Neoliberal rhetoric evokes free markets while quietly relying on a strong state

Evidence

Neoliberalism was incubated in recognition of the problems of liberal naïveté. These ways of thinking more and less seriously about capitalism, society, and statehood, moreover, do not begin to cover the dimension of knowledge manipulation advanced by neoliberal agents and agencies, which has frequently evoked the images of the unregulated market to buttress the claim for the public policies “privatization,” “deregulation,” and “liberalization,” of course. Mirowski has addressed this issue as “double truth,” Plehwe calls it “hiding the state.” … Vice versa, those who refuse to observe, dissect, and discuss these seemingly fractious elements of neoliberal thought are easy prey of neoliberal bamboozlement. Our advice: Read some of the papers and proceedings of the global or regional MPS conferences and ask yourself: Did propaganda concerning rolling back the state ever suggest dismantling the army, the courts, and the police? Did it ever suggest that expanding the global sphere of capital accumulation requires no “rule of law?” — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 26

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Double truth’ (Mirowski) and ‘hiding the state’ (Plehwe) name the core shared tactic of the neoliberal project.
• XREF: Connects to The Road from Mont Pèlerin’s broader historiography and to my earlier notes on how neoliberalism needed state power despite anti-state rhetoric. — connects to: Neoliberalism seeks a strong state that thwarts democracy, not a weak one — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 155; Postneoliberalism means delegitimized market narrative, not abandoned policy — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 88; Neoliberalism’s purported state-skepticism actually mandates a strong state — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 238 (+20 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism centered on a strong state, not the classical night-watchman state #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2145
• Neoliberalism seeks to strengthen rather than shrink the state #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2128
• Neoliberal ‘spontaneous order’ rhetoric masked deliberately orchestrated institutional networks #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2114
• Neoliberal spontaneous-order rhetoric masks theorists’ Schmittian power to define state sovereignty #expands (0.92) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2196
• Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1907
• Neoliberalism activates the state for the economy rather than withdrawing it. #corroborates (0.90) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 106
• Neoliberal freedom can be a vehicle for governance and domination #expands (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 153
• Neoliberals rejected the pure state-versus-market binary as a false dichotomy #contradicts (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 9
• Neoliberalism advanced a political, not merely economic, case for the competitive market #expands (0.72) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 34