2024/07/03 by Ian Bruff
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Economic Theory and Institutions #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/00346764.2024.2361156
crossref issued 2024/07/03 · crossref published 2024/07/03 · crossref published-online 2024/07/03 · openalex publication_date 2024/07/03 · crossref created 2024/07/03 · crossref published-print 2025/04/03 · crossref deposited 2025/05/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
The article contributes to the emerging literature on neoliberalism that explicitly rejects the long-held assumption that it is fundamentally about the valorisation of free markets. This scholarship has taken a more ‘applied’ approach hitherto, leaving open the question of whether neoliberalism might be about free markets in principle. Via a wide-ranging survey of texts authored by intellectuals from the Austrian, Chicago and Ordoliberal schools, the article explores the neoliberal endorsement of monopolistic corporations. While beginning with distinctive conceptions of markets, neoliberal intellectuals occupy remarkably similar ground once they elaborate on their vision for markets. Monopolistic corporations are most enthusiastically discussed by Austrian authors and in the most qualified manner by Ordoliberals, but the effect is analogous: they represent the ideal form taken by markets. Only when neoliberalism is detached from free markets can a fully appropriate critique be mounted, enhancing the possibilities for it to be overcome.