Neoliberals blamed Latin America’s Rousseau-inspired sovereignty culture for its socialism

Evidence

Harberger was responding to a paper by the Uruguayan economist Ramón Díaz, who argued that ‘Latin American democracy has sought its inspiration very much in Rousseau, and very little in Locke’ – that is, it has prioritised popular sovereignty over property and individual rights. It was this culture of romanticism and popular political mobilisation that Harberger saw as the source of Chilean socialism. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 315

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the Locke/Rousseau divide as a neoliberal diagnosis of why Latin America kept choosing socialism — a cultural reading of economic failure that maps onto human-rights discourse about the priority of property vs. sovereignty.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s advanced human-rights/economics debate — the priority of property rights over popular sovereignty is the core Lockean claim in market-ethics disputes. — connects to: Neoliberals blamed Rousseau’s popular sovereignty, not the state, for imperialism and totalitarianism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 282; Neoliberalism claims to liberate while actually eroding political sovereignty — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 211; Development debates forced neoliberals to confront state character, trade, and socialism together — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1273 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism claims to liberate while actually eroding political sovereignty #complicates (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 211
• Neoliberals feared colonial anti-imperialism would morph into anti-capitalism #expands (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 251
• Development debates forced neoliberals to confront state character, trade, and socialism together #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1273
• Even Rousseau justifies democracy only negatively as non-violation #complicates (0.70) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 403