Neoliberal freedom amounts to submission to market sovereignty enforced by price fluctuations

Evidence

Neoliberals extol freedom as trumping all other virtues; but the definition of freedom is recoded and heavily edited within their framework. Some members of the neoliberal thought collective (e.g., Friedman) refuse to define it altogether, while others (Hayek) forge links to thesis 2. by motivating it as an epistemic virtue (Hayek 1960, 81). In practice, Freedom is not the realization of any political, human, or cultural telos, but rather is the positing of autonomous self-governed individuals, all coming naturally equipped with a neoclassical version of rationality and motives of ineffable self-interest, striving to improve their lot in life by engaging in market exchange. Education is consequently a consumer good, not a life-transforming experience. Foucault is often strongest on the role of these “technologies of the self,” which involve an elaborate revision in cultural concepts of human freedom and morality. This argument broke out within the MPS in the 1970s, with Irving Kristol accusing Friedman and Hayek of depending on a version of self-realization as the great empty void at the center of their economic doctrines. Freedom can only be “negative” for neoliberals (in the sense of Isaiah Berlin) for one very important reason. Freedom cannot be extended from the use of knowledge in society to the use of knowledge about society, because self-examination concerning why one passively accepts local and incomplete knowledge leads to contemplation of how market signals create some forms of knowledge and squelch others. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2130 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The market is thus Leviathan in sheep’s clothing: its function is not to encourage and perpetuate freedom (let alone freedom of a political variety) but rather to repress it; and about such visions, indeed, one may revive the slogans of the existential years — the fear of freedom, the Right from freedom. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 600 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Within neoliberalism, one’s theory of markets determines one’s definition of freedom — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 167; Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2130; Neoliberal freedom is confined to market-compatible choices within a predetermined margin (+14 more)

Related

• Within neoliberalism, one’s theory of markets determines one’s definition of freedom (similarity 0.91)
• Neoliberal ‘freedom’ is internally redefined to mean market autonomy, not political liberty (similarity 0.91)
• Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy (similarity 0.90)
• Neoliberal market freedom required state violence to enforce submission to the market (similarity 0.87)
• Neoliberals restrict freedom to negative freedom to shield market epistemology from scrutiny (similarity 0.87)
• Neoliberals conditioned self-government on accepting market discipline (similarity 0.86)
• Neoliberal freedom is confined to market-compatible choices within a predetermined margin (similarity 0.86)
• Neoliberalism redefines coercion so that no market exchange can ever count as coercive (similarity 0.85)
• Neoliberal ‘economic rights’ protect capital’s market freedom, not welfare entitlements. (similarity 0.84)
• Friedman valued market freedom over political democracy and saw the market as eliminating coercion. (similarity 0.84)
• Neoliberalism framed itself as a defence of individual freedom against all collectivist systems. (similarity 0.84)
• Neoliberalism redefined liberty as economic rather than political. (similarity 0.84)
• Neoliberals redefine freedom as something to be limited and detached from democracy (similarity 0.84)
• Neoliberals depicted markets as peaceful information processors and politics as violent friend-enemy coercion. (similarity 0.84)
• Economized liberty recasts political power as the enemy of freedom (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• 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
• Neoliberal freedom is confined to market-compatible choices within a predetermined margin #expands (0.82)
• Market ideology functions to repress freedom rather than secure it #corroborates (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 600
• Neoliberals conditioned self-government on accepting market discipline #expands (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 297
• Neoliberal market freedom required state violence to enforce submission to the market #expands (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 328
• Neoliberal order theorists saw authoritarian state coercion as protecting the market’s spontaneous order #expands (0.74) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 364
• Price stability is a precondition for market sovereignty to replace human direction #expands (0.72) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 336
• Dictatorship solved the neoliberal problem of replacing popular sovereignty with market sovereignty #contradicts (0.72) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 330
• Neoliberal rhetoric evokes free markets while quietly relying on a strong state #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 26