Neoliberals marketed the market as natural by borrowing early evolutionary science metaphors

Evidence

Even though the market is not treated as existing independently of the social and cultural framework, and there was no consensus on just what sort of animal the market “really” is, the neoliberals did agree that for purposes of public understanding and sloganeering, market society must be treated as a “natural” and inexorable state of humankind. What this meant in practice is that natural science metaphors must be integrated into the neoliberal narrative. It is noteworthy that MPS members began to explore the portrayal of the market as an evolutionary phenomenon long before biology displaced physics as the premier science in the modern world-picture. If the market was just an information processor, so too was the gene in its ecological niche. Because of this early commitment, neoliberalism was able to make appreciable inroads into such areas as evolutionary psychology, network sociology, ecology, animal ethology, linguistics, cybernetics, and even science studies. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2127

Categorization

• XREF: Pre-echoes how evolutionary metaphors later infiltrated economics, akin to concepts in Zed books on Darwinian economics. — connects to: Locke naturalized market creation as inevitable to defend his class’s property project — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 281; Markets are human creations amenable to redesign, not natural forces — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1237; Neoliberalism absorbed natural-science metaphors to become a comprehensive worldview beyond economics — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 153 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Lyotard naturalized capitalism’s victory as pre-human cosmic natural selection #exemplifies (0.82) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 78
• Market ideology’s appeal rests on a metaphysical equation of markets with human nature itself #corroborates (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 587
• Anthropomorphic market imagery reinforces rather than demystifies the market’s power #corroborates (0.75) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 266