Escaping inequality requires political contestation, not moral or legal transcendence

Evidence

Rather than seeking to transcend politics by recourse to morality, markets or law, the inequalities of our time call for the reinvigoration of political contestation over ends. Only a political struggle against those institutions, governments and corporations that have promoted and benefited from the inequality and ‘economic powerlessness’ of the neoliberal age can open a horizon of freedom for all. A break with neoliberalism requires a break with the morals of the market. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 457

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers the reader’s framing question about whether human-rights discourse can be detached from market ethics — this is the book’s concluding thesis. — connects to: Real political participation requires eliminating economic inequality as a cause of unequal political access. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2342; Extreme wealth inequality makes common legislation impossible in a democracy — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 363; Respectability campaigns overlooked the structural inequalities they could not overcome — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 981
• APHORISMS: ‘A break with neoliberalism requires a break with the morals of the market’ reads as a culminating, quotable programmatic statement about how to live toward change.
• SHARE: Send to a colleague working on anti-neoliberal human rights theory — the closing line is the kind of framing that anchors an essay.