Calling neoliberalism ‘market fundamentalism’ obscures its actual content
Evidence
It should be very important to have some familiarity with these ideas, if only to resist simple-minded characterizations of the neoliberal approach to the crisis as some evangelical “market fundamentalism.” … Although it is undeniably the case that all manner of secondhand purveyors of ideas on the right would wish to crow that “market freedom” promotes their own brand of religious righteousness, or maybe even the converse, it nonetheless debases comprehension to conflate the two by disparaging both as “fundamentalism”—a sneer unfortunately becoming commonplace on the left. It seems very neat and tidy to assert that neoliberals operate in a modus operandi on a par with religious fundamentalists: just slam The Road to Serfdom (or if you are really Low-to-No Church, Atlas Shrugged) on the table along with the King James Bible, and then profess to have unmediated personal access to the original true meaning of the only (two) book(s) you’ll ever need to read in your lifetime. Counterpoising morally confused evangelicals with the reality-based community may seem tempting to some; but it dulls serious thought. It may sometimes feel that a certain market-inflected personalized version of Salvation has become more prevalent in Western societies, but that turns out to be very far removed from the actual content of the neoliberal program. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 142
Categorization
- XREF: Challenges the standard left dismissal; resonates with critical-theory sources like Harvey’s critique of ‘market fundamentalism’ labels. — connects to: Neoliberalism is a mutable thought collective, not a fixed market-fundamentalist creed — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 141; Neoliberalism lacks a stable meaning or historically specific constituency — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 17; Neoliberalism makes competition rather than exchange the essence of the market — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 59 (+3 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: A genuine reframing: the left’s favorite sneer weaponizes religious semantics in a way that conceals rather than reveals how the neoliberal thought collective actually operates.
- corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 142
Broader Connections
- Neoliberalism is a mutable thought collective, not a fixed market-fundamentalist creed
#expands(0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 141 - Neoliberalism is a contested but usable analytical category rather than a fixed ideology
#corroborates(0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 15 - Disputes over the word neoliberalism signaled real disagreement over its content
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 294 - Neoliberalism lacks a stable meaning or historically specific constituency
#corroborates(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 17 - Neoliberalism makes competition rather than exchange the essence of the market
#expands(0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 59 - Neoliberalism aimed at class decomposition, not market freedom
#expands(0.75)