Early neoliberals championed human rights as instruments for market order, not as social protection

Evidence

Faced with the rise of collectivist mass politics, mid-twentieth-century neoliberalism was a defensive liberalism. Breaking with the optimism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the early neoliberals believed the survival of the competitive market required the re-establishment of its moral foundations. It was through this lens that they viewed human rights. Redefined to exclude social protections, human rights, they believed, could protect the market order by securing property and private investment and fostering the morals of the market. … Human rights, from this perspective, were not a product of international consensus. They were a product of ‘Western civilisation’, and their role was to support the extension of capitalist social relations by fostering the legal security, morals and forms of subjectivity conducive to an international market order. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 76

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s austerity/neoliberalism corpus: this is the revisionist claim that neoliberalism appropriated human-rights language rather than opposing it — echoes the thesis in Moyn’s Not Enough about human rights and economic inequality. — connects to: Neoliberals reframed human rights as instruments of market submission — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 120; Postwar human rights and neoliberal orders began from deep disagreement over welfare and planning. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 12; TV rights NGOs were powerless companions of 1970s-era neoliberalism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 43 (+8 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘morals of the market’ framing central to ordoliberal/neoliberal self-understanding.
• SEED: Angle: the counterintuitive genealogy of human rights as a neoliberal project — redefined away from social protections toward property and investment security.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal human rights primarily preserve the market order rather than protect individuals #corroborates (1.00) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 45
• Neoliberals crafted their own human rights account supporting market order. #corroborates (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 38
• Neoliberal thinkers reframed human rights as protections for market freedoms. #corroborates (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 56
• Neoliberals weaponized human rights language to protect private property and market order #expands (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 76
• Neoliberals judged human-rights claims by their conduciveness to markets #expands (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 27
• Neoliberals framed human rights as a tool to enforce global standards protecting private capital #expands (0.80)
• Neoliberals actively shaped the postwar human rights discourse that later legitimized markets #expands (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 40