Meritocratic racelessness discourse accompanied the neoliberal retreat from the welfare state

Evidence

The increasing stress on individualized merit and ability in the name of racelessness was coterminous with structural shifts in state formation away from welfarism and the caretaker state following the mid-1970s. As globalization took on dramatically new form, its regimes of management and rule developed novel strategies. Eventually, these cohered under the rubric of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism accordingly took hold of political imaginaries as capitalism vigorously sought to expand its market reach, as the institutional structures underpinning capital and their fueling came under pressure, as technologies of travel, communication, and information flows became speedier and more sophisticated, further shrinking distances and compressing time. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1739

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the book’s earlier framing of racelessness from chapter one, and connects to general critiques of colorblind meritocracy. — connects to: Welfare states fall into crisis when capital valorization and citizen autonomy conflict — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 26; Ordoliberal economic ideas became socially embedded through a welfare-state compromise — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 366; Human rights discourse flourished alongside welfare-state retrenchment and anti-revolutionary politics — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 8 (+5 more)