Oral Presentation by Walter Ötsch¹
¹ Johannes Kepler Unniversity of Linz, Hochschuoe fuer Gesellschaftsgestaltung Koblenz, Austria and Germany
TIME: Tuesday, 14 July, 10:30 – 12:00
Location: Room 1
Session: 1
Abstract
Neoliberalism is a complex concept with many meanings. It cannot be defined as an economic paradigm because representatives of different paradigms have called themselves neoliberal, conducted research networks across paradigmatic boundaries, and collaborated in think tanks (Ötsch et al. 2018). The commonality of these people (mostly economists) lies on a categorical level: They use a common concept of »the market«, which is endowed with special properties. These can be derived from the writings of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich August von Hayek (Ötsch 2025). That leads to a number of peculiarities that point to an outside of scientific ways of thinking. Examples are: (1) The concept of »the market« violates conventional understandings of the relationship between part and whole in the concept of a system – the consequence is that »the market« can neither be verified nor falsified nor operationalized; (2) it is conceived as homogeneous and its apparent homogeneous opposite (a »non-market«, such as »the socialism« or »the state«) and assigned a binary code. (3) The term is used in different meanings that are not compatible with each other, e.g., to describe a real phenomenon, as a normative reference point, as a fictitious possibility (e.g. „counterfactual“ historical narratives), as an institution-independent given social potentiality (e.g. for shock therapies in non-market economic orders) or as utopia. (3) »The market« is conceived as a field or as a process that is not limited by any other fields (e.g. by other subsystems in society) or processes (such as those of nature). It denotes a totality which, together with (2), has an immanent radicalization potential, which has historically manifested itself in the succession of people with reference to Mises, Hayek, or Milton Friedman (Slobodian 2025). These peculiarities lead to the thesis whether, for example, Hayek, in his critique of the Enlightenment, took a (historically) pre-scientific point of view, i.e. that of a mythical reasoning. Using the theories of myth developed by Ernst Cassirer (1997) and Kurt Hübner (1985) some parallels are shown using a table. The thesis is that both forms of myth, promoted by socially influential networks, relate to each other and together change society. In their overall effect, they have the potential both to destroy democracy and to thwart effective solutions to the impending climate catastrophe.