Classical political economy presumed political sovereignty over economic activity.

Evidence

If we return again to Timothy Mitchell’s point that in its origins, “political economy” referred to (economical) governing of the polity, rather than to the politics or powers of economic life, then the rise of political economy in the eighteenth century remains compatible with a presumed sovereignty of the political over the economic. It permits the sustained primacy of the political both in the state and in man, the state’s miniature—these twin sovereignties being modernity’s continuation of the ancient city-soul homology. In fact, Smith’s brief for laissez-faire is premised on the notion that the state may choose its relation to economic activity in the society emerging from the marketeering side of humans; it could lean in as a mercantilist or stand back as a proper capitalist state, but there is no question about what is sovereign. To put the point another way, as both man and state are becoming increasingly concerned with productivity, wages, and wealth, both are becoming economical in their governing, but this does not yet make them economic in identity and form. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 186

Categorization

• DEFINE: Traces how ‘political economy’ originally meant economical governing of the polity, a baseline that sharpens what’s distinct about neoliberalism where the economic governs the political.
• XREF: connects to: A long-sighted sovereign would see only chimeras in the economy — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1449; Political economy founded itself on the impossibility of an economic sovereign — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1456; Classical liberalism prioritized political freedom over economic liberty. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 391 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Market economies require deliberate political construction, not natural emergence #expands (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 364
• WWI’s state economic control revealed the economy’s inherent political nature #exemplifies (0.72)
• Political freedom is impossible without economic freedom #corroborates (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 407