Neoliberalism strengthens repressive state apparatuses rather than shrinking government

Evidence

Far from dismantling the state, or drowning it, then, neoliberalism would remake it. The state would become more robust in its controlling than enabling or caretaking conditions, more intrusive, more repressive. Neoliberalism, as Jean Comaroff has succinctly stated it, is not so much a break with capitalist state formation as “an intensification of some of its core features.” — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1748

Categorization

• DEFINE: Costly reframes the common reading of neoliberalism as mere state withdrawal; the state persists but reconfigured toward control.
• XREF: Directly connects to Foucault’s governmentality and to the state-of-exception literature (Agamben) that resurfaces in paragraph 1750. — connects to: Non-interventionist governments were forced into greater intervention — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1030; Neoliberalism seeks to transform and take over the state, not shrink it — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 117; Neoliberalism seeks a strong state that thwarts democracy, not a weak one — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 155 (+20 more)