Neoliberal property rights justify imposing investment-friendly governance worldwide

Evidence

The right to property, which Marx described as the foundation of the whole system, was, in his view, a right to self-interest. For earlier liberals, such as John Locke, property was justified as a means to ‘improvement’. God meant the earth to be cultivated, and so gave it to the ‘industrious and rational’. Consistent with this justification, Mises bemoaned that much of the world’s mineral wealth was located in areas ‘whose inhabitants are too ignorant, too inert, or too dull to take advantage of the riches nature has bestowed upon them’. As in the vision of earlier neoliberals, the right to private property ensured wealth was put in the hands of those most capable of utilising it. But they went further than this, stressing the institutional conditions in which such rights would be secure. If the governments of areas rich in resources prevented ‘aliens’ from exploiting this wealth, or their arbitrary conduct of public affairs threatened foreign investments, serious harm would result to all as a consequence. Preventing such harm required the ‘right to keep foreign investments safe and to move capital freely across borders’. A neoliberal right to property is the right to impose ‘good governance’ and the institutional structures that private investment requires across the globe. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 51

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies a distinctive neoliberal conception of property rights as extraterritorial investment protection rather than individual ownership.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in the ethics of markets and how property rhetoric drives policy — echoes Black Marxism’s account of property as enforceable right and the human-rights-as-investment framing. — connects to: Neoliberal property rights justify imposing governance structures for foreign investors. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 51; Neoliberals redeployed human rights to protect investors and property — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 428; Neoliberals framed human rights as a tool to enforce global standards protecting private capital (+7 more)
• SEED: Angle: ‘good governance’ language as the property clause of a global investment constitution — how development discourse smuggles in investor protections.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal property rights justify imposing governance structures for foreign investors. #corroborates (0.98) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 51
• Neoliberal freedom can be a vehicle for governance and domination #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 153
• Neoliberals redeployed human rights to protect investors and property #expands (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 428
• Neoliberals framed human rights as a tool to enforce global standards protecting private capital #expands (0.80)
• Neoliberalism subordinates the state to capital rather than freeing markets #expands (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1720
• Neoliberals weaponized human rights language to protect private property and market order #expands (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 76
• Property rights discourse was wielded as a human rights claim to justify neoliberal privatization #expands (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 7
• Neoliberals deployed human rights language to justify property rights and dismantling welfare #expands (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 7
• Neoliberals viewed foreign investment as inseparable from exporting capitalist social transformation #expands (0.70) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 298