Neoliberalism was an ideological veneer only loosely resembling actual capitalism
Evidence
Neither new nor liberal, neoliberalism was an uninteresting hodgepodge of older political philosophies. As a piece of theory, it had as much to do with really-existing capitalism as Marxism had to do with really-existing communism: nothing! Nevertheless, neoliberalism delivered the necessary ideological veneer to legitimise the assault on organised labour and to promote the so-called ‘deregulation’ that let Wall Street rip. Along with it came the revival of economic theories that humanity had, rightly, ditched during the Great Depression – theories artfully assuming that which they claimed to explain, such as the grand lie that deregulated financial markets know best. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 220
Categorization
- SEED: Article angle: ‘the grand lie that deregulated financial markets know best’ as a recurring mythology worth debunking in current tech debates.
- XREF: Parallels critiques of free-market ideology found across political economy literature the reader knows. — connects to: Neoliberalism was both a class-power project and a coherent ideology. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 478; Neoliberalism served interests, never grounded in economic theory; Neoliberalism replaces class analysis with a cynical catechism of limitless self-transformation — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 332 (+11 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 220
Broader Connections
- Neoliberalism is a caricature of liberalism reduced to a theory of economic organization
#expands(0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2121 - Neoliberalism was a flexible project, not a fixed doctrine with essential content
#qualifies(0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 115 - Neoliberalism extinguishes the political subject that critiques of capitalism presupposed
#complicates(0.90) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 218 - Neoliberalism broke sharply with prewar classical liberalism rather than continuing it
#qualifies(0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 778 - Neoliberalism lacks a stable meaning or historically specific constituency
#qualifies(0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 17 - Neoliberals characterized capitalism as peaceful and any economic politicization as totalitarian.
#complicates(0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 434