5. Skepticism about the lack of control of democracy is offset by the persistent need to provide a reliable source of popular legitimacy for the neoliberal market state. Neoliberals seek to transcend the intolerable contradiction by treating politics as if it were a market and promoting an economic theory of democracy. In its most advanced manifestation, there is no separate content of the notion of citizenship other than as customer of state services. This supports the application of neoclassical economic models to previously political topics; but it also explains why the neoliberal movement must seek to consolidate political power by operating from within the state. (This is the topic of our final section.) The spread of market relations is inevitably spearheaded by state actors. The abstract rule of law is frequently conflated with or subordinated to conformity to the neoliberal vision of an ideal market. The “night-watchman” version of the state is thus comprehensively repudiated: there is no separate sphere of the market, fenced off, as it were, from the sphere of civil society. Everything is fair game for marketization.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 2129