Neoliberal globalism meant insulating markets from democracy, not abolishing states
Evidence
Geneva School neoliberals offered a blueprint for globalism based on institutions of multitiered governance that are insulated from democratic decision making and charged with maintaining the balance between the political world of imperium and the economic world of dominium. Dominium is not a space of laissez-faire or noninterventionism but is instead an object of constant maintenance, litigation, design, and care. … Geneva School neoliberals prescribed neither an obliteration of politics by economics nor the dissolution of states into a global marketplace but a carefully structured and regulated settlement between the two. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 56
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the core mechanism — multitiered, democracy-insulated governance maintaining economic dominium — and rejects laissez-faire readings.
- DEEPTHINKING: The imperium/dominium and ‘double government’ framing — markets as an object of constant care and litigation rather than absence of interference — reverses the standard interpretation and warrants sitting with.
- XREF: connects to: Neoliberalism’s core project was protecting world markets from democratization — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 34; Neoliberalism is best understood as statecraft building market enforcers, not market-making — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 54; The neoliberal state governs for the market, not because of it. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 111 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Neoliberalism is best understood as statecraft building market enforcers, not market-making
#expands(0.85) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 54 - The neoliberal state governs for the market, not because of it.
#expands(0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 111 - Neoliberals redefine freedom as something to be limited and detached from democracy
#expands(0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 119 - Neoliberal ‘freedom’ is internally redefined to mean market autonomy, not political liberty
#expands(0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 166