Neoliberalism’s distinctiveness was not homo economicus but a demand for moral foundations for markets.

Evidence

From the perspective of this book, these accounts of the amoral economism of neoliberalism miss the distinctive morality that was central to its rise. What distinguished the neoliberals of the twentieth century from their nineteenth-century precursors, I argue, was not a narrow understanding of the human as homo economicus, but the belief that a functioning competitive market required an adequate moral and legal foundation. As Foucault recognised of the German ordoliberals, neoliberal thinkers aimed to establish (or revive) a set of moral values that would secure social integration in a context of market competition. The founding statement of the Mont Pèlerin Society makes this clear: diagnosing a civilisational crisis characterised by the disappearance of the conditions for ‘human dignity’ and threats to freedom of thought and expression, it states that these developments ‘have been fostered by the growth of a view of history which denies all absolute moral standards’. Rather than an external supplement, or a pragmatic partner, social conservatism, including explicit appeals to family values, Christianity and ‘Western civilisation’, was foundational to the consolidation of organised neoliberalism in the mid twentieth century. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 19

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to Foucault’s Birth of Biopolitics on the ordoliberals; also connects to the reader’s interest in the ethics of markets debate. — connects to: Early neoliberals justified the market primarily through political and moral virtues, not efficiency; Neoliberals framed the spread of markets as dependent on moral and religious foundations — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 120; Early neoliberals framed market competition as dependent on prior moral virtues. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 70 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly did the Mont Pèlerin Society’s founding statement diagnose as the civilisational crisis, and how did its moral language prefigure later human-rights rhetoric?

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberals justified the market primarily through political and moral virtues, not efficiency #corroborates (0.92)
• Neoliberals framed the spread of markets as dependent on moral and religious foundations #corroborates (0.86) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 120
• Early neoliberals framed market competition as dependent on prior moral virtues. #corroborates (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 70