Digital Mind 🧠

🪵 The Threshold

Neoliberals endorsed state coercion to enforce kinship obligations over income redistribution

Properties2
tagsja-picks, xref, define, seed, contrarian_or_surprising, trade, corroborated, category/contrarian-or-surprising
aliases@philip_mirowski_nine_2020, loc. 212

3 min read

Neoliberals endorsed state coercion to enforce kinship obligations over income redistribution

Evidence

As defenders of the competitive free market order, neoliberals may not have cared much for the active promotion of marriage, responsible fatherhood programs, and faith-based provision of services, all of which were supported by communitarians and social conservatives and included within Clinton’s welfare reform. But neoliberals were certainly in favor of efforts to enforce kinship obligations as an alternative to the redistribution of income by the state. When welfare recipients refused to take care of themselves within the proper structure of the family, neoliberals believed that the state had every right to leverage (or indeed to create) these relationships by force, just as it had every right to compel the long-term unemployed to work. Unmarried mothers who sought welfare from the state should first be obliged to seek support from an “absent father,” via child support orders, before the state disbursed any funds. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 212

As defenders of the competitive free market order, neoliberals may not have cared much for the active promotion of marriage, responsible fatherhood programs, and faith-based provision of services, all of which were supported by communitarians and social conservatives and included within Clinton’s welfare reform. But neoliberals were certainly in favor of efforts to enforce kinship obligations as an alternative to the redistribution of income by the state. When welfare recipients refused to take care of themselves within the proper structure of the family, neoliberals believed that the state had every right to leverage (or indeed to create) these relationships by force, just as it had every right to compel the long-term unemployed to work. Unmarried mothers who sought welfare from the state should first be obliged to seek support from an “absent father,” via child support orders, before the state disbursed any funds. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 212

Categorization

  • XREF: Distinguishes neoliberals from social conservatives while locating their shared enforcement-of-family agenda — nuances the chapter’s internal-varieties goal. — connects to: American neoliberals defended kinship bonds as noncontractual obligations and opposed no-fault divorce — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 214; Neoliberals opposed no-fault divorce to force families to absorb social costs — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 241; Neoliberal welfare reform aimed to convert natural family charity into legal duty — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 241 (+4 more)
  • DEFINE: Clarifies the precise neoliberal position: not pro-marriage per se but pro-compelled private responsibility for dependents.
  • SEED: Fracturing-the-caricature angle: how coercion of the family sits alongside free markets in neoliberal doctrine.
  • corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 212

Broader Connections

✉️

Backlinks