‘Drawing the Line’: Market Rule and Liberal Planning in the Governance of Capitalism

Abstract

This article critically engages with the ‘death of neoliberalism’ debate. Its purpose is not to determine whether neoliberalism is dying or not but to highlight the limitations of the question, ‘is neoliberalism dead?’ The question invites answers that cannot satisfactorily account for both continuities and transformations in capitalist governance. Existing sides of the debate miss the fact that market discipline is a shared commitment of all iterations of liberal governance, not only neoliberalism. Liberal governance, I argue, is a balancing act between market discipline and planning measures to manage the social costs of accumulation. The argument develops in two steps. First, it presents a brief intellectual history of social liberalism – the most explicitly pro-planning voice in the liberal canon – highlighting its similarities with neoliberalism. Second, it theoretically engages with the Open and Political Marxist traditions to discern the drivers behind the state’s concurrent impulse to expand and self-limit the scope of planning.