The market replaced law as the source of state truth and legitimacy

Evidence

In the mid-eighteenth century, yet another principle of limitation arose, that of the market. Rights remained a constraint on sovereignty, but the principle of what Foucault terms “market veridiction” now animated an ontological, epistemological, and political reformulation of sovereignty, one that not only constrained, but produced a new form of the state and its legitimacy. As the market became the new site of truth or veridiction, it simultaneously became that which must be left alone by the state and what came to construct, measure, and legitimate the state, substituting for law and edict in this regard. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 98

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces and defines Foucault’s key concept of ‘market veridiction’ — the market as the site where truth about governing is produced.
• XREF: Connects to the reason-of-state vs. market-limitation genealogy in Foucault’s Birth of Biopolitics lectures. — connects to: Markets gained legitimacy as experts lost it after 2008 — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 113; Markets are products of truth struggles, not validators of truth — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 288; Ordoliberals redefined the state as the instrument that creates market economies. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 523 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism makes the market, not experts, the arbiter of truth #expands (0.88) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 927
• Law creates legitimacy structurally by formatting power-holders into chains of mutual recourse #contradicts (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 674
• Economics has replaced politics as the governing science of the state #corroborates (0.78) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 154
• Neo-liberalism’s real objective is the market’s formalization of the state and society #expands (0.72) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 678
• Neoliberals replaced the old language of civilisation with a market-based standard #contradicts (0.72) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 64
• Economic theory helped restore legitimacy to banned financial derivatives #exemplifies (0.72) — Donald MacKenzie & Yuval Millo, Constructing a Market, Performing Theory, 9