Neoliberals judged human-rights claims by their conduciveness to markets

Evidence

Given that moral rules exist to support the market order, Hayek urged that ‘conduciveness to that order be accepted as a standard by which all particular institutions are judged’. This was Hayek’s own version of the German ordoliberal conviction that economic policies must be systemgerech, or compatible with the whole economic system. This market-conduciveness, or compatibility, gave the neoliberals a criterion for assessing claims to human rights that was more precise than a simple distinction between civil and political rights and social and economic rights: to the extent rights supported market relations, the neoliberals actively promoted them; when claims for rights interfered with the competitive market, by requiring state intervention and non-market forms of obligation and redistribution, they opposed them as though the fate of civilisation depended on it. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 27

Categorization

• XREF: Directly reframes the reader’s question of whether market ethics and human-rights discourse are opposed — they intertwine via the market-conduciveness criterion. — connects to: Neoliberals reframed human rights as instruments of market submission — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 120; Neoliberal thinkers reframed human rights as protections for market freedoms. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 56; Neoliberals crafted their own human rights account supporting market order. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 38 (+9 more)
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to how economic-policy frameworks justify whose rights count, echoing the sacrifice/corpse essays’ logic of who is protected by a ruling order.
• SEED: Angle: ‘systemgerech’ as an ethics — how compatibility-with-the-system became the standard for assessing moral claims, and what it silently excludes.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals judged human rights solely by whether they supported market relations. #corroborates (0.93)
• Neoliberal thinkers reframed human rights as protections for market freedoms. #corroborates (0.92) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 56
• Neoliberals crafted their own human rights account supporting market order. #corroborates (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 38
• Neoliberals weaponized human rights language to protect private property and market order #expands (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 76
• Neoliberals actively shaped the postwar human rights discourse that later legitimized markets #expands (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 40
• Neoliberals framed human rights as a tool to enforce global standards protecting private capital #expands (0.80)
• Neoliberals saw human rights standards as a way to depoliticize international economic relations #expands (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 450