Neoliberalism and IQ: Naturalizing economic and racial inequality

Abstract

How did IQ become an important means of naturalizing economic and racial inequality and supporting neoliberal visions of a fully privatized, free market society? I show how post-WWII neoliberals and libertarians could employ ideas of “innate intelligence” to promote the reduction of government funding of social programs. For extreme libertarian economist Murray Rothbard, inequality among individuals and ethnicities was self-evident from human history and the a priori examination of the “natural order,” but IQ data could also be employed in the fight against “egalitarianism.” Any attempt to interfere in this “natural order,” such as civil rights legislation, was viewed as inherently evil. For libertarian Charles Murray and more mainstream neoliberals such as Milton Friedman, empirical research on intelligence was an effective means of influencing public perception and policy on welfare, affirmative action, and immigration. I discuss recent work on “national intelligence” in relation to neoliberal projects and enduring fears regarding reproduction and family.