Neoliberalism claims to liberate while actually eroding political sovereignty

Evidence

Rather, it is to attenuate radically the exercise of freedom in the social and political spheres. This is the central paradox, perhaps even the central ruse, of neoliberal governance: the neoliberal revolution takes place in the name of freedom — free markets, free countries, free men—but tears up freedom’s grounding in sovereignty for states and subjects alike. States are subordinated to the market, govern for the market, and gain or lose legitimacy according to the market’s vicissitudes; states also are caught in the parting ways of capital’s drive for accumulation and the imperative of national economic growth. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 211

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Brown’s broader thesis about the dismantling of democracy — this is the core paradox often cited in the literature on post-democracy and authoritarian neoliberalism. — connects to: Neoliberalism emerged partly as a critique of national sovereignty and democratic budgeting. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 399; Neoliberals coined and repurposed consumer sovereignty to rival national sovereignty — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 401; Neoliberalism means capital seizes biopolitical governance from the state — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 263 (+17 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The central ruse — freedom’s name used to tear up freedom’s grounding — is a paradigm-level insight about how the political system legitimates its own demolition, worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism redefined liberty as economic rather than political. #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 380
• Neoliberal freedom can be a vehicle for governance and domination #corroborates (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 153
• Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy #expands (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2130
• Neoliberal spontaneous-order rhetoric masks theorists’ Schmittian power to define state sovereignty #complicates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2196
• Neoliberalism exists to reverse modernity’s claims to self-determination #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 116