RE: How Neoliberalism Failed to Keep Fascism at Bay
I never read Foucault so this was quite interesting. I'm not sure I agree that ordoliberalism is neoliberal. In my understanding, ordoliberalism is much closer to Keynesian economics or social liberalism (ie. the state should regulate and ensure social safety net). Neoliberalism was a later development, in the late 70s/early 80s.
Another interesting thing (that Chomsky loves to bring up when we mention Adam Smith) is that the "invisible hand" did not mean that we should worship the markets come hell or high water, but Smith meant that it would be as if the owner class are "led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society." Yeah, he couldn't have been more wrong.
I added a bit more in an edit at the end because while the post ended quite dramatically, I wasn't satisfied with its clarity.
To address your points, you are correct that ordoliberalism (German neoliberalism) is much closer to Keynesian economics. The discussion I didn't want to get distracted by in the post (but am happy to here) is that neoliberalism had its roots there. Later, of course, around the time of the rise of the Zapatistas, we began speaking of neoliberalism differently, in the way that we still do today. Under this model, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher would be eminent neoliberals.
However, I still want to start at the historical roots of contemporary neoliberalism. The neoliberals agree with the essential findings of their ordoliberal predecessors. They want deregulation, the disentanglement of government control from the market, a justification for any practice to be found in the truth revealed by the market, etc.
There are certainly differences. I think the big distinction is that contemporary neoliberals take the above arguments to a more radical extreme. Foucault, in fact, flat out calls the American variant of contemporary neoliberalism "anarcho-capitalism" (104).
As for the deification of the invisible hand, I think it was to be expected. That sort of deification of the market is typical of human behavior and, in fact, to me indicates one of the flaws of historical materialism. Marx would argue that religion is merely the opiate of the masses and somehow tangential to human thought and behavior.
I, however, would steal the term "homo religiosus" from Mircea Eliade. He doesn't quite use it in this way, but I think there's some sort of spiritual pining in the human consciousness. Actually...let's go to an earlier thinker's pithy wisdom on the topic:
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." ~ Voltaire