Neoliberals conditioned self-government on accepting market discipline

Evidence

The freedom that mattered most to the neoliberals was the freedom to trade across borders on non-discriminatory terms, which they represented as the necessary foundation of all freedoms and rights. ‘The institution of a free market, of competition among enterprises, freedom of entry and freedom of exit to professions and any sort of business are the safeguards and anchors of freedom and justice for the people in underdeveloped areas’, Brandt made clear. While he looked forward to the ‘gradual abolition of the privileged status of the white people’, this move towards equality was predicated on newly independent states accepting market discipline. Self-government was conditional on newly independent countries submitting to the demands of the market and respecting the rights of foreign traders. The neoliberals envisioned what B. S. Chimni calls a ‘borderless global space’ in which the role of Third World nation-states is to ‘facilitate the expansion of global capitalism through promoting free trade, lifting constraints on movements of capital, and ensuring infrastructure development’. Creating such a space could not be left to laissez-faire; it required enforceable international standards – and the right to intervene when they were flouted. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 297

Categorization

• DEFINE: Nuances the meaning of ‘freedom’ in neoliberal discourse: freedom to trade as foundational freedom.
• XREF: Links to scholarship on postcolonial sovereignty and the structural-adjustment literature relevant to the reader’s austerity project. — connects to: Neoliberalism works best when subjects willingly internalize market logic through everyday micro-interactions; Social media self-presentation is a technology of self-governance under neoliberal capitalism.; The ideal neoliberal subject is a self-sufficient entrepreneurial risk-taker — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 36 (+39 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal market discipline was adopted to pacify unruly democratic publics #corroborates (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 122
• Dictatorship solved the neoliberal problem of replacing popular sovereignty with market sovereignty #corroborates (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 330
• Hayekian neoliberalism requires active rule-design to insulate markets from politics #complicates (0.70) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 360