Neoliberal persuasion works by convincing people they cannot be manipulated

Evidence

Neoliberals, as one might expect, have come to concoct a much more plausible justification of the phenomenon. They have carefully read and absorbed their leftist critics, from Thorstein Veblen to Naomi Klein, and far from rejecting them outright, they openly use their ideas to render the process of persuasion both more unconscious and more effective. Neoliberals have pioneered the signal innovation of importing the double-truth character of their project into the everyday lives of the common man. The modern hidden persuaders have gladly nurtured the conviction of the average person that he is more clever than those who seek to manipulate him in order to render him all the more open to that manipulation; the set of techniques predicated on this inversion has been dubbed “murketing.” — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 392

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘murketing’ as marketing built on flattering the consumer’s self-image of savvy resistance.
• XREF: The double-truth/commitment-technique principle from Mirowski’s account of the neoliberal thought collective runs through this entire volume. — connects to: Neoliberalism works best when subjects willingly internalize market logic through everyday micro-interactions; Absolutist free-market rhetoric can backfire and persuade readers toward intervention — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 91; Neoliberalism holds individual inviolability alongside managed manipulation of persons — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 187 (+4 more)
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article’s interest in indirect manipulation; more directly, murketing echoes how persuasion inverts apparent critique.
• SEED: Angle: the modern self-help/media industry that sells ‘critical thinking’ as itself a form of captured persuasion — consumers flattered into receptivity.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism holds individual inviolability alongside managed manipulation of persons #expands (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 187
• Neoliberalism redefines coercion so that no market exchange can ever count as coercive #complicates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 167
• People change their own minds; persuasion attempts play a small role #corroborates (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 215