The core insight of the Neoliberal Thought Collective was that the cultural and the economic should not be treated as substitutes, much less discrete spheres of experience, but rather, as integrated into a virtuous whole: surrender your selfish arrogance and humbly prostrate yourself before the Wisdom of the Universe, as nurtured and conveyed by the market. "Be all you can be" had jettisoned the injunction to "know yourself" and replaced it with "Start your own business!" even if it only meant homeschooling your children. As religion took on more of the trappings of just-in-time provision of entertainment services, and "values" assumed the mix-and-match character of Do It Yourself bricolage, the materiality of rock-solid "interests" melted into thin air. After all, neoliberals deny that you are the unimpeachable judge of your own welfare, however much they worship at the altar of Freedom. The more the line between "The Sphere Previously Known as the Economic" and culture or religion was progressively obscured and erased, the more irreversible the neoliberal long march.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 298