Neoliberals theorized peace as the separation of ownership from sovereignty

Evidence

Röpke, who was in the audience during Robbin’s lecture and enjoyed it ‘tremendously’, borrowed terms from Roman law to define this vision of liberal peace. A liberal economy, he argued, separates imperium from dominium, ownership from sovereignty, and therefore prevents conflicts over resources. Referring back to the liberalism of David Hume and Adam Smith, he described the (old) liberal principle as that of the ‘thorough separation between the spheres of the government and of economy, between sovereignty and the apparatus which provides material goods, between the Imperium and the Dominium, between the political power and the economic power’. It was a central article of faith for the neoliberal thinkers that a state that rules an area rich in natural resources does not own those materials, which are owned by private individuals who may enter into mutually beneficial relations for their sale. Multilateral relations of trade allow industrial nations to obtain raw materials by running their export chains through several countries, neutralising state borders and making the political rule of regions rich in resources unnecessary, Röpke argued. The goal, as Quinn Slobodian puts it in his striking account of neoliberal ‘globalism’, was a liberal world in which ‘nobody would mistake the lines on the map for meaningful marks in the world of dominium’. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 258

Categorization

• DEFINE: The imperium/dominium distinction is a precise conceptual framework — ownership vs. sovereignty — central to the neoliberal theory of peace and resource access.
• XREF: Connects to Slobodian’s Globalists and to the broader literature on neoliberal internationalism; also echoes free-market cosmopolitanism discussions. — connects to: Market competition was framed by neoliberals as guarantor of rights and peace; Major neoliberal theorists all held that markets convert conflict into harmony — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 35; Neoliberals argued political meddling, not markets, causes war — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 256 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism economizes justice, sovereignty, and the rule of law #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 32
• Neoliberalism abolishes classes, the individual, and Lockean property in one move #complicates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 164
• Neoliberalism exists to reverse modernity’s claims to self-determination #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 116
• Neoliberalism claims to liberate while actually eroding political sovereignty #expands (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 211