Neoliberalism promised us prosperity, security and freedom through markets. Increasingly, it is delivering insecurity instead. So what does it have left to offer? Fear. And that is it.

We are told to fear government debt. We are told to fear the bond markets. We are told governments must maintain “fiscal credibility”, even when doing so means higher taxes, weaker public services, lower living standards and fewer jobs.

Martin Wolf’s recent arguments in the Financial Times provide an example of this thinking. But the issue is much bigger than one commentator. It is about an economic ideology that treats satisfying financial markets as more important than meeting human need.

The argument rests in part on the household analogy: the claim that governments must finance themselves in much the same way as households do. But a currency-issuing government is not a household. That misunderstanding produces profoundly damaging economic policies.

In this video, I argue that neoliberalism increasingly relies upon fear because its promise of prosperity is failing. When insecurity is already widespread, however, threatening people with more insecurity eventually stops working.

We need another objective for politics: freedom from fear.

That means economic security, decent housing, worthwhile work, healthcare, security in old age and protection from climate change.

Can we build an economics that puts those things before appeasing financial markets? That is the question.