Neoliberal spontaneous-order rhetoric masks theorists’ Schmittian power to define state sovereignty

Evidence

Hayek’s frequent appeals to a “spontaneous order” often masked the fact that it was neoliberal theorists who were claiming the power to exercise the Schmittian “exception” (and hence constitute the sovereignty of the state) by defining things such as property rights, the extent of the franchise, constitutional provisions that limit citizen initiatives. As Scheuerman (1999, 216) writes about the comparison to Hayek, “For Carl Schmitt, the real question is who intervenes, and whose interests are to be served by intervention.” — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2196

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense inversion: the very thinkers invoking decentralized order are secretly exercising the sovereign exception in the Schmittian sense. Resists one-line summary.
• XREF: Schmitt’s friend/enemy sovereignty and the state-of-exception concept tie into the reader’s knowledge of political theory; also echoes the trade-law merchant work on private power constituting order. — connects to: Neoliberal limited government rhetoric coexists with a strong police and military state. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 166; Neoliberal rhetoric evokes free markets while quietly relying on a strong state — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 26; The rhetoric of shared sacrifice operates ideologically without requiring belief — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 726 (+5 more)
• SEED: Article angle: ‘spontaneous order’ as a rhetorical mask concealing the defining power of market-constitution designers.

Broader Connections

• Racial absolutism enacts Schmittian sovereignty while liberal constraint represents a rival bounded sovereignty #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1627