Neoliberals saw that competitive markets require an actively constructed legal and moral framework.

Evidence

For all their undoubted diversity, the neoliberals of the early Mont Pèlerin Society were largely united around the programme outlined in Friedman’s short paper. At the inaugural MPS meeting, Hayek argued that, while it is known that a functioning market relies on the ‘protection of certain rights, such as property and the enforcement of contracts’, it was only once this was accepted that ‘the real problem begins’. In The Road to Serfdom, he faulted previous liberals for neglecting the fact that a competitive market requires an ‘appropriate legal system’, and stressed that it was ‘by no means sufficient that the law should recognise the principle of private property and freedom of contract’. Human rights played an important role in the neoliberal attempt to develop an appropriate legal system and moral framework for a global capitalist market. The rights they formulated were not the rights of man that Marx had criticised. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 45

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the law-merchant material: markets do not self-organize but need designed institutions, here a legal-moral framework rather than private judges. — connects to: Neoliberalism requires active state intervention to build competitive order, unlike laissez-faire. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 44; Neoliberalism advanced a political, not merely economic, case for the competitive market — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 34; Neoliberalism’s distinctiveness was not homo economicus but a demand for moral foundations for markets. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 19 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism advanced a political, not merely economic, case for the competitive market #exemplifies (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 34
• Chicago economists knew markets require a moral, political and legal framework to function. #corroborates (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 333
• Early neoliberals framed market competition as dependent on prior moral virtues. #corroborates (0.82) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 70
• Neoliberalism’s distinctiveness was not homo economicus but a demand for moral foundations for markets. #expands (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 19
• Neoliberalism sought to encase markets in extra-economic rules, not unleash them #expands (0.80) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 70
• Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1907
• Neoliberals framed the spread of markets as dependent on moral and religious foundations #corroborates (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 120
• Hayekian neoliberalism requires active rule-design to insulate markets from politics #expands (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 360
• Milton Friedman’s 1951 manifesto defined neoliberalism as a competitive order requiring an active state. #exemplifies (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1107