Neoliberal market discipline was adopted to pacify unruly democratic publics
Evidence
In the “crisis of democracy” zeitgeist, the neoliberal vision and its reversion to market metrics was deeply attractive to politicians and policy makers, both as the means to evade political ownership of tough economic choices and because it promised to impose a new kind of order where disorder was feared. The absolute authority of market forces would be enshrined as the ultimate source of imperative control, displacing democratic contest and deliberation with an ideology of atomized individuals sentenced to perpetual competition for scarce resources. The disciplines of competitive markets promised to quiet unruly individuals and even transform them back into subjects too preoccupied with survival to complain. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 122
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes the reader’s threads on noise and control: market discipline here functions as another form of silencing/occupying attention, parallel to acoustic and information overload. — connects to: Neoliberalism emerged partly as a critique of national sovereignty and democratic budgeting. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 399; Neoliberals preach market supremacy while exempting themselves from its rule — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 281; Major neoliberal theorists all held that markets convert conflict into harmony — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 35 (+18 more)
Broader Connections
- Neoliberal deregulation erodes democracy as politics abdicates to market pressure
#corroborates(0.90) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 81 - Ordoliberals wanted to reduce democratic participation to protect the market
#qualifies(0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 525 - Neoliberalism reframed democracy and unions as enemies of market truth.
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 123