Neoliberals do not practice the laissez-faire they preach to the public.

Evidence

The neoliberal rejection of politics did not entail a rejection of government intervention or an advocacy of laissez-faire; on the contrary, it implied what Bauer termed ‘state action on a wide scale’. Rewriting Adam Smith’s invisible hand, Bauer stressed the necessity to devise suitable institutions to harness selfish interests to the general interest. The premise of neoliberal thought was that the institutional structure profoundly influences the operation of the economic system, and ‘does not arise from the operation of the system itself’. Neoliberalism countenanced a significant role for state action in relation to the market, as Foucault noted; but this action served to secure the conditions for the market, not to compensate for its effects. What Foucault missed, as he prepared his lectures on neoliberalism, was the extent to which the new interventionist politics of human rights, which fascinated him at the time, shared in the dominant ‘state phobia’ (which conflated state welfarism with totalitarianism) that he portrayed as his time’s inheritance from a previous generation of neoliberals. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 431 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

By definition, theories that postulate free or pure markets per se are not neoliberal, and it is easy for neoliberals to point to the need for the right set of institutions, politics, and nowadays even behavior to allow markets to operate relatively freely, and, more importantly, to set market forces free. The charge of “one size fits all” fails in the face of the documentable shifts in neoliberal approaches to policy problems. Our case studies show that neoliberalism is less a policy orthodoxy than a consistent approach to policy problems. To adapt the famous legal maxim of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, neoliberals hold that the market lives by prerequisites it cannot guarantee itself. Rather than operate with a belief in the “magic” of a putatively “natural” market, neoliberals are avowed interventionists of their own kind, rethinking policies according to context and showing both a capacity for improvisation and an attitude of flexible response. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 22 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The starting point of neoliberalism is the admission, contrary to classical liberal doctrine, that their vision of the good society will triumph only if it becomes reconciled to the fact that the conditions for its existence must be constructed and will not come about “naturally” in the absence of concerted political effort and organization. As Foucault presciently observed in 1978 (2004, 137), “Neoliberalism should not be confused with the slogan ‘laissez-faire,’ but on the contrary, should be regarded as a call to vigilance, to activism, to perpetual interventions” [our translation]. The injunction to act in the face of inadequate epistemic warrant is the very soul of “constructivism,” an orientation shared (curiously enough) with the field of science studies. Classical liberalism and Burkean conservatism, by contrast, disavowed this precept. The fact that during one phase of his career Hayek railed against something he called “constructivism” should not obscure this important fact. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2125 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Neoliberals are constructivist interventionists, not believers in natural markets. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 22; Neoliberalism is activist constructivism, not laissez-faire passivity. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 2125; Neoliberalism is a novel doctrine in flux, not a return to laissez-faire — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 439 (+8 more)

Related

• Neoliberalism endorses wide state action to construct markets, not laissez-faire. (similarity 0.94)
• Neoliberalism rejects laissez-faire in favor of perpetual constructionist state intervention (similarity 0.91)
• Neoliberals are constructivist interventionists, not believers in natural markets. (similarity 0.91)
• Neoliberalism is an interventionist flexible policy approach, not a laissez-faire orthodoxy (similarity 0.89)
• Neoliberalism is activist constructivism, not laissez-faire passivity. (similarity 0.89)
• Neoliberalism requires active state intervention to build competitive order, unlike laissez-faire. (similarity 0.87)
• Neoliberalism rejected laissez-faire’s faith that free trade naturally spread peace and harmony (similarity 0.86)
• Early neoliberals explicitly distanced themselves from classical laissez-faire doctrine (similarity 0.86)
• Neoliberalism is best understood as statecraft building market enforcers, not market-making (similarity 0.85)
• Early neoliberals rejected laissez-faire and wanted strong state action (similarity 0.85)
• Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally (similarity 0.85)
• Early neoliberalism rejected laissez-faire in favor of a state-built competitive order. (similarity 0.85)
• Neoliberals rejected both laissez-faire and universal welfare, seeking market-compatible assistance instead. (similarity 0.84)
• Neoliberals saw that competitive markets require an actively constructed legal and moral framework. (similarity 0.84)
• Early neoliberalism distinguished itself from laissez-faire by championing competition. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism endorses wide state action to construct markets, not laissez-faire. #corroborates (0.93) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 431
• Neoliberals are constructivist interventionists, not believers in natural markets. #corroborates (0.92) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 22
• Neoliberalism is activist constructivism, not laissez-faire passivity. #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2125
• Neoliberals preach market supremacy while exempting themselves from its rule #corroborates (0.88) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 281
• Neoliberal institutions aimed to build a new creed, not revive old liberalism #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 773
• Neoliberalism is a novel doctrine in flux, not a return to laissez-faire #corroborates (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 439
• Neoliberal prescriptions need not work to be promoted, only to advance the project #corroborates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 933
• The neoliberal state governs for the market, not because of it. #expands (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 111
• Neoliberals rejected classical liberalism’s rationalism in favor of critical conventionalism. #expands (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 90