Neoliberalism – The Attempt to Subsume Society into “the Market”

The term ‘neoliberalism’ refers to an economic program of deregulation, privatization, trade liberalization, corporatization and small government – a project to subject more and more economic activity to the whims of “the market”. At its core, neoliberalism is an attempt to make profitability the governing principle in all economic calculation. For this neoliberal aspiration to be approximated in reality, government must behave as if it is just another market participant. It must pretend to be subject to the same financial constraints as private corporations and to share their need for revenue. It requires maintaining the pretense that government has no capacity to act independently of markets; that there is no capacity for autonomous social action independent of markets; in fact, that there is no such thing as society. In short, obey the market, because there is no alternative. We are powerless to stand in its way. Or so the superstition goes.

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