4. A primary ambition of the neoliberal project is to redefine the shape and functions of the state, not to destroy it. Neoliberals thus maintain an uneasy and troubled alliance with their sometimes fellow travelers, the anarchists and libertarians. The contradiction that the neoliberals constantly struggle against is that a strong state can just as easily thwart their program as implement it; hence, they are inclined to explore new formats of techno-managerial governance that protect their ideal market from what they perceive as unwarranted political interference. Considerable efforts have been developed to disguise or otherwise condone in rhetoric and practice the importance of the strong state that neoliberals endorse in theory. One implication is that democracy, ambivalently endorsed as the appropriate state framework for an ideal market, must in any case be kept relatively impotent, so that citizen initiatives rarely change much of anything (“constrained” democracy instead of the allegedly existing “unconstrained democracy”). Hence, the neoliberals seek to restructure the state with numerous audit devices (under the sign of “accountability”) or better yet, convert state services to be provided on a contractual basis. One should not confuse marketization of government functions with shrinking the state, however: if anything, bureaucracies become more unwieldy under neoliberal regimes. In practice, “deregulation” cashes out as “re-regulation,” only under a different set of ukases.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 2128