Neoliberalism combined support for liberal democracy with fear of mass democracy

Evidence

Mises acknowledged later that the Liberal Party’s position in the House of Deputies was not due to popular support; rather, the liberals benefited from an electoral system that privileged the upper middle class and the intelligentsia, and ‘withheld the right to vote from the masses’. The fatal contradiction of the Liberal Party, he suggested, was that it was a supposedly democratic party with a pronounced ‘aversion to democracy’. Writing in the immediate aftermath of World War I, he attributed that party’s ruin to the specific circumstances of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But the fatal contradiction he identified was not confined to central Europe nor to the nineteenth century. Neoliberalism too combined a defence of liberal democracy with anxiety that unrestrained democracy threatened the liberal economic order. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 107

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to E. Austerity/Neoliberalism debate on the anti-democratic thrust of market-constitutional order. — connects to: Neoliberalism’s weakening of democratic values enables neoconservative moralism and authoritarianism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 169; Neoliberal rationality reduces the very desire for democracy — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 398; Neoliberals redefine freedom as something to be limited and detached from democracy — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 119 (+8 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the core paradoxical stance of the Austrian/neoliberal tradition toward democracy.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal market discipline was adopted to pacify unruly democratic publics #exemplifies (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 122
• Democracy and liberalism can be decoupled and even opposed #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 235
• Neoliberalism’s weakening of democratic values enables neoconservative moralism and authoritarianism #expands (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 169
• Neoliberals redefine freedom as something to be limited and detached from democracy #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 119
• Neoliberalism seeks a strong state that thwarts democracy, not a weak one #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 155
• Ordoliberalism entailed an authoritarian skepticism toward democracy #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 557
• Neoliberal rationality reduces the very desire for democracy #expands (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 398
• Neoliberalism gutted mass parties to free capital from democratic constraint #expands (0.75) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 230