Citizens of the Market: The Un-Political Theory of the New Right
Author(s)
Gaffaney, Timothy J.
Abstract
The New Right political theorists’ brand of liberal theory seems to have captured a hegemonic position in the American public political discourse, where the language of individual choice and the logic of “the market” pervade the political debates ranging from education to healthcare, from environmental protection to urban redevelopment. Claiming to draw on a long tradition of liberal thought, from Locke, Smith, and Bentham to J.S. Mill, to name just a few, New Right theorists explicitly rely on a negative conception of liberty, i.e., non-coercion and non-interference. Accordingly, state action must be disciplined by these principles. Moreover, the precedence given to negative liberty has implications for the New Right’s conception of citizenship. Citizens are those individuals who have a claim to non-coercion or non-interference. So, the state will undermine the status of full citizenship when it violates these principles.
