of words on my conceptual framework. This book relies on the concept of ‘social imaginaries’. In one famous definition, social imaginaries denote ‘the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations’.Footnote ⁵⁵ Social imaginaries are central to social integration, resting on cultural and institutional frameworks that enable understanding, cooperation, and collective action.Footnote ⁵⁶ They integrate at the level of ‘imaginary’ (including stories, myths, ideas, theories, and utopias) and at the level of ‘institution’ (for instance, via laws, governmental bodies, institutional processes, or social practices – such as economic practices, family, or travelling).Footnote ⁵⁷

Over the past 150 years (at least), I argue that it was the social imaginaries of prosperity that have most often performed this socially integrative function, at least in the countries of the Global North. Imaginaries of prosperity have integrated around the promise of a prosperous future, placing the problems (and struggles) of political economy in the centre of the political. Importantly, the demand for prosperity has over time made democracy and its institutions (such as pluralism, critical media, scientific knowledge, and ‘inclusive public sphere’) functionally important for the social order instituted around prosperity. Democratic institutions (broadly understood) created various channels through which prosperity’s constitutive outsides could reshape the meaning and the route to prosperity.Footnote ⁵⁸ Democracy in this sense becomes not only “nice to have” but (and increasingly so over time) also fundamental for continuous integration around imaginaries of prosperity.Footnote ⁵⁹

Importantly, every historical incarnation of the imaginaries of prosperity will only be able to provide a temporary foundation for social integration in modern societies.Footnote ⁶⁰ We have thus seen the oscillation between two (ideal) types of imaginaries of prosperity over the past 150 years – I will call them privatised and shared – returning in different incarnations in different historical periods. The two basic imaginaries of prosperity embrace the opposite understanding of the relationship between the economic and the political, or the state and the market. In imaginaries of shared prosperity, economy and markets are understood as (human-made) social institutions that need to be shaped politically – if prosperity is to be delivered to all. In contrast, in imaginaries of privatised prosperity, economy and markets are seen as self-regulating, nature-like systems and processes that in principle function optimally and need little steering to deliver prosperity to all.Footnote ⁶¹ The route to prosperity then, in either of these imaginaries, requires empowering different sets of actors (be it private actors and capital on the one hand or democratic institutions on the other) to drive us to prosperity. Such choices have important implications on a procedural level (what role is assigned to democratic institutions and law) and on a material level (the relation to economic outcomes and particular groups and actors (e.g. workers, financial capital, and trade unions)).

An instituted imaginary of prosperity has thus its “life cycle” so to say, which operates at the level of the imaginary and the level of the instituted.Footnote ⁶² At the height of its life cycle, an instituted imaginary of prosperity has a quasi-hegemony, mustering large social consensus around its route to prosperity, while engendering optimism and hope in a better future among broad swaths of society.Footnote ⁶³ At this point, its institution in various laws, bodies, and practices have already progressed enough to give people a sense that their social institutions know how, and are able to, deliver prosperity. If it so wishes, in these periods the government will be able to undertake massive transformations with significant social support.

Every such hegemony has, however, a limited lifespan. At a certain point, the aspects of reality that were left unattended by any particular imaginary of prosperity will rear their head. At such a point in time, the established imaginary of prosperity will slowly run out of steam if from within its understanding of political economy, no effective solutions to the emergent problems can be found, gradually eroding the trust in its route to prosperity.Footnote ⁶⁴ Increasingly thus, the imaginary of prosperity will not be able to fulfil its socially integrative function. In these crucial moments, democratic institutions have to do their work, reinventing and gradually instituting a new, credible, imaginary of prosperity.Footnote ⁶⁵ If this does not happen, for the reasons of capture, for instance,Footnote ⁶⁶ prosperity will cease to be able to ensure social integration, and societies will increasingly experience signs of societal disintegration: as we see perhaps most glaringly in the US,Footnote ⁶⁷ but increasingly also in Europe and the rest of the world.Footnote ⁶⁸ Eventually, we may see reintegration around some sort of tribal identity shared by the majority – with grim consequences for minorities, pluralism, inclusion, ‘human rights’, critical media, knowledge governance, and ultimately democratic institutions.

1.4 Structure and Choices

When writing a book such as this one, one has to make many choices, and even more concessions. In what follows, I will first outline the set-up of the book and then articulate some of the parameters and limits of the account presented. Chapter 2 presents the conceptual framework of the book. I start by discussing the main concept on which I rely, namely ‘social imaginaries’, trying to unpack when social imaginaries are vulnerable to change (Section 2.2). I turn then to discuss the imaginaries of prosperity, setting out the limits of the contemporary reading of prosperity, the dialectics between privatised and shared prosperity, and tribalism as the prosperity’s Other (Section 2.3). The chapter concludes by discussing the kind of constitutive outsides that have reared their head as crises at the present moment and which will need to be integrated into the new imaginary of prosperity if it is to provide a credible prospect of a liveable future (Section 2.4).

After setting the scene, the book turns to study how the imaginaries of prosperity have been changing in the EU, as well as the contours that any new imaginary may be taking. In Chapter 3, I explore the transformations of EU imaginaries of consumption. I study systematically the changes in EU consumer policy, that is how the background understandings of the role of economy, law, government, and politics have changed from 1975 to the present day. The chapter allows us to observe a deep epistemic and ontological shift, from a more institutionalist understanding of consumption that typified the welfare state imaginaries of prosperity to a more individualised, depoliticised, and naturalisedFootnote ⁶⁹ understanding that is typical of imaginaries of privatised prosperity. Theoretically, the chapter also allows us to appreciate what it takes to institutionalise a new imaginary of prosperity. It requires years for the new imaginary to reshape the background understandings of all the aspects of social order. But once such understandings become sufficiently dominant and settled, one can observe a qualitative shift in the narrative, which becomes both elegant and confident – as it needs to no longer pay lip service to normative concerns that were important under the previous paradigm.

Chapters 4–6 take up other important microeconomic foundations, that is technology (ecodesign), industry, and corporation. The chapters mostly focus on the transformations in the EU’s laws and policies after the 2008 great financial crisis. We can observe that until long into the 2010s, the EU remained vested in the neoliberal imaginary of prosperity, but with ever less conviction and compass as the time passed by. This would change after the 2019 EGD and the COVID-19 crisis. The changes seem to have been driven mostly by the growing realisation that our consumption and production patterns are (foremost environmentally) unsustainable. Thus, the EU increasingly aims to steer production towards the principles of circularity, through clear public guidance on how products should be designed (Chapter 4). Equally, safe technological and climate futures cannot be delivered by market alone; therefore governmental and legal intervention and support are necessary to get industry into the twenty-first century (Chapter 5). Finally, the realisation that corporations are systematically pushed towards short-termism rather than a long-term perspective demanded intervention – not only in the interest of the public but also in corporations’ own interest (Chapter 6). The conclusion looks back on the main findings and tries to both summarise the background shifts in understandings and values and distil some basic building blocks of the new imaginary of prosperity in the EU. The conclusion also presents the road ahead – outlining what it would mean for the EU institutions to take their historical responsibility at this point seriously.

Now to parameters and limits. While this book aims to discern certain patterns of change, it cannot predict the future. After doing the empirical research, I hold no doubt that the shifts and policy changes that we have seen over the past couple of years indeed start from a different synthesis of political economy, a different imaginary of prosperity. But one cannot conclude on this basis a) how broadly this new imaginary is shared and whether it can last in the face of the growing influence of the extreme right, b) how far the changes already instituted will enable a different type of private action, and finally c) whether the EU will take additional steps, even if just by addressing the low-hanging fruit I outline, that would help to render more viable the new imaginary of prosperity.

Second, this is a book written by a lawyer. This will usually mean that law and policy will serve as a very important heuristic tool. But this is also a book about law, I want to suggest, even if not on its face. Law – in the sense of the ‘democratic rule of law’ – is a central element of ‘modern social imaginary’.Footnote ⁷⁰ The three competing imaginaries that I discuss throughout the book have very different relations to law. Imaginaries of prosperity – privatised and shared – build on the modern conception of the democratic rule of law, but at the same time they give rise to very different legalities that are co-constitutive of different routes to prosperity. Tribal imaginaries, in contrast, do not share the same commitment to the democratic rule of law, which is often seen as an unnecessary impediment to the rule of (whatever sized) majority. Overall, law is seen in this book as central both at the level of the imaginary, allowing us to interpret the dominant social imaginaries, and at the level of the institution, being one of the most important tools that shapes how we (can) go about our lives.

In terms of the selection of empirical chapters, many more micro- or meso economic foundations could have been added. Just consider the centrality of finance, work, or trade and investment for the issues I discuss in this book. I have attempted to integrate some of the important considerations related to these fields in the chapters on industry (Chapter 5) and corporation (Chapter 6), but clearly a separate reflection on the changing imaginaries of prosperity in these fields would have added granularity to our understanding of the contours of the emergent imaginary of prosperity. Equally, choosing to focus on micro- and meso (in the case of industry) economic foundations of the economy, instead of on the macro level of political economy, is a limit, as the more ‘political’ or ‘inter-governmental’ aspects of the EU (such as the recently renewed regressive fiscal pactFootnote ⁷¹) could undo many of the gains that have been made thus far. Finally, the discussion of tribal imaginaries is based mostly on secondary literature (theoretical and empirical), as the EUs focus in the selected fields does not easily allow for the study of tribal imaginaries empirically. Such limits of scope are, I would hope, excusable as inherent in any intellectual attempt that tries to make a theoretical and empirical contribution at the same time.

There are also other possible concerns with the choices I have made. For instance, I study in this book various policy fields. But clearly one could dispute whether certain policy fields themselves should be part of the new imaginary of prosperity. Just consider consumer law and policy – isn’t the rights-based consumer law exactly the problem? And yet, as this book is trying to map the “actually existing” ways of doing things, and how they change, it cannot start from any ideal normative conclusions. As societies, we have to move from a rights-based consumer law and policy, for instance, to a different way of thinking about consumption – and this is, I am glad to report, exactly what we are starting to observe in the context of EU consumer policy.

Also, lawyers may object that law and legal institutions do not receive sufficient credit at times. For instance, if in Chapter 3 on consumption I already acknowledge that the Court of Justice of the EU has never fully bought into the Commission’s attempts to neoliberalise EU consumer law, why give such prominence to policy rather than law and to the Commission instead of the Court? For two reasons, at least. First, given the Commission’s lack of formal legislative power beyond agenda-setting powers, the Commission must tread carefully in order to convince the European legislator (Council of Ministers and the European Parliament), and numerous other stakeholders, of both what plays in society and what should be done about it. This means that when developing its policy ideas, the Commission is always trying to sway the greatest number of ‘stakeholders’, articulating therefore carefully what it sees as shared. Second, by focusing in one chapter on a single type of document, produced by the same actor, for the same purpose, over a long period of time, I could also study more systematically the core changes in the conceptions of economy, law, politics, government, subjects, or society in the EU, thus being able to identify trends and important turning points in the institution of neoliberal imaginary of prosperity. The focus on the Court would not allow for such an approach, as it comes into play much later and with regard to a limited number of issues, all the while being subject to selection bias problems of its own.Footnote ⁷²

Finally, as most books that aim to make a more general argument, this book may leave the reader with more questions than answers. My sincere hope is, that those will be the right questions.