From neoliberalism to authoritarianism in the perspective of socio-psychologial characterology

Today’s trend toward authoritarianism is not a rejection of neoliberalism, but rather a continuation of it through other means. This thesis can be supported by looking at the debate about changes in social character in social psychological characterology. Under neoliberalism, the authoritarian character (Fromm 1932) as a threat to democracy gave way to the marketing character (Fromm 1976). In the crisis of neoliberalism today, we are not observing a return to the authoritarian character, but rather the fusion of authoritarian and neoliberal character traits to form an affirmative character (Jäger 2020). The appearance of right-wing populist parties such as the AfD, which is both neoliberal and authoritarian, fits in with this.