Neoliberalism holds together several unresolved internal contradictions by asserting both sides at once
Evidence
Neoliberals tamed many of the contending contradictory conceptions by trying to have it both ways: to warn of the perils of expanding the purview of state activity while simultaneously imagining the strong state of their liking rendered harmless through some instrumentality of “natural” regulation; to posit the free market as an ideal generator and a conveyor belt of information while simultaneously prosecuting a “war of ideas” on the ground strenuously and ruthlessly (Blundell 2003); asserting that their program would lead to unfettered economic growth and enhanced human welfare while simultaneously suggesting that no human mind could ever really know any such thing, and therefore that it was illegitimate to justify their program by its consequences (Shearmur 1996); to portray the market as the ne plus ultra of all human institutions, while simultaneously suggesting that the market is in itself insufficient to attain and nourish the transeconomic values of a political, social, religious and cultural character (Megay 1970). “Neoliberal writings on allocation shift back and forth between libertarian and utilitarian vocabularies, with the two sometimes appearing interchangeably within a paper or chapter” (Oliver 1960). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2142
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s general interest in how ideological movements discipline incoherence into usable orthodoxy — parallels rhetoric around austerity as both moral imperative and technical necessity. — connects to: Neoliberalism has a coherent crisis logic despite lacking fixed doctrine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 146; Neoliberals disagree sharply among themselves about what a market is — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 151; Neoliberalism has pursued ongoing intellectual accommodation with religious conservatives despite deep contradictions. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 184 (+29 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: This is arguably the sharpest single diagnosis in the chapter: that neoliberalism’s durability comes precisely from refusing to resolve its contradictions, a paradigm-shifting frame for reading the whole movement.
Broader Connections
- Bifurcating politics and economics undermines left critique of neoliberalism
#complicates(0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 431 - Liberal democratic ideology internally generates the contradictions that let alternatives through
#expands(0.80)