Neoliberalism criticism often treats it as a fixed plan rather than a problem set

Evidence

Neoliberalism is often presented as a set of solutions: a ten-point plan to destroy solidarity and the welfare state. John Williamson’s Washington Consensus is the most famous example with its edicts to privatize, liberalize, and deregulate. Neoliberals are often said to offer a laundry list, a recipe book, a panacea and a one-size-fits-all rostrum. Such totalizing and apparently final descriptions have accorded well with the subjective sense of many on the left in Europe and the US from the 1990s onward that we are effectively “post-democracy.” Governments are now left “ruling the void,” where an impotent Staatsvolk is left open to the vagaries of a Marktvolk comprising the transnational investor class. Neoliberals have imposed a “worldwide institutional grid that offers transnational capital multiple exit options” and “locks in” a “market-disciplinary agenda.” — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 160

Categorization

• XREF: This frames the crude caricature (Washington Consensus as recipe book) that the reader’s whole advanced project on austerity/neoliberalism aims to fracture. — connects to: Neoliberalism is best understood as open problems, not fixed solutions — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 162; Neoliberalism is a contested but usable analytical category rather than a fixed ideology — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 15; Neoliberalism is a mutable thought collective, not a fixed market-fundamentalist creed — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 141 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism is best understood as open problems, not fixed solutions #corroborates (1.00) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 162
• The Washington Consensus caricatures neoliberalism as a fixed policy recipe #exemplifies (0.90) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 160
• Neoliberalism is a mutable thought collective, not a fixed market-fundamentalist creed #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 141
• Neoliberalism is a contested but usable analytical category rather than a fixed ideology #qualifies (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 15