Human Rights Review

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-020-00601-1
BOOK REVIEW

A Review of Jessica Whyte’s The Morals

of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise
of Neoliberalism (London, UK: Verso Books, 2019)

Matthew McManus 1

# Springer Nature B.V. 2020

The standard left-critique of both rights and neoliberalism, largely drawing on Foucault
and emphasizing its statist and economistic dimensions, still has a lot of gas left in the
tank. But a new generation of scholars have brought a refreshing blend of new takes on
the subject which complicate this now familiar narrative. Into this fray steps Jessica
Whyte with perhaps the best book on the subject yet: The Morals of the Market:
Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism published by Verso Books. Whyte has
written a magnificent history of the association between the moral discourse on rights
and neoliberalism which both synthesizes and goes beyond many of these earlier
efforts.
Whyte echoes recent authors, particularly Wendy Brown, in her insistence that we
more fully come to grip with the sheer scale of the neoliberal project. After a helpful
introduction, the early chapters of her book describe both the theoretical and political
ambitions of the early neoliberals. Contra expectations, these turned out to be quite a bit
more ambitious and sweeping than might have been expected. Whyte observes how, at
a 1947 meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, a statement was issued with the apoca-
lyptic claim that the “central values of civilization are in danger” (35). This is a striking
phrase given the Second World War had just recently ended, apparently making much
of the world safe for liberalism circa the defeat of its great ideological enemy on the
political right. But Whyte chronicles how many of the neoliberals were deeply con-
cerned with the anti and post-colonial movements emerging in the old European
empires, particularly those which adopted outwardly socialist or Marxist programs
for reform. They were also hostile to demands that Western civilization repent for its
various crimes against conquered peoples, insisting that colonization-though (often) in
principle wrong and perhaps misguided-ultimately benefited everyone by spreading
civilizing Christian and liberal mores while opening the world to free trade and
capitalism. For some of the more extreme neoliberals, these feelings became strong

* Matthew McManus
mcmanusm@whitman.edu

1
Department of Politics, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Avenue, Walla Walla State, Washington,
USA
 M. McManus

enough to generate genuinely reactionary sympathies (54). Others did not go quite so
far, but became increasingly pragmatic in their willingness to tolerate or even support
authoritarian regimes which might appear antithetical to the neoliberal emphasis on
freedom.
This brings us to the most interesting insight of Whyte’s book, which is the
conservative underpinning to neoliberalism in theory and practice. This is associated
with its approach to rights, which often echoes the skepticism of early conservatives
and reactionaries concerned that the spread of rights would lead to the decay of society
and social order. Neoliberalism has often been portrayed as a kind of super-classical
liberalism, utterly dedicated to the erosion of all barriers-including traditionalism-to the
spread of capital and the constitution of entrepreneurial subjects. Whyte agrees that this
did occur, but draws attention to how the neoliberals also emphasized the need for
stabilizing traditions, mores, and even religion to abet support for capital. She follows
Quinn Slobodian in recounting how many neoliberals were uncomfortable even talking
about the “economy” as an object which could be known or understood rationally,
since that would imply it can to some extent be regulated or controlled. The economy
is, at best, a “sublime object”-with many of the theological connotations implied. Such
movements from hard edged economism to fetishistic mysticism were apparently not
uncommon in the darker corners of neoliberal thought. One of the most brazen includes
a strangely “collectivist” emphasis on Christendom and the superiority of European
civilization when necessary to counteract the claims of leftists and anti-colonialists that
capital-allied with Western states- brought tyranny and oppression to much of the
world. Whyte also highlights how even their support for classical liberalism could
become tepid when it came to wholeheartedly embracing political rights to vote, run for
elected office, and so on. For the neoliberals, property rights and the associated
stabilizing hierarchies were the foundations of all other rights (3).
Nowhere were these displayed more spectacularly than in Pinochet’s authoritarian
regime, erected on the bones of Allende’s democratically elected progressive govern-
ment. In the most important Chapter of the book, Whyte vividly recounts how the
neoliberals fell over themselves praising the dictator’s brutal combination of market
reforms and social conservatism, with Milton Friedman and other Chicago educated
economists providing assistance and advice (166–168). She also highlights how rights
advocacy played an ambiguous role in successfully pushing against Pinochet’s aggres-
sively draconian tactics. While Amnesty International and other NGOs did lodge
complaints about his use of torture, disappearances and other illiberal policies they
remained largely neutral on the political dimensions of Pinochet overthrowing a
democratically elected regime promising revolutionary equality.
Whyte’s book ends on an agnostic note, calling for an end to the “depoliticization”
of human rights and a willingness to confront the powers that be more aggressively. I
whole heartedly agree, and would contend that the failure to take economic, cultural,
and social rights seriously-alongside the allied unwillingness to seriously address issues
of political economy-were the great handicap to rights discourse through the late 20th
and early 21st centuries. We are now witnessing the dark fruit of this failure with the
emergence of post-modern conservative populists across the globe, who rail against
elites while not addressing genuine inequities in power and persecuting the most
vulnerable members of society. Sadly, Whyte offers little theoretical or practical
guidance on what new forms rights might take if they are to be rejuvenated as a tool
A Review of Jessica Whyte’s The Morals of the Market: Human Rights...

to resist oppression; if indeed they can be. A more extensive concluding chapter might
have addressed such problems.
But these are minor quibbles towards a book that is a veritable treasure trove of
riches. The Morals of the Market will be read and discussed for many years to come
because Whyte has produced a rare work which makes interdisciplinary history and
philosophy look not only easy, but necessary.

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