Long before Friedman, Mises described the market order as the real basis of all the declarations of rights and charters of liberties, which remained a ‘dead letter’ without economic freedom. The freedom of a market society, as we have seen, operated within strict margins; there is no freedom to challenge the market as the key allocator of goods and social positions, to ameliorate the inequalities it produces, or to establish ends collectively. Rather, individual freedom is subject to the ‘harsh social pressure’ of the sovereign market, and the pursuit of individual values through consumption is limited by personal finances. … Mises spelled out the necessary relation between market freedom and political repression most clearly: there is ‘in the operation of the market no compulsion or coercion’, he argued. Therefore, the state ‘employs its power to beat people into submission solely for the prevention of actions destructive to the preservation and the smooth operation of the market economy’. The neoliberals knew all too well that their vision of freedom was indistinguishable from the violence that secured submission to the market.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 328