“Damned to happiness” – neoliberalism as the Leviathan of our time, disguised as freedom
[This article posted on 4/13/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://globalbridge.ch/verdammt-zum-glueck-der-neoliberalismus-als-der-mit-dem-mantel-der-freiheit-getarnte-leviathan-unserer-zeit/.]
Neoliberalism – the undeclared war of market totalitarianism against people, society, democracy, and the economy
(Ed.) Swiss scientist Heinrich Anker, author of the following text, calls it “An essayistic invective against a catastrophe of the century,” a “diatribe.”. This is false modesty: rarely has one been able to read in such a concentrated form in German what neoliberalism, propagated primarily by the US, really is and to whose fortune and misfortune it is spreading. Admittedly, the following text is not that short, but it is well worth reading! (cm)
Brief summary (Abstract)
Neoliberalism or market radicalism is an ideology that presents itself as (natural) science and, through the back door, abolishes the individual freedom it propagates in favor of a market-fundamentalist worldview. It is an ideology and its protagonists are a sect which has a destructive effect on people, democratic societies, and the natural environment, but attempts to justify this by creating unprecedented material prosperity—without asking whether people actually consider this to be the happiness of their lives and whether they are willing to pay the price for it. Market radicalism is not the haven of freedom it claims to be in its propaganda, but rather a leviathan, an all-powerful dictator that wants to imprison us with all its might in its social Darwinist (animal) world: All power to the plutocrats of this world! If we examine the ideological content of neoliberalism or market radicalism, we see on the one hand its “nihilistic universalism” – “Everything is economics! Only profit counts!” – and on the other hand its philosophical confusion.(mis)understanding.
On the origins of neoliberalism or radical market capitalism
The term neoliberalism and its first institutional beginnings can be traced back to the US publicist Walter Lippmann (1889–1974). He became particularly well known for his work “Public Opinion” (1922). It is considered a fundamental text in the fields of journalism/propaganda, political science, and social psychology. Lippmann was an advisor to US President Woodrow Wilson, coined terms such as “Cold War,” and was a critic of collectivism on the one hand and laissez-faire liberalism on the other. In his equally well-known work The Good Society (1937), he sharply criticized the New Deal and totalitarian ideologies and inspired efforts to renew the liberal order.
The “Colloque Walter Lippmann,” named after him, played an important role in this. It took place in Paris from August 26 to 30, 1938. The meeting was organized by French philosopher Louis Rougier. In view of the political and economic crises of the interwar period and the rise of totalitarian systems, liberalism was to be redefined and further developed. It was in this context that the term “neoliberalism” was coined. The aim was to distinguish it from both classical laissez-faire liberalism and collectivist ideologies such as socialism, National Socialism, and fascism. The colloquium was named after Lippmann because his work The Good Society [1937] formed the basis for the discussion. Let us note that neoliberalism or market radicalism is a counterproject to socialist, National Socialist, and fascist ideologies and thus belongs to the realm of ideologies (and not primarily to that of science).
After the end of the war, in 1947, Friedrich Hayek picked up the thread again and, in the presence of well-known economists such as Wilhelm Röpke, Karl Popper, Lionel Robbins, Michael Polanyi (the brother of Karl Polanyi), Walter Eucken, Fritz Machlup, Ludwig von Mises, Maurice Allais, Milton Friedman, and George Stigler, founded the “Mont Pèlerin Society” (MPS). Walter Lippmann was not invited – he was considered too “unprincipled”[i]. However, influential journalists from Le Monde, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Fortune, etc. were present. At least eight winners of the “Nobel Prize in Economics” (which is awarded by the Swedish Riksbank, cm) can be associated with the MPS.
The iron fist of the Mont Pèlerin Society is its umbrella organization atlasnetwork.org, which currently has 598 think tanks, including partner organizations, including such well-known and influential names as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Canadian Fraser Institute, the British Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), with which Margaret Thatcher was closely associated, and, above all, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (Potsdam).
The rapid and resounding rise of the Mont Pèlerin Society has both a scientific and an ideological basis. The scientific basis: the rise of market radicals or neoliberals began with stagflation, which set in during the late 1960s and spilled over into the 1970s. In this context, Keynesian deficit spending proved counterproductive, and the heyday of the Chicago School monetarists, led by Milton Friedman and Karl Brunner, began. The ideological reason: Keynesianism, or rather its state intervention in the economy, had always been a red rag to the richest of the rich in the US. Under pressure from them, President Richard Nixon also used the crisis at that time to build up a “rightist counterestablishment” [Gibbs 2024, pp. 3-7] and enlisted the MPS for this purpose. This made MPS neoliberals such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman policy makers at a high political level. Although paved by Nixon, the decisive political change, according to Gibbs, took place under Democrat Jimmy Carter: liberalization of the financial sector, deregulation of industry, austerity programs at the expense of workers’ living standards, reduction of the influence of trade unions, and increased military spending. President Ronald Reagan accentuated the shift to the right that Nixon had initiated, but which the Democrats began to implement rigorously under Jimmy Carter (president from 1977 to 1981). An important indicator of the concrete effects of these neoliberal policies is that since Carter’s term in office, productivity gains in the US economy have risen significantly faster than wage increases (keyword: income and wealth disparities).[ii] With the abolition of the separation of commercial and investment banking in 1999, another Democrat, President Bill Clinton, ignited the afterburners of neoliberalism and market radicalism: he opened the floodgates of financialization and thus the deindustrialization of the US economy and, subsequently, other prominent Western economies, including even the highly industrialized German economy.
Neoliberalism – a philosophical short circuit
Neoliberalism or market radicalism is the result of a fatal philosophical short circuit: this can be explained by the tradition of Western Christian-Jewish thinking in dichotomies, i.e., in irresolvable opposites between black and white, good and evil, instinct versus self-control, matter versus spirit, feeling versus thinking, egoism versus altruism, damnation and salvation … Neoliberalism claims to have succeeded in overcoming this dichotomy: Neoliberals see the solution in the dynamic equilibrium of “the market.”[iii] In their view, this equilibrium cancels out, i.e., eliminates, the antagonistic aspirations of human beings toward one another. Neoliberals attribute the transformation of the total chaos of selfish struggle of everyone against everyone else into total harmony, i.e., into a (dynamic) equilibrium in the market, to the miraculous workings of an “invisible hand”—in a misguided reference to Adam Smith: He used the expression “invisible hand” only once in each of his two monumental works, “Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759) and “Wealth of Nations” (1776), and then rather casually, whereas neoliberals base their entire market radicalism on this “invisible hand.”
In the neoliberal worldview, a numinous – rationally inexplicable, immeasurable, scientifically untenable – providence in the form of the “invisible hand” ensures that the selfish, self-serving, animalistic – “evil” – aspirations of individuals lead to a dynamic equilibrium in the market. [iv] Neoliberals see this equilibrium as the greatest possible common good, harmony, and peace, in other words, the “good” par excellence, “salvation.”.[v] This is because the benefit to all market participants in the dynamic equilibrium of the market is the maximum possible for everyone, and therefore no market participant has any need to change anything – always under the tacit assumption that all market participants act completely rationally and selfishly.
Neoliberals see human freedom in complete competition between all individuals. However, this concept of freedom is a pure circular argument – it assumes what should actually be the result. The neoliberal argument goes like this: if homo economicus is a rational being – and this is a prerequisite for neoliberals – then he believes in the rationality of the market and, thanks to his rational insight, submits to its “laws” of his own free will – humans are therefore only free if they submit to complete competition (the radical, uncompromising pursuit of self-interest), the “laws of the market,” i.e., the workings of the “invisible hand,” and the postulate of complete rationality.[vi]
This is an unusual concept of freedom – it is a concept of self-subjugation. Individual freedom in the Enlightenment sense can be justified, according to thinkers such as Luther, Hobbes, and Adam Smith, solely on the basis that humans are not regarded as either “evil” or “good,” but as ambivalent beings capable of both ‘good’ and “evil.” Only in the tension between “good” and “evil” does man have alternatives, i.e., the freedom to choose one or the other and to take responsibility for that choice. Neoliberalism takes a different path: It fundamentally regards humans as self-serving, animalistic, inherently “evil” and “sinful” beings. The facet of “goodness” that humans are also capable of, according to Luther and others, is omitted, and with it the tension between ‘good’ and “evil” and, as a result, humans’ freedom to choose one or the other. In the neoliberal understanding, “good” is ensured by the “invisible hand” or its result: “the market” in (dynamic) equilibrium. According to Luther and Adam Smith, the conscience or ethics that guides humans in their decisions is taken away from them in neoliberalism and delegated to “the market,” an external force and power that stands above humans: “The market knows best! His will be done!” It is the authority of the absolute “good.”
The most active of all market liberals, Friedrich Hayek [2011, p. 80f][viii], turned “the market” into a one-sided, secular religion, i.e., he elevated the market to transcendence: “In the literal sense, it [the transcendent – HA] refers, of course, to that which far exceeds our understanding, our desires and goals, and our sensory perceptions, and to that which contains and creates knowledge that no single brain or organization could possess or invent. This is clearly evident in the religious meaning of the word, as we see, for example, in the Lord’s Prayer, where one of the petitions is: ‘Thy will (i.e., not my will) be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ or in the passage from the Gospel where it says: ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last’ (John 15:16). But an even more striking example of transcendent order, an example that happens to refer to a purely naturalistic order (in the sense that it is not derived from any supernatural power), namely that of evolution, does not require the animism that is still present in religion: the idea that a single brain or a single will (e.g., that of an omniscient God) can rule and order.“ [ix]
The whole pseudo-religious delusion of belief, according to which it is not my will that is done, but that of the god called ”the market”… However, Hayek not only places “the market” in the realm of the transcendent, but also “capitalism” or what he understands by it. He also regards it as an inevitable evolutionary destiny and not as an institution created by humans and shapeable by humans – for him, it is a phenomenon of a higher power. Walter Otto Ötsch [2019, p. 89]: “Hayek sees (…) capitalism as a necessary and inevitable result of the cultural evolution of humanity, which occurred ‘spontaneously’ and without conscious planning.”
The assertion that “the market” and capitalism are the end points of evolution is sectarian: the neoliberal community believes itself to be in possession of the irrefutable and ultimate, ergo eternally valid, absolute truth. This is incompatible with Karl Popper – who was involved in the founding of the MPS in 1947 – and his understanding of science: Knowledge – “the truth” – is always provisional knowledge in the sciences, which means that the sciences are mistaken in a permanent process of seeking the truth. Hayek and his followers exclude this in relation to the “market” and capitalism.
The ultimate philosophical somersault of market radicals
Now market radicalism has an ultimate dogmatic somersault up its sleeve: If “the market” – and with it capitalism – is the epitome of “good,” indeed of the divine, then market participants MUST act purely selfishly, without ifs or buts, and fight each other in total competition – otherwise the “invisible hand” cannot ensure the “good,” the equilibrium in the “market.” In other words: the neoliberal homo economicus MUST and CAN ONLY act in a purely rational and selfish manner. This means nothing other than that neoliberalism redefines the radical pursuit of self-interest by individuals from something originally “evil” into a virtue, into an indispensable POSITIVE NORM of action – into “good.” Those who are not self-interested, who do not give free rein to their self-serving instincts, harm the “good,” i.e., the “invisible hand” and the balance in the “market” (and with it the functioning of capitalism).. With this reinterpretation of “good” and “evil,” neoliberalism deprives humans of their ethical and moral discretion, i.e. of their freedom and responsibility – and in this way banishes them to the animal kingdom of complete instinct and impulse.[x] For what makes humans human, their position between the past and the future, their openness to the world, their empathy for their fellow human beings, their spiritual-cultural dimension that helps them to structure the world in a meaningful way and to distinguish between right and wrong, and their striving for a meaning of existence beyond the material desire to always have more – there is no place for any of this in the neoliberal worldview and in the radical market world. This is the price of “religion” and the ideology of salvation in the materialistic, radical market Nirvana of goods and services and short-term profit maximization, which neoliberals spread throughout the world with all the sanctimonious zeal of a sect as a message of salvation. (Distinction cm)
By pretending to resolve the eternal conflict between “good” and “evil” by relegating humans to the animal kingdom—to nature, which per se knows neither ‘good’ nor “evil”—neoliberalism succumbs to a complete naturalistic fallacy. Ultimately, this is also the basis for the neoliberals’ claim to be a value-free scientific discipline that can invoke irrefutable market laws analogous to the laws of nature, or at least believes it can do so. Thanks to global propaganda, its prophets have largely succeeded in establishing this claim to omnipotence in the minds of people in the 20th and 21st centuries and subjugating them in the name of a false freedom: the radical market-driven neoliberal credo – Wendy Brown [2021] speaks of a “mind drug” – has long since become second nature to all of us and has made us addicted. Without being aware of the neoliberal brainwashing – a hallmark of every powerful ideology – we use phrases such as
“the market” (as an anonymous, unassailable, all-powerful force)
“The market commands!”,
“The laws of the market force us to…,”
“eternal growth!,”
“Everyone is replaceable!,”
“If I don’t do it (e.g., produce weapons), someone else will!,”
“The market is a zero-sum game – what the other guy wins, I lose!,”
“(Economic) success is always right!“,
”Companies MUST lay off employees…“
”Markets need (planning) security!“
”Do-gooder!“ (as a mockery of ethical thinking and behavior)
”Greed is good!“
”More freedom, less government“ (instead of: ”More responsibility, more freedom!”)
etc. etc.
utterly unreflective.
“The market” – the new Leviathan
Neoliberalism sacrifices free and responsible individuals to the Holy Grail or Leviathan known as “the market,” which market radicals attempt to portray as something both natural and supernatural, rather than a man-made institution, as the social sciences do. A (Hobbesian sociopath?) Friedrich Hayek and his equally sociopathic disciples trust “the market” more than they trust people made of flesh and blood, or rather, people with heads, hearts, and hands, because ultimately, it is people who are responsible for their actions.The market“ is trusted more by a (like Hobbes, sociopathic?) Friedrich Hayek and his equally sociopathic disciples than by people of flesh and blood, or rather, of head, heart, and hand, because ultimately, people carry within themselves the core of freedom and unpredictability. This contradicts the neoliberal conception of the ”market” as a completely predictable (natural) phenomenon according to Newtonian physics – keyword: “equilibrium” – diametrically. In accordance with Newtonian mechanics and natural science and their laws, market radicals strive to make humans into completely predictable natural beings, i.e., to return them to their – animalistic! – natural state. The market radicals attempt to do this by using psychological incentives and conditioning[xi] to force people into the arena of “total competition,” into a war of everyone against everyone else, in which they attack each other completely unscrupulously and without restraint – in accordance with the law of the jungle that prevails in nature. Neoliberalism therefore does everything in its power to help the strong prevail—nothing must stand in the way of natural selection! In other words, neoliberalism is not only a social Darwinist concept, but a Darwinist project in the process of being implemented.
Market liberals vehemently deny that they have a social Darwinist mindset, but a glance at their (economic) policy toolbox reveals them to be blatant social Darwinists: They have a whole arsenal of instruments at their disposal for redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top, i.e., from the (many) weak to the (few) strong: (highlighting added)
Privatization
Deregulation
Reduction of the public sector
Promotion of the free market
Minimal state intervention
Financial globalization
Limitation of government spending
Reduction of budget deficits
Tax relief for high and highest incomes
Fight against trade unions
Wage pressure
Control over economically and politically influential media
Financing of neoliberal/radical market think tanks, university chairs, and NGOs
Etc. etc.
Against this backdrop, German political scientist Rainer Mausfeld [2018] speaks of a “neoliberal revolution from above” which—nota bene! – “was carried out largely by social democratic parties,” as was the case in Germany from 1999 onwards through “reductions in corporate tax rates, the top tax rate, withholding tax, the abolition of capital gains tax, the abolition of inheritance tax for corporate heirs, Hartz IV, massive expansion of the low-wage sector, and temporary work.” According to Stubbs et al. [2021], the instruments of neoliberalism also include institutions such as the IMF, GATT, WTO, OECD, and World Bank, which obey neoliberal logic.
The rational self-interest of everyone against everyone else, the reduction of human beings to an unscrupulous, self-serving, rational mumbo jumbo called homo economicus, the elimination of all freedom and responsibility, the imprisonment in a purely materialistic world of goods and services – the palpable disintegration of solidarity in Western societies is the neoliberal self-fulfilling prophecy in an advanced stage of fulfillment. The icon of market radicalism, Margaret Thatcher [1987], summed up the program in a legendary statement: “There is no such thing as society, there are only men, women and families!”[xii]. Building an entire economic, political, and social worldview on the rational, self-interested homo economicus is a socially destructive doctrine: according to this view, society consists merely of solipsistic monads that come together for the purpose of economic exchange and then – once the “business” is done . And the market radicals have an economy ready not only for the economy itself, but for all areas of life: the economy of crime, the family, legislation, politics, religion, health, education, charity, happiness, romantic relationships, love… just like Brecht: “From true love to love as a commodity”; there is no province of humanity that market radicals do not try to occupy in their economistic zeal – in the case of market radicals and neoliberals, however, this is not merely blind, “specialized” economism, but a highly sophisticated concept of economic autocracy, i.e., Neoliberalism – a balance sheet of misery and destruction
What has neoliberalism or market radicalism brought to people and the world? With his famous essay [Friedman 1970] “A Friedman Doctrine – The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits,” published on September 13, 1970, in the New York Times Magazine, Milton Friedman, awarded the “Nobel Prize in Economics” in 1976 (which is not a normal Nobel Prize, but is awarded by the Swedish Reichsbank. cm), finally gave free rein to radical market-driven profit-seeking: He declared the pursuit of profit to be the highest maxim of entrepreneurship: “(…) in a free society (…) there is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits as long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception and fraud.”
Whereas it was once customary for companies to make useful things such as socks, bread, mobility, etc., the highest priority was and is now “making money” – very much in line with Nixon’s “rightist counterestablishment” and the US plutocrats behind him. In this way, Friedman ideologically freed the economic world from its service to people and society – from the role in which it had been seen since the philosophers of ancient Greece. Under the regime of neoliberalism, it went from being the servant of society to the ruler of society: among market radicals, social Darwinism is not merely a principle for shaping the economy, but all areas of life, including society and culture.
In 2011, Mark Kramer and Michael E. Porter[xiii], the latter a world-renowned economics professor at Harvard University’s Business School and himself a self-critical neoliberal, summed up 40 years of neoliberalism as follows: “(…) In recent years, business has increasingly been viewed as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely perceived to be prospering at the expense of the broader community. (…) The legitimacy of business has fallen to levels not seen in recent history. (…) A big part of the problem lies with companies themselves, which remain trapped in an outdated approach to value creation. (…) They continue to view value creation narrowly, optimizing short-term financial performance in a bubble while missing the most important customer needs and ignoring the broader influences that determine their longer-term success.“ The following examples give an idea of what this has led to and continues to lead to, and of the damage caused by the weapons of mass destruction of Wall Street – the ”war room” of the neoliberals:
Chemical disaster in Bhopal (India), 1984: Depending on estimates, between 3,800 and 25,000 people died as a result of a gas leak at a chemical plant controlled by the US company Union Carbide. The cause: cost-cutting – in line with Friedman’s profit maximization – in safety precautions.[xiv]
When the medical costs of smoking rose in the Czech Republic, an increase in tobacco taxes was considered. To avert this, Philip Morris presented a cost-benefit analysis showing that the state earns more from smoking than it loses: as long as smokers live with medical treatment, they incur costs for the state. However, because smokers die earlier, the state ultimately saves more on pensions and elderly care than it spends on medical care for smokers – dying for profit [Sandel, 2013, p. 61f].
Boeing Max, 2018/2019: In order to save the costs of a completely new development in competition with Airbus, the company modified the long-running Boeing 737, which, however, had a negative effect on flight performance. To improve this, Boeing developed control software (MCAS) that led to the crash of two aircraft. 346 people lost their lives. Boeing considered MCAS training for pilots unnecessary – saving money and dying for profit.[xv]
These examples represent millions of other people who have fallen ill or died as a result of growing income and wealth disparities or impoverishment due to relentless working conditions, harmful products, and a destroyed environment for the sake of short-term profit.
The effects of neoliberalism and market radicalism are spilling over from the economy into social life: Consider the millions of people in today’s Western world who can no longer find their place because the self-serving struggle of all against all, orchestrated by market radicalism, undermines social cohesion and divides people so much and pits them against each other that they ultimately lose sight of the meaning of their existence. For ultimately, the meaning of life lies in knowing that one is good for someone or something, that one is a human being among other human beings and, as such, has a place in life without having to justify it further—especially not in terms of economic utility. The ideology of neoliberalism or market radicalism, the concept of the market society, strikes and shakes people to their core.
Neoliberalism attempts to justify all the catastrophic effects of its ideology described above with growing material prosperity, even though it has long since produced far more than what most people apparently really need in terms of goods and services to be happy:
The happiness of people in the Western world has long since ceased to correlate positively with GDP growth, i.e., with an increasing amount of available goods and services. According to Mathias Binswanger [2010, p. 28], real gross domestic product (the total value of all goods and services produced domestically) per capita in the US has more than tripled since World War II, but since 1956, the percentage of people who describe themselves as “very happy” has been falling steadily; in Japan, GDP has risen sixfold since World War II, but the percentage of people who describe themselves as “very happy” has remained constant. Since the 1970s, data has also been available from Europe: here too, the happiness rate has remained constant despite rising GDP. In the Western world today, there is no longer any positive correlation between material prosperity and happiness. In other words, the economy produces far more than people really need to be happy – it produces beyond people’s needs. According to Porter/Kramer [2011], this is at the expense of people, society, the natural environment, and the economic world itself.
The former chief economist of the World Bank’s Environment Department, Herman Daly, concludes that today’s economic growth is excessive, with environmental and social costs that outweigh the benefits of production. It does more harm than good to society [Klingholz 2014, p. 70].
Market radicalism condemns people to happiness through material goods and services without ever asking them whether they want this, how much they want, whether this is really their happiness, and whether they are willing to pay the price for it. Peter F. Drucker saw Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), a utilitarian who stood at the beginning of the development of today’s neoliberalism, Peter F. Drucker saw one of the “most dangerous of all liberal totalitarians, who had a thousand ideas for enslaving the world for its own good” [Malik 2004, p. 32]. Nothing has changed in this regard to this day: in the persons of Thaler and Sunstein, today’s behavioral economics wants to “help individuals live longer and healthier lives”[xvi] – what the individuals who are to be helped understand this to mean remains unclear – the world in the hands of the ideology of a sect that wants to force or condemn humanity to a happiness that only it considers happiness …
Since 1873, economists have known that happiness cannot be deliberately pursued or forced and therefore cannot be used as a dependent variable in their calculations of happiness and utility: John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) recorded this in his legacy, in his autobiography, published in the year of his death, 1873: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life.” [Mill 1952 (1873), p. 120f] – In other words: if you chase happiness, it will run away from you! Neoliberals and market radicals are still trying to catch it today – at any price …
Let’s turn the economic world back on its head!
How can we find our way out of the anti-human and anti-social neoliberal treadmill of paternalistic, even dictatorially imposed (un)happiness? Fundamentally, it is a matter of turning the economic world back on its head, i.e., freeing it from the nihilistic end in itself of the primacy of profit maximization (cf. Milton Friedman) and putting it back at the service of people and society by ensuring that the corporate world produces what is useful for them. This requires the corporate world to define itself again from the outside, based on the needs of people and society, and not from the inside (based on its sole and self-serving goal of profit maximization). From this perspective, what Jim Clemmer [2017] calls the “profit paradox” is anything but paradoxical:
“That’s the paradox to be managed; companies that exist only to produce a profit don’t last long. And companies that don’t pay attention to profits can’t exist to fulfill their long-term purpose. Pursuing profits without a higher purpose or pursuing a purpose without profit are equally fatal strategies. These aren’t either/or positions to choose between. They’re and/or issues to be balanced. We need to get them in the right order. Many studies have shown that profits follow from worthy and useful purposes. Fulfilling the purpose comes first; then the profits follow. Profits are a reward. The size of our reward depends on the value of the service we’ve given others.”
In other words: Control the causes of success, not success itself! This is a fundamental principle of entrepreneurship that neoclassical neoliberalism has completely forgotten—or rather, wanted to forget in the name of a social Darwinist concept of freedom that means freedom for the few at the expense of the many. A world in which the poor and destitute are expected to be content with their poverty and destitution—after all, according to neoliberal thinking, they brought it on themselves—and in which the desire of the few rich to have more and moreof the few rich must not be subject to any limits, neither material nor ethical. This treatment of the poor and destitute, their humiliation and hopelessness, is the gateway to right-wing populism almost everywhere in the Western world: it is shaking the positions of power of the neoliberals, sometimes violently, but it also has neoliberal facets of its own, not least social Darwinist ones. The end of history, hastily proclaimed by the neoliberals after the collapse of the USSR, is not happening. Rather, it could be that neoliberalism itself is approaching its end, trapped in its own anti-human and anti-social dogmas. History continues – the spirit of humanity, the spirit of freedom and responsibility will always find a way to break through: the “market” and capitalism, as interpreted by neoliberals and market radicals, are not the end of evolution and history.
10/17/1988 President Reagan and Nancy Reagan in the East Room congratulating Milton Friedman receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom – Image source: Wikipedia.
About the author Heinrich Anker:
Heinrich Anker (* 1952) first completed a vocational apprenticeship as a journalist and reporter at a Swiss daily newspaper. He then studied history, sociology, and media studies at the University of Bern, graduating with a master’s degree in economics. He then worked for public broadcasting in Switzerland in the field of empirical social research (audience research and program development), on which he also wrote his dissertation and published in various journals. Since 2008, he has been working in the field of corporate culture analysis and development and also works as a university lecturer and author in this field. His most important publications:
Radio usage from 1975 to 1992 as reflected in SRG audience research, Verlag Sauerländer, Aarau, 1995.
Footnotes:
[i] For him, socialism and National Socialism were not the only problems, but also laissez-faire liberalism. Lippmann unreservedly stood for justice, freedom, equality, and brotherhood, while neoliberals (ostensibly) placed freedom above everything else. Furthermore, he did not radically reject state intervention in the economic world.
[ii] In the US, economic productivity gains and wages rose in parallel from 1948 to 1980, after which the positive correlation between productivity gains and wages decoupled: the former rose significantly more (+64.6%) than the latter between 1979 and 2021 (+17.3%). See Gibbs, David N. [2024, p. 2].
[iii] “The market” does not exist in reality. It is an abstract construct of neoliberals and market radicals. That is why it is placed in quotation marks and closing quotation marks in this essay.
[iv] For neoliberals, it was like the discovery of the Higgs particle, the “God particle,” for physicists when, in 1954, the French-American mathematician and econometrician Gérard Debreu, together with Kenneth Arrow [Arrow, Debreu, 1954, pp. 265–290] published the paper Existence of an Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy in the journal Econometrica. Debreu was awarded the “Nobel Prize in Economics” for this in 1983. What was the significance of this paper? It provides a purely mathematical – in contrast to the Higgs particle, which is free of any empirical evidence – purely formal proof that under competitive conditions or under the condition of consistent self-interest and profit maximization of individuals, a dynamic equilibrium – a Pareto optimum – can be achieved. For neoliberals, Debreu and Arrow’s essay was something like a “proof of God”: the “invisible hand” exists and ensures that the individual actions of all market participants do not end in chaos, but can lead to equilibrium.
[v] This is of eminent importance in the history of dogma. The absolutist royal houses argued, drawing on Thomas Hobbes, that without their absolutist rule, total chaos would break out and people would tear each other apart in their animal greed. Adam Smith countered this by arguing that although humans are also motivated by self-interest, in the form of empathy (Adam Smith spoke of sympathy, but understood this to mean what we now understand as empathy) and conscience (the “impartial inner spectator”), every human being also possesses a counterforce (a kind of inner policeman) that moderates and controls these selfish desires, because it is a fundamental need of all human beings to be respected by their fellow human beings as honorable and praiseworthy, in accordance with the principle of empathy. According to Adam Smith, humans are intrinsically self-directed, self-governing beings. Therefore, humans do not need a higher, absolutist authority, no Leviathan, but can interact with one another in freedom and personal responsibility – without chaos breaking out. This is the core essence of liberalism. The so-called neo-“liberals” see this very differently: humans are – as in Hobbes and absolutism – self-serving animals. Unlike Adam Smith, neoliberals do not see the countervailing power to this within humans themselves, but rather in “the market“ as an external, extrinsic power standing above humans, the external corrective to the animal instincts of homo economicus – ”the market” as a quasi-natural force like gravity, which no one can escape. Where does that leave room for human freedom and responsibility? The only “freedom” in neoliberalism is to submit to its ‘market’ or its “laws” or to refuse to do so. But according to the neoliberal interpretation, refusal is not even possible because, in the opinion of market liberals, all areas of human life are governed by neoliberal economic principles – the whole of life is economics! No one can escape the neoliberal world except at the price of their own destruction—that is TOTALITARIANISM, i.e., the antithesis of LIBERALISM, of freedom, democracy, human rights, and inalienable human dignity. Neoliberalism sees itself as a project of freedom against socialism and fascism, but immediately takes this freedom away again – in the form of neoliberalism, the LEVIATHAN has returned. See also Anker, Heinrich [2024]: From the American Dream to the American Nightmare. How neoclassical economic liberalism is destroying people, society, and democracy. The example of the USA, Novum, no page number, pp. 81–135.
[vi] Today’s behavioral economics considers the neoliberal ideal of completely rational decision-making for the purpose of maximizing self-interest to be unrealistic – according to behavioral economics, human decisions can be flawed. However, behavioral economics sees its task as developing techniques to use nudging—incentives—to guide people toward the neoliberal ideal of complete rationality and self-interest. This remains one of the cornerstones of market radicalism and neoliberalism. See Klonschinski, Andrea, Wündisch, Joachim [2016]: “Preferences, well-being, and rationality – On the conceptual foundations of libertarian paternalism and their consequences for its legitimacy,” in: Zeitschrift für praktische Philosophie, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2016, pp. 599-632, pp. 614f. Those who use nudging or incentives see humans as stimulus-response mechanisms, not rational beings. Liberal democracy, however, is based on humans as rational beings, even if this is only an ideal or even a mere fiction. The neoliberal concept of incentives and nudging fundamentally contradicts this: it aims to induce people to behave in a certain way behind their backs, so to speak, i.e., to force them to be happy—this is paternalism. This fundamentally calls into question the concept of democracy.
[vii] Hobbes was one of the first to grant individuals natural rights, i.e., the right to freedom “from below”—from the people—and not “from above,” i.e., not dependent on the goodwill of any autocratic authorities. . The fact that he saw man as a wolf who, in order to survive, must delegate his individual freedom to the all-powerful Leviathan so as not to be eaten by the other wolves, can probably be attributed to Hobbes’ highly anxious, depressive, order-obsessed personality and possibly also to the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War of 1618 – 1648. His call for the Leviathan – his work “Leviathan” was published in 1651 – which made him one of the pioneers of absolutism, cannot have been easy for him, because he understood humans not only as ‘bad’ – wolf-like and violent – but also as “good”. This is where he shares similarities with Luther and the Scottish Presbyterian Adam Smith, who was also a Protestant and who likewise started from an ambivalent view of human nature.
[viii] The textual highlights in the quoted text are from Hayek.
[ix] Neoliberals worship “the market” and its prices as a “discovery process”: “It is sufficient for people to adapt freely, within the limits of their knowledge and within their environment, to changing economic circumstances. They can see from the change in price relations how they should do this. A producer, for example, does not need to know why a raw material relevant to him is becoming more expensive at the other end of the world. It is enough for him to take note of the fact and reduce or shift his demand (…).“ ”The market” as a purely mechanical stimulus-response machine in which any individual responsibility for the consequences of one’s own economic actions is excluded – and thus also any freedom. See Horn, Karen [2013]: “Friedrich August von Hayek: Against the presumption of knowledge,” in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), October 12, 2013, source: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/wirtschaftswissen/die-weltverbesserer/friedrich-august-von-hayek-wider-die-anmassung-von-wissen-12605023.html, downloaded on January 27, 2022.
[x] According to Jack Hirshleifer [1980], humans maximize their own utility, as he believes all other living beings do, e.g., goldfish, bees, etc. In contrast, according to philosophical anthropology (Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen, Gadamer, Sartre, Heidegger…), humans are distinguished by the fact that, unlike animals, they are not completely determined by their drives and instincts. The area of human existence that is not determined, in contrast to pure natural beings, is that of the mind. In the realm of the mind, humans are not subject to the stimulus-response pattern of natural beings. However, the homo economicus of neoliberalism is merely a stimulus-response being. In this sense, neoliberals turn humans into animals. The topoi of “incentives” and “nudging” also point in this direction: They obey the conditioning principle of Pavlov’s dog: humans as creatures that can be trained like animals—and are therefore completely predictable.
[xi] A central stimulus-response system operates a) via the status issue: “Life is a constant struggle; if you don’t fight, you’re a failure!” “If you’re not happy, it’s your own fault!”, “The world belongs to the successful!”, “Brands make people!”, “A real man plants a tree, fathers a son, and drives a Jaguar”, “People without money are losers or lazybones”…, b) through habitus and distinction (possessions). Another strand runs through c) provoking fears, e.g., about job security: layoffs, pressure on employees through constant reorganization, systematic disparagement of employees, military-style organization (on the one hand, the ranks of officers, on the other, the soldiers, i.e., the army of employees, strategy literally: warfare…), the destruction of trade unions, completely excessive salaries for top management as a sign of their omnipotence on the one hand and the inferiority of employees on the other, the creation of fears of missing out or falling behind, e.g. through artificial shortages (cf. the humiliating Black Friday battles). All these measures not only affect the economic situation of those affected – they reach much deeper into people’s self-image and self-esteem: The implicit message is always that human dignity ultimately lies only in economic existence, in the power to work and consume – in other words, in “economic usefulness.” However, the primal longing of human beings as human beings is not to have to justify their existence in any way, especially not with economic “usefulness,” but to be able to exist unconditionally and without preconditions as human beings among other human beings, to have a place in this world and in this life unconditionally and without preconditions. In contrast, market radicalism is encroaching on more and more areas of human life – even extending to an economy of love. The consequences of judging people solely on the basis of their economic value are obvious: a slippery slope toward “worthless life.” This threat is an unconscious constant companion of people in the neoliberal capitalist world—one of its driving forces. This driving force does not motivate in a positive way, but rather toward avoidance, fear, aggression, and even hatred. “The market” is ultimately destructive, a constant struggle for existence – the opposite of the salvation claimed by neoliberals. The constant struggle for survival, the constant war as an inevitable fate – the overlaps between this right-wing extremist worldview and neoliberalism/market radicalism are obvious.
[xii] Thatcher is said to have complained in her memoirs that this statement had been misused and misinterpreted. In the context of neoliberalism, however, it can hardly be misinterpreted; rather, it points to how difficult or impossible it is for market liberals to explain the phenomenon of “society” on the basis of their rational, self-interested homo economicus. To do so, they have no choice but to claim that economics is the driver of culture and not the other way around. However, this would mean, among other things, that in the pre-cultural state, the goods to be distributed must have already existed, rather than the social and cultural conventions for their creation and distribution. Much more plausible is the idea that social units arise through the union of people who want to achieve something together that they would not be able to achieve alone. This presupposes, on the one hand, communicative (cultural) agreement on which goals are to be pursued jointly and by what means – this involves (social) agreements on the distribution of roles – and, on the other hand, agreement on who should have what share in these common achievements – at this point, at the latest, questions of social power also come into play. In short: before anything is produced and distributed, complex cultural and civilizational processes take place. The production of goods is only one of many areas to which such processes relate – in their original state, they concern the definition of roles and their distribution, agreements on the distribution of power and leadership of the group, hunting and harvesting, positive and negative sanctions, rites of passage, protection and defense of the group against external attacks, care and upbringing of offspring, religious rites, relationships with transcendence, genetic exchange with other groups, and, last but not least, exchange within the group and trade with other groups as one of many areas of social and cultural life. It is implausible to attribute the emergence of culture and civilization to economic exchange—with this theory of evolution, Hayek is putting the cart before the horse. This error occurs when all phenomena of life and culture are viewed solely from an economic perspective – this is economism, which among neoliberals and market radicals leads to reductionism (homo economicus as a purely self-interested, rational animal) and determinism (pseudo-scientificity and pseudo-natural laws, hypostasization of the “market” and capitalism into transcendence).
[xiii] Porter, Michael E., Mark R. Kramer [2011]: “Creating Shared Value. How to reinvent capitalism – and unleash a wave of innovation and growth,” in: Harvard Business Review, January-February 2011.
[xiv] “In fact, it turned out that the tank containing the dangerous substance MIC was a time bomb. The safety systems had either been dismantled or were never operational. The MIC tank was also overfilled. Apparently, Union Carbide employees had not received any proper safety training. When the gas cloud escaped from the pressure relief valve, not even the alarm siren was activated to warn the population. ‘The cause of the disaster was total neglect. Neglect everywhere. And we worked in such a dangerous plant.“ Source: Deutschlandfunk [2014].
[xv] Gollmer, Philipp [2024]: ”Boeing must admit guilt for 737 Max crashes – otherwise the US justice system is threatening legal action,” in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, July 1, 2024: “The American aircraft manufacturer Boeing has until the end of the week to admit guilt in connection with the crash of two 737 Max aircraft.” Source: https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/boeing-soll-sich-wegen-737-max-abstuerzen-schuldig-bekennen-sonst-droht-die-us-justiz-mit-einem-prozess-ld.1837492, Download: March 13, 2025.
An investigative committee of the US Congress had already concluded in March 2020 that a “culture of concealment” had prevailed at Boeing. Source: Tagesschau ARD, “Billion-dollar fine for Boeing over 737 Max disaster,” as of January 7, 2021, 11:31 p.m.
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/boeing-milliarden-strafe-737-max-101.html
Download January 7, 2022.
[xvi] Qizilbash, M. [2012]: “Informed desire and the ambitions of libertarianism,” in: Social Choice and Welfare 38, pp. 647–658, 2012, cited in Klonschinski, Andrea, Wündisch, Joachim, “Preferences, well-being, and rationality – On the conceptual foundations of libertarian paternalism and their consequences for its legitimacy,” in: Journal of Practical Philosophy, vol. 3, issue 1, 2016, pp. 599–632, p. 624. Perhaps I will not live a healthier and longer life if I donate a kidney to my partner, but perhaps I will live a more fulfilling and happier life.
Further reading by Heinrich Anker
– From the American Dream to the American Nightmare: How Neoclassical Economic Liberalism is Destroying People, Society, and Democracy. The example of the USA, Novum-Verlag, 2024; (The book is not easy to read, but highly recommended for those interested. cm)
– From the American Dream to the American Nightmare: How neoclassical neoliberalism is destroying people, society and democracy. The example of the USA (e-book), Novum, 2024 ;
– Coévolution, Culture d’Entreprise et Philosophie économique. Au delà du conflit entre l’économie et la société, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2017;
– “The Balanced Valuecard – healthy corporate culture, healthy employees” and “On the diagnosis and development of a health-promoting corporate culture with the Balanced Valuecard,” in: Pirker-Binder Ingrid (ed.), Prävention von Erschöpfung in der Arbeitswelt. Betriebliches Gesundheitsmanagement, interdisziplinäre Konzepte, Biofeedback, Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg, 2016, pp. 53–84;
– “The Value Balance in Business – Healthy Corporate Culture, Healthy Employees,” and “On Diagnosis and Development of a Health Promoting Corporate Culture with the Value Balance in Business,” in: Pirker-Binder, Ingrid (ed.), Mindful Prevention of Burnout in Workplace Health Management. Workplace Health Management, Interdisciplinary Concepts, Biofeedback, Springer International Publishing, 2017, pp. 67–103;
– Co-Evolution versus Self-Interest. Creating Shared Value with the Balanced Valuecard, Erich Schmidt-Verlag, Berlin, 2012;
– Wealthier Together. From Maximizing Short-Term Shareholder Value to Coevolution, Open Book Editions / iUniverse Verlag Bloomington IN, 2015;
– Balanced Valuecard. Performance Instead of Egoism, Haupt Verlag, Bern, 2010;
– The Meaning of the Whole. Building Blocks for Practical Life and Business Ethics, ATE, Münster, 2004;