Knowledge, Communication, and Anti-Critical Publicity: The Friedmans’ Market Public

Abstract

Focusing on the writings of Milton and Rose Friedman, this article explicates a model of a market public as the normative mode of public engagement in a neoliberal regime of governance. The Friedmans’ market public narrowly construes conceptions of knowledge as arising from direct experience and communication as information exchange. Knowledge as direct experience supports the putative universality of self-interest and the sovereignty of individuals as exclusive public actors. Presuming a uniformity of understanding, communication as information exchange dissociates advocates from messages and contributes to the Friedmans’ view of persuasion as an individualistic mode of interaction. Connecting the Friedmans’ model to contemporary scholarly critiques of neoliberalism, I argue that this model portends significant anti-democratic consequences. Citing former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ campaign to reorganize public education as a market, I illustrate the contemporary circulation of this model.