The Problem with Hobby Lobby: Neoliberal Jurisprudence and Neoconservative Values

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between neoconservative values and neoliberalism in American jurisprudence through a critique of the US Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision. The article uncovers how the Court imposes market-oriented logic on religious expression and in the process spiritualizes economic activity. In this way neoliberal rationality is intertwined with neoconservative values. For example, exercising religion through corporatization can be understood as a neoconservative moderation of the corrupting influence of excessive neoliberal individualism. Finally, while the decision furthers employer control of workers’ reproduction, the Court’s proposed workaround—a direct government contraceptives program—would undermine that control and points to another, more emancipatory response to the problems of neoliberalism.