Neoliberal governance fuses state and capital aims, swapping their traditional roles

Evidence

Also visible in this story is the specific meshing of state and business aims through neoliberal governance, a meshing that exceeds the interlocking directorates or quid pro quo arrangements familiar from past iterations of capitalism. The project of the state is to facilitate economic growth and a strong investment climate, not the well-being of a particular sector or people, and the project of capital is to generate such growth, though it also absorbs into itself the broader purposes and ethics previously provisioned elsewhere. And so a series of historical transpositions unfolds in neoliberal governance: business devotes itself to local development as government devotes itself to global positioning; governments negotiate contracts as firms become educators; government concerns itself with the investment climate, business concerns itself with ethics; government prioritizes economic growth, credit ratings, and global economic positioning while business represents the interests of the needy or underserved. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 294

Categorization

• XREF: The transposition thesis — business becomes the state’s welfare agency while government pursues growth — connects to critiques of corporate social responsibility and philanthrocapitalism, and to Foucault’s governmentality. — connects to: Neoliberalism means capital seizes biopolitical governance from the state — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 263; Neoliberalism seeks to transform and take over the state, not shrink it — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 117; Neoliberal property rights justify imposing governance structures for foreign investors. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 51 (+6 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The chiasmus structure (state does business, business does state) is a paradigm-shifting way to see contemporary governance.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal freedom can be a vehicle for governance and domination #corroborates (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 153
• Neoliberalism seeks to strengthen rather than shrink the state #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2128
• Neoliberalism centered on a strong state, not the classical night-watchman state #corroborates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2145
• Development debates forced neoliberals to confront state character, trade, and socialism together #responds-to (0.70) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1273