Economized liberty recasts political power as the enemy of freedom

Evidence

As the province and meaning of liberty and equality are recalibrated from political to economic, political power comes to be figured as their enemy, an interference with both. This open hostility to the political in turn curtails the promise of the modern liberal democratic state to secure inclusion, equality, and freedom as dimensions of popular sovereignty. Again, as each term is relocated to the economy and recast in an economic idiom, inclusion inverts into competition, equality into inequality, freedom into deregulated marketplaces, and popular sovereignty is nowhere to be found. There, compressed to a formula, is the means by which neoliberal rationality hollows out both liberal democratic reason and a democratic imaginary that would exceed it. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 71

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Neoliberalism redefined liberty as economic rather than political. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 380; Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2130; Market ideology functions to repress freedom rather than secure it — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 600 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal ‘freedom’ is internally redefined to mean market autonomy, not political liberty #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 166
• Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2130
• Capitalism structurally requires negative liberty and rejects positive liberty #corroborates (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 299
• Market ideology functions to repress freedom rather than secure it #complicates (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 600
• Power grows with freedom and alternatives on both sides #complicates (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 598