Neoliberalism’s founding intellectuals aimed to immunize markets against fascism

Evidence

Forged in the crucible of European fascism, neoliberalism aimed at permanent inoculation of market liberal orders against the regrowth of fascistic sentiments and totalitarian powers. Eager to separate politics from markets, the original neoliberals would have loathed both the crony capitalism and international oligarchical power spawned by finance that yanks the chains of states today. Seeking to get politics out of markets and concentrated economic interests out of policy making, they would have deplored the manipulation of public policy by major industries and capital sectors and would have hated, too, the politicization of enterprise. Above all, they dreaded political mobilizations of an ignorant, aroused citizenry and looked to market and moral discipline and a severely leashed democracy to pacify and contain it. They would be horrified by the contemporary phenomenon of leaders at once authoritarian and reckless riding to power on this tide. In short, while the book will argue that the constellation of principles, policies, practices, and forms of governing reason that may be gathered under the sign of neoliberalism has importantly constituted the catastrophic present, this was not neoliberalism’s intended spawn, but its Frankensteinian creation. — Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, 24

Categorization

• XREF: Relates directly to the reader’s Frankfurt School work on fascism and on unintended ideological consequences; central tension of the chapter. — connects to: The term ‘neoliberalism’ was coined at the 1938 Colloque Walter Lippmann — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 775; Neoliberalism’s defeat of its own aims produced states yanked by capital and popular zeal — Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise…, 139; Early neoliberalism crystallized partly in intellectual dialogue with Carl Schmitt’s anti-liberalism — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 358 (+3 more)
• SEED: The retrospective irony — founding anti-fascists spawning the very forces they dreaded — is a rich anti-intentionalism case study.

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberalism crystallized partly in intellectual dialogue with Carl Schmitt’s anti-liberalism #complicates (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 358
• Neoliberalism’s freedom ideology borrowed from fascist critics of liberalism #expands (0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 234
• Market competition was framed by neoliberals as guarantor of rights and peace #expands (0.75)
• Neoliberalism’s founders believed ideological change demanded deliberate collective organization #expands (0.72) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 218