Detaching ‘neoliberalism’ from ‘free markets’: monopolistic corporations as neoliberalism’s ideal market form

Ian Bruff

Review of Social Economy, 2025, vol. 83, issue 2, 237-264

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00346764.2024.2361156

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