Competition is a discovery process requiring minimal rules, not an endpoint or structure.
Evidence
Maintaining competition meant resisting the fallacy of the political neutrality of economic processes and of mechanistic visions of the economy as capable of being fine-tuned and tweaked for different outputs. Competition was not an object, a structure, or an endpoint. It could not be seen. “Uncertainty,” Hoppmann put it, “is the prerequisite of freedom.” “Because of the ‘openness of the historical process,’ ” all that was possible to facilitate the ongoing reorganization of human life effected by competition was to formulate minimally restrictive rules enshrined in binding law. Citing Hayek, he said that we were left with the choice between a “teleocratic” or purpose-governed order that stymied the promethean character of competition or a “nomocratic” or “law-governed” social order that encased competition with all its consequences. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 705
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the teleocratic/nomocratic distinction central to Hayekian constitutionalism.
- XREF: connects to: Neoliberal competition is a constructed formal game, not a natural state. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 110; Competition under capitalism is a functional necessity, not manufactured legitimation. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 611; Competition is a governmental objective requiring an indefinitely active policy, never naturally given — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 689
Broader Connections
- Neoliberal competition is a constructed formal game, not a natural state.
#expands(0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 110 - Competition is a governmental objective requiring an indefinitely active policy, never naturally given
#expands(0.85) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 689 - Competition under capitalism is a functional necessity, not manufactured legitimation.
#contradicts(0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 611