Neoliberalism absorbed natural-science metaphors to become a comprehensive worldview beyond economics

Evidence

Even though there has not existed full consensus on just what sort of animal the market “really” is, the neoliberals did agree that, for purposes of public understanding and sloganeering, neoliberal market society must be treated as a “natural” and inexorable state of mankind. Neoliberal thought therefore spawns a strange hybrid of the “constructed” and the “natural,” where the market can be made manifest in many guises. What this meant in practice was that there grew to be a mandate that natural science metaphors must be integrated into the neoliberal narrative. (This is explored further in chapter 6.) It is noteworthy that MPS members began to explore the portrayal of the market as an evolutionary phenomenon long before biology displaced physics as the premier science in the modern world-picture. If the market was just an elaborate information processor, so too was the gene in its ecological niche. Poor, unwitting animals turn out to maximize everything under the sun just like neoclassical economic agents, and cognitive science “neuroeconomics” models treat neurons as market participants. “Biopower” is deployed to render nature and our bodies more responsive to market signals. Because of this early commitment, neoliberalism was able to make appreciable inroads into such areas as “evolutionary psychology,” network sociology, ecology, animal ethology, linguistics, cybernetics, and even science studies. Neoliberalism has therefore expanded to become a comprehensive worldview, and has not been just a doctrine solely confined to economists. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 153

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s ‘thought collective’ goal and Mirowski’s broader argument that the MPS wove science metaphors into market ontology - parallels Hayek’s spontaneous order and evolutionary accounts of markets. — connects to: Insect metaphors for human collectivity obscure capitalism’s human costs. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 478; Neoliberals marketed the market as natural by borrowing early evolutionary science metaphors — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2127; Neoliberals recast Hayek’s tacit knowledge into a commodified thing for scientific resonance — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2162 (+3 more)
• SEED: An angle: how the same rhetorical move (treating markets as ‘natural’ via evolutionary/information-processing metaphors) recurs in biopolitics, neuroeconomics, and governance debates post-2008.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals marketed the market as natural by borrowing early evolutionary science metaphors #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2127
• Neoliberals recast Hayek’s tacit knowledge into a commodified thing for scientific resonance #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2162