Neoliberalism is best understood as statecraft building market enforcers, not market-making
Evidence
Geneva School neoliberalism has been less a discipline of economics than a discipline of statecraft and law. More than making markets, these neoliberals have concentrated on making market enforcers. … His 1960 work The Constitution of Liberty and even more so his 1970s trilogy Law, Legislation and Liberty (written during his time in Freiburg) justify this designation, because he became ever more focused on finding a legal and institutional fix for the disruptive effects of democracy on market processes. Unlike the ordoliberals, who called for an “economic constitution” at the level of the nation, the Geneva School neoliberals called for an economic constitution for the world. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 54
Categorization
- DEFINE: Overturns the common equation of neoliberalism with market-making or laissez-faire; reframes it as a legal-institutional project.
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that neoliberalism concentrates on ‘making market enforcers’ rather than markets inverts most popular and scholarly framings — genuinely holds up under sustained reflection.
- XREF: connects to: Neoliberal globalism meant insulating markets from democracy, not abolishing states — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 56; Neoliberalism endorses wide state action to construct markets, not laissez-faire. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 431; Neoliberalism is activist constructivism, not laissez-faire passivity. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2125 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Neoliberalism endorses wide state action to construct markets, not laissez-faire.
#contradicts(0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 431 - Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally
#qualifies(0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1907 - Neoliberalism sought to encase markets in extra-economic rules, not unleash them
#expands(0.85) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 70 - Neoliberalism is activist constructivism, not laissez-faire passivity.
#complicates(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2125 - Neoliberalism centered on a strong state, not the classical night-watchman state
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2145 - Neoliberals preach market supremacy while exempting themselves from its rule
#contradicts(0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 281 - Neoliberalism’s activist stance contradicts its own claim that markets naturally triumph
#contradicts(0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 202