Neoliberals depicted markets as peaceful information processors and politics as violent friend-enemy coercion.
Evidence
Drawing on the theorisation of the market as information processor that enabled people to draw on dispersed, tacit knowledge, developed by his MPS colleague Hayek, Bauer depicted the market as a system of disseminated knowledge and mutually beneficial free exchange that produces order without the need for conscious and deliberate planning. Prices for raw materials were set by the market and not determined by the West, he argued – they were the products of numerous individual decisions, and not of the actions of a single decision-maker or of collective collusion. For the neoliberals, any intervention that altered the results achieved by the subtle mechanism of the price system would prevent its feedback loops from operating. … But the neoliberals’ argument was not simply economic; rather, they followed Montesquieu in arguing that, as commercial relations were founded on mutual need, the ‘natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace’. Neoliberal thinkers depicted the market as a realm of peaceful and mutually beneficial relations, and portrayed politics as a Schmittian field of friend/enemy distinctions and violent coercion. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 403
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the law merchant readings on reputational markets as information processors, and to Hayek’s knowledge problem as a recurring frame across the reader’s economic-institutions sources. — connects to: Neoliberals pathologised political struggle by framing the market as peaceful and politics as violent — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 64; Major neoliberal theorists all held that markets convert conflict into harmony — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 35; Neoliberal sociologists held that free markets curb war-like passions — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 281 (+10 more)
- DEFINE: Clarifies the neoliberal dichotomy: market as peaceful, decentralized knowledge system versus politics as Schmittian coercion.
Broader Connections
- Market competition was framed by neoliberals as guarantor of rights and peace
#corroborates(0.85) - Neoliberals argued political meddling, not markets, causes war
#corroborates(0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 256 - Human rights NGOs reinforced the neoliberal split between violent politics and peaceful markets
#expands(0.80) - Neoliberals theorized peace as the separation of ownership from sovereignty
#expands(0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 258 - Neoliberal market discipline was adopted to pacify unruly democratic publics
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 122 - Neoliberal rhetoric evokes free markets while quietly relying on a strong state
#complicates(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 26 - Neoliberalism reframed democracy and unions as enemies of market truth.
#expands(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 123 - Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy
#expands(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2130