This is all a consequence of an excess of power. If the old autonomist argument is correct and capital’s innovations were forced by workers’ acts of refusal – and what could illustrate this thesis more effectively than Murdoch’s struggle with the unions in the 1980s – then it’s now clear how sloppy and shoddy capital’s operatives became in the lack of any effective opposition. This is decadence – not merely in the moral sense, but also in the sense of decay and deterioration. During the early 21st century high pomp of neoliberalism, hacks, cops and politicans were so confident that they would never be exposed that they behaved in an ever more brazenly depraved manner, and appeared to take little care in covering their traces. What’s also emerging into clearer view now is the tabloid media’s crucial role in the biopolitical control which was central to the constitution of neoliberal hegemony. [...]