Is capitalism inherently predatory? Must there be winners and losers? Is public interest outdated and free-riding rational? Is consumer choice the same as self-determination? Must bargainers abandon the no-harm principle? Prisoners of Reason recalls that classical liberal capitalism exalted the no-harm principle. Although imperfect and exclusionary, modern liberalism recognized individual human dignity alongside individuals' responsibility to respect others. Neoliberalism, by contrast, views life as ceaseless struggle. Agents vie for scarce resources in antagonistic competition in which every individual seeks dominance. This (...) political theory is codified in non-cooperative game theory; the neoliberal citizen and consumer is the strategic rational actor. Rational choice justifies ends irrespective of means. Money becomes the medium of all value. Solidarity and good will are invalidated. Relationships are conducted on a quid pro quo basis. However, agents can freely opt out of this cynical race to the bottom by embracing a more expansive range of coherent action. (shrink)

Recent findings in epigenetics have been attracting much attention from social scientists and bioethicists because they reveal the molecular mechanisms by which exposure to socioenvironmental factors, such as pollutants and social adversity, can influence the expression of genes throughout life. Most surprisingly, some epigenetic modifications may also be heritable via germ cells across generations. Epigenetics may be the missing molecular evidence of the importance of using preventive strategies at the policy level to reduce the incidence and prevalence of common diseases. (...) But while this “policy translation” of epigenetics introduces new arguments in favor of public health strategies and policy-making, a more “clinical translation” of epigenetics is also emerging. It focuses on the biochemical mechanisms and epigenetic variants at the origin of disease, leading to novel biomedical means of assessing epigenetic susceptibility and reversing detrimental epigenetic variants. In this paper, we argue that the impetus to create new biomedical interventions to manipulate and reverse epigenetic variants is likely to garner more attention than effective social and public health interventions and therefore also to garner a greater share of limited public resources. This is likely to happen because of the current biopolitical context in which scientific findings are translated. This contemporary neoliberal “regime of truth,” to use a term from Michel Foucault, greatly influences the ways in which knowledge is being interpreted and implemented. Building on sociologist Thomas Lemke's Foucauldian “analytics of biopolitics” and on literature from the field of science and technology studies, we present two sociological trends that may impede the policy translation of epigenetics: molecularization and biomedicalization. These trends, we argue, are likely to favor the clinical translation of epigenetics—in other words, the development of new clinical tools fostering what has been called “personalized” or “precision” medicine. In addition, we argue that an overemphasized clinical translation of epigenetics may further reinforce this biopolitical landscape through four processes closely related to neoliberal pathways of thinking: the internalization and isolation of socioenvironmental determinants of health and increased opportunities for commodification and technologicalization of health care interventions. (shrink)

Brandon Absher demonstrates that the neoliberalization of higher education has led to a paradigm shift in contemporary philosophy in the United States. Neoliberal philosophy aims to produce human capital and profitable knowledge.

This paper considers debates around the neoliberal governmentality, and argues for the need to better theorize the specific ethical practices through which such programs of governmentality are carried out. Arguing that much theoretical and empirical work in this area is prone to a “top down” approach, in which governmentality is reduced to an imposing apparatus through which subjectivities are produced, it argues instead for the need to understand the self-production of subjectivities by considering the ethical practices that make up (...) neoliberal governmentality. Moreover, taking Robert T. Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad/Poor Dad as an illustrative case, the point is made that the work of neoliberal governmentality specifically targets the temporalities of conduct, in an attempt to shape temporal orientations in a more entrepreneurial form. Drawing on Foucault’s lecture courses on liberalism and neoliberalism, and Jacques Donzelot’s work on the social, the case is made that neoliberal governmentality exhorts individuals to act upon the residual social temporalities that persist as a trace in the dispositions of neoliberal subjects. Moreover, the paper concludes with a discussion of the potentials for resistance in this relation, understood as temporal counter-conducts within neoliberalism. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, foodbanks have become a widespread solution to addressing hunger within high-income countries. The primary reason for their establishment has been widely recognised as neoliberal policies, particularly those that led to massive cuts in social welfare assistance. Foodbanks and hunger have subsequently been framed within a neoliberal critique. However, we argue that critiques of foodbanks are not unique to neoliberalism but have deeper historical roots, meaning that the part neoliberal policies have played is not as (...) clear-cut. In order to understand the normalisation of foodbanks within society, and gain a more extensive understanding of hunger and appreciation as to how this issue could be addressed, it is therefore important to gain a historical understanding of food charity development. In this article, we achieve this by presenting a genealogy of food charity within Aotearoa New Zealand, which witnessed a fluctuation in the use of soup kitchens during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and a rise of foodbanks in the 1980s and ‘90 s. Highlighting the historical parallels and major economic and cultural shifts that have allowed for the institutionalisation of foodbanks, we explore the patterns, parallels and differences exposed, and how they yield an alternative understanding of hunger. Using this analysis, we then discuss the wider implications of the historical foundations of food charity and hunger to better understand the role neoliberalism has played in the entrenchment of foodbanks, and advocate the importance of looking beyond a neoliberal critique in order to entertain alternative solutions to addressing food insecurity. (shrink)

Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974 and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship, which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national sets, all countries (...) have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been reshaped in the past twenty years to fit the common imperative of liberalization. (shrink)

The article investigates the consequences for feminist politics of the neoliberal turn. Feminist scholars have analysed the political changes in the situation of women that have been brought about by neoliberalism, but their assessments of neoliberalism’s consequences for feminist theory and politics vary. Feminist thinkers such as Hester Eisenstein and Sylvia Walby have argued that feminism must now return its focus to socialist politics and foreground economic questions of redistribution in order to combat the hegemony of neoliberalism. Some have (...) further identified post-structuralism and its dominance in feminist scholarship as being responsible for the debilitating move away from socialist or Marxist paradigms. I share their diagnosis to the extent that it is my contention that the rapid neoliberalization characterising the last thirty years has put women and feminist thought in a completely new political situation. However, in contrast to those feminist thinkers who put the blame for the current impasse on the rise of poststructuralist modes of thought, it is my contention that the poststructuralist turn in feminist theory in the 1980s and 1990s continues to represent an important theoretical advance. I will discuss Foucault’s genealogy of neoliberalism in order to assess the ways it can contribute to feminist theory and politics today. I contend that Foucault can provide a critical diagnostic framework for feminist theory as well as for prompting new feminist political responses to the spread and dominance of neoliberalism. I will also return to Nancy Fraser and Judith’s Butler’s seminal debate on feminist politics in the journal Social Text (1997) in order to demonstrate that a critical analysis of the economic/cultural distinction must be central when we consider feminist forms of resistance to neoliberalism. (shrink)

In this paper, I engage the neoliberalization of universities using insights from Byung-Chul Han. Specifically, I criticize the neoliberal university’s absolute prioritization of what Han calls the vita activa (active life) over the vita contemplativa (contemplative life). I argue that the emphasis the neoliberal university places on activity or work is crippling its own capacity to think. I begin by expositing Han’s insight that thinking and knowledge flourishes during moments of inactivity or leisure, i.e., the vita contemplativa. Next, (...) I present a brief sketch of the neoliberal university and, using Han’s language, emphasize how work and performance have become its central categories, eventually diminishing the role of inactivity or leisure within its walls. Afterwards, I show that the absolutization of the vita activa has crippled thinking within the confines of the university. This atrophy of thought is manifested in various areas, such as the informatization of teaching, the inability to criticize the status quo, the production of superficial and inferior research publications, and the fading of the spirit of community. Finally, this paper ends with an appraisal of the vita contemplativa as a counterbalance to the neoliberal strictures on thinking within the university. (shrink)

The extraordinary transformation that the human intellect has been enduring due to privatisation is complemented by a remarkable mutation of collective memory. Social practices that have, through most part of human history, been part of collective efforts are now subdued under the shackles of capital. Because knowledge is not something metaphysical but a material living aspect of the social being, its retraction from the social into a private sphere simultaneously means its (at least partial) amputation. As intellectual property(private) is presented (...) as the pinnacle of social development, its concrete socio-material dimensions are blurred, and intellectual activity is reduced to metaphysics. Although knowledge that is always social has been taken hostage by capitalist power, theoretical discourse idealistically misrepresents this process. (shrink)

Currently, the neurosciences challenge the concept of will to be scientifically untenable, specifying that it is our brain rather than our "self" that decides what we want to do. At the same time, we seem to be confronted with increasing possibilities and necessities of free choice in all areas of social life. Based on up-to-date (empirical) research in the social sciences and philosophy, the authors convened in this book address this seeming contradiction: By differentiating the physical, the psychic, and the (...) social realm, the neuroscientific findings can be acknowledged within a comprehensive framework of selves in neoliberal societies. (shrink)

Neoliberalism is an approach to social policy, now globally influential, that applies market approaches to all aspects of social life, including education. Charter schools, privately operated but publicly funded, are its most prominent manifestation in the U.S. The neoliberal principles of competition, consumerism, and choice cannot serve as foundations of a sound and equitable public education system. Neoliberalism embraces socio-economic inequality overall and in doing so constricts any justice mission its adherents espouse in virtue of serving a relatively disadvantaged (...) student population, as charter schools often (by no means always) do. It constricts educational justice by (1) embracing a “human capital” approach as the primary good of education, (2) creating educational inequality through (unofficially) selecting a relatively advantaged segment of the disadvantaged demographic it serves, (3) denying the effect of poverty on educational performance, and (4) devaluing its students’ familial ethnic cultures. (shrink)

This chapter shows that Fraser's redistribution-recognition justice model fails to provide us with a radical political imaginary to transform neoliberal capitalism into a better society. First, her principle of 'parity of participation' aims to include oppressed social groups into capitalism rather than transforming capitalism itself. Second, her idea of a 'constantly shifting identity' is implicated in the spirit of neoliberal capitalism. Third, her account of socialism implies a reformative socialist imaginary that merely attenuates the ills of neoliberal (...) capitalism. Fourth, her attempt to do away with the proletariat as a political subject does not allow us to theorize an agent of transformative change. To envision transformative change, feminists need a clear break with the language of recognition and the idea of the 'constantly shifting identity.' Furthermore, we need to bring back the radical imaginary of Rosa Luxemburg, who opted for a proletarian revolution instead of reforms within capitalism. Finally, I offer my idea of the proletariat as a subject-in-outline to further theorize the agent who incites a revolution. (shrink)

This article explores sex selective abortion as a form of structural violence within the broader notion of women's ‘protection’ in contemporary India. While SSA tends to be framed more generally within ethical and choice-based frameworks around abortion access and reproductive ‘rights’, and specifically in India around preference for sons as a discriminatory, cultural, technological misogyny, this article argues that sex selective abortion in India needs to be understood as an outcome of broader systemic economic, political and social processes. The deepening (...) of neoliberal values through state policies has impacted significantly on social relations, shaping SSA as a manifestation of structural violence. State-driven policies in India reflect a neoliberal governmentality through state patriarchy that is implicit within the neoliberal developmental, governmental and capitalist paradigm of contemporary India. This article argues that SSA is structurally produced and therefore cannot be remedied through awareness-raising strategies such as beti bachao or financial inclusion as a means to ‘protect’ or ‘save the girl child’. Indeed, it is neoliberal economic forces that actively, though seemingly inadvertently, promote anti-women, sex selective abortion as a reproductive strategy, which is then disciplined through neoliberal governmentality. This highlights SSA as a form of gendered and structural, rather than discriminatory, violence. (shrink)

Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the academy. This article seeks to explore the way in which neoliberalism is shifting the prevailing values of the academy by drawing on two illustrations: the death of disinterestedness and the obfuscation of authorship. While there was never a golden age when norms such as disinterestedness were universally practiced they represented widely accepted (...) aesthetic ideals associated with academic life. By contrast, neoliberal academics embrace a new set of assumptions and norms that stand in sharp relief to many of the values that were previously espoused. Practices that might have been regarded as ethically dubious by earlier generations of academics, such as grantsmanship, self-justificatory expressions of interestedness and tangential claims to authorship, are now regarded as legitimate and positive virtues in a more aggressive age of hyper-performativity. (shrink)

White Power and American Neoliberal Culture, by utopian studies scholars Patricia Ventura and Edward K. Chan, feels like a tour de force. I say "feels" for a reason: if you live in America, what you read in this book feels entirely familiar, sketching out U.S. racialized socio-political dynamics. But I also experienced a feeling of uncanniness, as Ventura and Chan expose the underbelly of a white supremacist United States—in which I happen to live. I have not read so clear (...) and so well historicized an account of the kinds of events that prompt me to say, almost nightly, "This country is insane." The book does not change that opinion—but it does do something else: it makes sense of the insanity. It is a diagnosis of... Read More. (shrink)

The neoliberal globalization project of expanding and maintaining capitalism globally requires the shaping of neoliberal nation-states that will entrench its ideology, political structures, and practices. In that sense, the neoliberal nation-state provides an appropriate conceptual site for investigating the local-global nexus in the dynamics of global capitalism. Using the Philippines as an example, this paper investigates the various factors or dimensions in the making of the Philippines as a neoliberal nation-state from the colonial era to the (...) supranational structures that exert external control on the Philippine political economy: the global power of transnational corporations, the IMF, American and Chinese imperialism, including the American military aid that supports militarization and counter-insurgency against movements that challenge the neoliberal agenda of the past and current regimes. In addition, this paper offers implications for policy changes and strategies for global resistance that anti-globalization movements can consider. (shrink)

We use content analysis to show that the diagnosis of the financial crisis of 2007–2009 shifted significantly from a focus on the need for structural change in the banking industry to an emphasis on culture and reform at the organizational level. We consider four overlapping subsystems in which this shift in problem–solution clusters played out—political, regulatory, legal, and consulting—and show that the “structural reform agenda,” which was initially strong and publicly prominent in the political arena, lost attention. Over time it (...) was displaced by a neoliberal managerialist turn, which watered down or abandoned structural solutions and instead played up a new “culture and conduct reform agenda.” We explain this shift in terms of the marketization of regulation, which—following Mautner (Language and the market society, 1st ed. Routledge, 2010)’s model of interdiscursive alignment—we detect in the shifting language of financial-services reform across the four subsystems in scope. We argue that a neoliberal turn took place with a discursive closure that made the structural reform alternative gradually unsayable and, in the end, unthinkable. At the same time, the discourse turned to embrace the neoliberal agenda, built on the myth of self-regulating actors and markets, manifest in the culture problematic. This managerialist turn was able to mobilise, and be operationalised by, an industry of consultants, whereas structural change came to be seen by regulators as too risky to implement. We claim that these dynamics reveal how a form of “collective strategic ignorance,” based on powerful institutional myths, was systematically oriented to ignore and reject structural sources of crisis. Finally, we suggest that the observed pattern of displacement—whereby initial calls for structural change become later displaced by managerial and procedural solutions—is common to other social issues, such as audit reform and corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

The twenty-first century's shifting intellectual framework is accompanied by shifts in the character of current dystopian fiction. Contemporary society is now characterized by globalization in which privatization, consumerism, and neoliberal politics prevail. We are witness to a faltering Western progressivism, massive economic recessions, the expansion of alt-right ideologies, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian incursion into Ukraine, and the war in Gaza. Thus, neoliberalism plays a key role in the depiction of current fictional dystopias that commonly reflect society and are (...) known to instill authority through ideological and social domination.In their interview with Rocío Carrasco, Larissa Lai and Sherryl Vint... Read More. (shrink)

Neste trabalho discutimos como a consolidação do neoliberalismo se fez acompanhar por uma noção de liberdade associada ao individualismo e ao auto desempenho, provocando disrupturas significativas na constituição da subjetividade. Para tanto, analisamos como o neoliberalismo encontra-se por trás do estágio atual de “personalização” do eu e das relações, no qual as relações sociais são marcadas pela flexibilização, pela expressão dos desejos e pelo hedonismo. Por fim, buscamos revelar as “armadilhas” dessa nova condição para os indivíduos e a coletividade, bem (...) como demonstrar como a ideia de liberdade neoliberal, tratada em termos exclusivamente individualistas e econômicos, como o princípio máximo a ser resguardado, acabou por se transformar em uma forma inédita de coerção e de gestão do sofrimento psíquico. (shrink)

En este artículo sostenemos que el discurso del emprendimiento opera como un dispositivo de individualización de la relación salarial que oculta el fuerte contraste entre el plano ideal –autonomía, independencia subjetiva, éxito– y los obstáculos materiales reales –profundización del endeudamiento, alta proporción de fracaso, precarización–. Analizamos empíricamente dos casos: 1) el Foro de Activación para el Empleo de la Comunidad de Madrid que promueve lo que llamamos el narcisismo competitivo neoliberal; y 2) los contrastes entre el plano ideal y (...) material en los discursos de personas en paro entrevistadas durante 2012 y 2013. Concluimos que las políticas de empleo que promocionan el emprendimiento no resuelven el problema del desempleo sino que, fundamentalmente, sirven para gobernar políticamente la precariedad masiva. Proponemos utilizar las categorías de emprendeudores y de emprendeudamiento para una mejor comprensión sociológica del discurso del emprendimiento.This article argues that the entrepreneurship discourse operates as an individualization apparatus of the wage relation which hides the strong contrast between the ideal level -autonomy, subjective independence, success- and the real material obstacles –deepening of debt, high failure rate, precarization-. Two cases are empirically analyzed: 1) The Activation for Employment Forum organized by Madrid regional government, which promotes what we call competitive neoliberal narcissism; and 2) the contrasts between the ideal level and the material level in the discourses of unemployed people who were interviewed in 2012 and 2013. It is concluded that employment policies that promote entrepreneurship do not solve the problem of unemployment but mainly serve to govern politically the massive precariousness. It is proposed to use the categories of emprendeudores and emprendeudamiento [entrepreneurs + debt category] for a better sociological understanding of the entrepreneurship discourse. (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to the special issue on post-neoliberalism. It does so by considering challenges to the neoliberal order that have come, post-financial crisis, from the political right. It looks closely at the relation of neoliberalism to conservatism, on one hand, and libertarianism, on the other, in order to address the threat posed to the neoliberal order by paleoconservatism, neoreactionary politics, ordonationalism, libertarian paternalism, and different forms of sovereignty and elite power. The final section of this (...) introduction reflects on the challenge to the neoliberal orthodoxy posed by the current COVID-19 crisis. For while events of 2020–21 have facilitated new forms of privatization of many public services and goods, they also signal, potentially, a break from the neoliberal orthodoxies of the previous four decades, and, in particular, from their overriding concern for the market. (shrink)

This article presents a new account of the relationship between Michel Foucault’s work and neoliberalism, aiming to show that the relationship is significantly more complicated than either Foucault’s critics or defenders have appreciated in the recent controversy. On the one hand, I argue that Foucault’s salutary response to some of Gary Becker’s ideas in the lecture course from 1979 should be read together with the argument of Discipline and Punish. By means of this contextualization I show that Foucault’s sympathetic response (...) to Becker is limited to the domain of penal practices, specifically concerning the question of how to resist their rationality of normalization, and thus it involves no broader commitment to neoliberal economic theory or its political implications. On the other hand, however, I argue that there is a strategic allegiance between Foucault’s work and the ascendance of the neoliberal rationality of governing, although it has nothing to do with his sympathetic engagement with Becker’s work. Instead, I explain how Foucault’s focus on the political stakes of subjectivity has helped to congeal, in the posthumous neoliberal context, a conception of politics that leaves out the topic of economic equality. To explain how Foucault’s work has had this unintended yet lasting effect, I introduce the concept of topical exclusion. It designates a social mechanism of producing ignorance, which operates by directing attention instead of creating false consciousness. The strategic relationship between Foucault’s work and neoliberalism today illustrates that this type of explanation is essential in the analysis of power relations. Thus, my account motivates the adoption of topical exclusion as a conceptual supplement that equips the Foucaultian framework to study cases in which relations of power harness, produce, and sustain ignorance, not knowledge. (shrink)

O trabalho visa a discutir, por meio da teoria crítica de Nancy Fraser, a ordemsocial institucionalizada do capitalismo financeirizado neoliberal. Para isso, a autora estabelece que o capitalismo deve ser entendido por seus elementos ortodoxos e “desortodoxos”, a fim de compreendermos não apenas como sistema econômico ou de produção, mas também e, sobretudo, por seu plano de fundo que remodela a atividade reprodutiva, a política e a nossa relação com o meio ambiente. Metodologicamente, as discussões apresentadas serão do tipo (...) bibliográfico com abordagem qualitativa, perfazendo-se como pesquisa teórica ao analisar conceitos por meio de uma compreensão crítica. Dessa forma, a hipótese é de que o capitalismo, especialmente em sua fase financeirizada, não recai apenas no âmbito econômico, mas desde sua constituição molda e reforma as diversas estruturas sociais e políticas. (shrink)

This timely and provocative book challenges the conventional wisdom that neoliberal capitalism is incompatible with social justice. Employing public choice and market process theory, Nick Cowen systematically compares and contrasts capitalism with socialist alternatives, illustrating how proponents of social justice have decisive reasons to opt for a capitalism guided by neoliberal ideas. Cowen shows how general rules of property and voluntary exchange facilitate widespread cooperation. Revisiting the works of John Rawls, he offers an interdisciplinary reconciliation of Rawlsian principles (...) with liberal democracy by introducing Robust Property-Owning Democracy, a new form of governance that aims to achieve social justice via practical, liberal means. Chapters address the knowledge problem and the incentive problem that emerge when aiming for a fair distribution of social resources and demonstrate how everyday political bargaining can help achieve just outcomes for all. Utilising insights from philosophy, politics and economics to show the role of market institutions and constitutional government in producing social justice, this book is crucial reading for academics, researchers and students of PPE and the political sciences. Its practical policy proposals will further benefit policymakers interested in mechanisms that spread the benefits of economic growth equitably. (shrink)

After offering an opening consideration of the hazards of neoliberalism, I address the general shape of the crisis of care that has evolved under its auspices. Two aspects of this crisis require greater attention: the moral precarity of caregivers and the relational harms of neoliberal capitalism. Thus, I first consider the moral precarity that caregivers experience by drawing on a concept that originates in scholarly work on the experiences of healthcare workers and combat veterans, namely, moral injury. Through this (...) concept, we can see how caregivers in late-stage capitalism face a seemingly unavoidable violation of their own significant moral beliefs. Second, I examine how the crisis of care results not only in individual harms of moral injury but also in harms to relationships themselves, as I continue to track the impact of moral injury on our intrapersonal and interpersonal lives. Ultimately, I argue that an important facet of the crisis of care is how it operates as a crisis of relationality in which our intrapersonal and interpersonal connections are placed under practical and moral strain. In taking a broader view, we can see how the fraying of particular intrapersonal and interpersonal connections can accumulate, resulting in the unraveling of wider webs of interdependency, just when we need them most. Throughout the paper, I zero in on the moral implications of the crisis of care driven by neoliberalism, featuring the damages that caregivers and their relationships sustain when situated in morally precarious ways. In doing so, I drive home the point that the crisis of care under neoliberalism is as much a moral and relational crisis as it is a political and economic one. (shrink)

This musing explores the neoliberalization of addiction recovery and its implications for queer subjects, their affects and attachments. The author examines the ways in which neoliberal ideology usurps the critical potential of trauma-informed theory and practice in the context of addiction recovery, and offers a queer reading of the affects of addiction experienced as a negotiation of this tension. How do queer experiences both challenge and reflect the neoliberal ethos informing contemporary frameworks for addiction recovery? Through a media (...) analysis of the Netflix mini-series, Feel Good, which depicts an experience of queer addiction and codependency, the author illustrates how a representation of queer affect is mediated by neoliberal formulations of subjectivity and pathology. A theoretical framework combining critical addiction studies and feminist affect studies is employed to examine the challenges and possibilities for queer subjects whose experiences at the intersection of systemic oppression and addictive attachment have the potential to subvert the neoliberalization of addiction recovery. (shrink)

This research is grounded in the philosophical concepts of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) for its source analysis, thus forming a "discursive formation" from a heterogeneous documentary corpus. This corpus includes quantitative data from INEP (National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira), journalistic discourses, and legal sources such as laws, regulations, and ordinances. The study's timeframe spans from 2007 to 2020. The year 2007 was chosen as the starting point because it marks the date of the first educational institution's initial (...) public offering (IPO) on the Stock Exchange. In turn, 2020 signals the end of the period, as it was the year when INEP (2022) registered, for the first time, a prevalence of Distance Learning (EAD) enrollments over the in-person format in Brazil, characterizing the phenomenon of the “platformization of education”. The central objective of this study is to discuss the financialization of Higher Education within the context of neoliberal governmentality, analyzing how public policies have contributed to the intensification of the entrepreneurialization of education. This phenomenon, in turn, has led to the precarization of teaching labor and student debt. (shrink)

Critical accounts over the past years have focused on neoliberalism as a subject of knowledge; there has been a recently growing interest in neoliberalism as an object of knowledge. This article considers the theoretical, epistemological and political implications of the relationship between neoliberalism as an epistemic subject and neoliberalism as an epistemic object. It argues that the ‘gnossification’ of neoliberalism – framing it an epistemic project, and deriving implications for political engagement from this – avoids engaging with numerous ambiguous elements (...) of the production of knowledge. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘scholastic fallacy’ and Boltanski and Chiapello’s work in sociology of critique, the article lays out a framework for the study of the relationship between epistemic, moral, and political elements of critique of neoliberalism, including the conditions of its own production in contemporary academic contexts. (shrink)

NGOization represents a specific form of neoliberal governmentality stemming from the formalized encounter between state, the market, and civil society. In the case of feminist activism, NGOization is built upon recent decades’ transformations of the feminist movement, namely its institutionalization and professionalization, and is shaped by processes of neoliberal bureaucratization and governmental precarization as technologies of domination. The NGOization of the feminist movement as a specific mode of governance is co-produced through the interaction between feminist movement actors, professional (...) organizations and informal groups, the state, public or private donors, and institutions of international governance.Debates about NGOization softened during recent years due to (1) a new wave of mass mobilizations around the world that ousted the demobilization thesis and (2) the consolidation of anti-gender campaigns that shrank the space of action for feminist movement actors, now in competition on matters of women’s sexual and reproductive rights and gender equality with conservative actors. As progress can no longer be considered permanent and inexorable, what is the role played by legitimate experts and institutionalized partnerships with state institutions in safeguarding the achieved rights? And as alliances are reconfigured in counter-intuitive ways, what is the relationship between the feminist movement and the LGBTQIA+ movement? (shrink)

Adam Smith é considerado um dos fundadores do liberalismo clássico. Ele é apresentado, com razão, como o organizador da nova ciência da economia, que tem por objetivo compreender, prover e maximizar as riquezas e os confortos de uma sociedade. Descreveu em certa medida uma nova sociabilidade engendrada nas transações econômicas, emergindo a partir disso uma sociedade comercial, materialmente próspera dentro da ordem política. A riqueza advém da oportuna e correta divisão do trabalho. O trabalho se vê e se faz, a (...) partir da obra smithina, autêntico substrato da ordem econômico-social. Mas Adam Smith não limitou exclusivamente a vida em sociedade às relações econômicas, notadamente as comerciais. Também não reduziu a motivação humana ao estrito autointeresse, vinculado ao amor-próprio. Como filósofo moral, ele nunca se declarou economista, e considerou que a sensibilidade, a consciência e as virtudes morais têm papel primordial na constituição de uma sociedade humana genuinamente desenvolvida. A apropriação que seus seguidores atuais e a abordagem econômica neoliberal fazem de Smith desfigurou o seu legado. Neste artigo, depois de introduzirmos brevemente a apropriação neoliberal do pensamento smithiano, apresentamos a crítica de Noam Chomsky e de Amartya Sem a esta perspectiva, desvelando o processo de redução e distorção dos conceitos originais do pensador escocês, buscando ao mesmo tempo resgatar um pouco de sua rica contribuição à compreensão do agir e da vida social humanos, notadamente o modo pelo qual estes se manifestam em nosso tempo. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the implications of the neoliberal transformations on healthcare that are justified under the aegis of economic efficiency. Drawing on the work of German critical philosopher Axel Honneth, I present a critical‐social and philosophical perspective that reinterprets these transformations as pathological consequences with devastating impacts on how we understand what human beings and social relations are. I argue that in a neoliberal context, nursing care becomes a form of reification defined as ‘forgetfulness of recognition’ (...) of the human identity of the patient which contradicts the assumed ethical foundations of nursing. The article provides a detailed account on how neoliberal rationality that governs nursing performance promotes an objective and a ‘neutral stance’ of care that neglects emotional engagement and deals with the patient as an object or a thing which violates all dimensions of patient recognition. I also emphasize that neoliberalism must rather be understood as a specific form of governmentality that goes beyond mere economization and structures a specific way of understanding people in the healthcare context. Neoliberal rationality, as conceptualized in this article, not only considers human being as homo economicus, where decisions are based on economic ideals, but also neutralizes relationships and disseminates an ‘objective’ and purely scientific stance in caring interactions. This leads to the detachment of nurses and reification of patients. Thus, nursing care is reduced to an instrumental rationality that focuses on technical care, which diminishes any possibility for nurses to engage with patients and understand their unique phenomenological world necessary for coping and recognition. Finally, nurses are urged to raise their voices against neoliberal rationality that programs their ideas of what ‘good care’ is. A critical emancipatory mode of thinking provides an opportunity to challenge neoliberal rationality and revitalize nursing agency to resist the devastating transformations taking place in health care. (shrink)

Exploring teaching as an upper secondary school teacher through lived experience offers pedagogical insights that have been challenged over a period of 25 years, when neoliberal educational policies gradually transformed the conditions for teaching in Swedish schools. The article is grounded in the assumption that the teaching profession is complex and there are multiple tacit dimensions inherent in being and becoming a teacher. Several of these dimensions are captured by the notion of pedagogical tact and have to be learned (...) through practice. However, over the past few decades, the implementation of neoliberal policies in the Swedish education sector have changed the conditions for teaching, and created an area of tension between the teacher’s pedagogical alignment and the educational practices influenced by neoliberal values. The aim of the study is to describe how the author experienced these tensions, and what they meant for her becoming and being a teacher in three different pedagogical sites: a higher education preparatory program, a vocational preparatory program, and in adult education. The description is grounded in the lifeworld phenomenological approach and carried out through personal narrative. (shrink)

This contribution seeks to understand the pervasive phenomenon of work compulsion among knowledge workers in our present network society. Knowledge workers not only have to work all the time from anywhere, but they also appear to want to. This study argues that this curious phenomenon may be attributed to the thumotic satisfaction that knowledge work generates. What is more, the neoliberal theory of human capital has found a way to harness thumotic satisfaction to the profit incentive, and has created (...) arguably the most productive working subject to date. The argument is divided into four parts: First, the paper analyses the government(- ality) of control operative in the network society by defining “neoliberalism”. It then focuses on Foucault’s examinations of German and American neoliberalism in the 20th century, treating them as instances of governmentality. The aim is to assess whether employing a governmentality lens is a valid approach for critically analysing present-day neoliberalism. If it proves justifiable, which I argue it does, the study explores the potential valuable insights gained from examining contemporary neoliberalism through this particular analytical framework. Second, the study turns to the “spiritedness” of knowledge workers under the conditions of stealth control that typify the neoliberal network society. Curiously, these highly engaged workers have reportedly experienced increased overall well-being. However, their overinvestment in work appears to be disproportionate to absolute necessity, increased earnings or improved overall quality of life. This paper contends that work compulsion generates and is in turn fuelled by thumotic satisfaction. Third, the study tries to ascertain the connection between neoliberal governmentality and thumos. Neoliberal governmentality appears to have found a way to appropriate thumotic satisfaction to produce and sustain the competitive entrepreneurial spirit. The fourth part of the study considers how the knowledge worker might resist the compulsion to work incessantly. (shrink)

This article focuses on patients' participation in decision‐making in meetings with healthcare professionals in a healthcare system, based on neoliberal regulations and ideas. Drawing on two constructed empirical cases, primarily from the perspective of patients, this article analyses and discusses the clinical practice around decision‐making meetings within a Foucauldian perspective. Patients' participation in decision‐making can be seen as an offshoot of respect for patient autonomy. A treatment must be chosen, when patients consult physicians. From the perspective of patients, there (...) is a tendency for healthcare professionals to supply the patients with the information that they think are necessary for them to make their own decision. But patients do not always want to be a ‘customer’ in the healthcare system; they want to be a patient, consulting an expert for help and advice, which creates resistance to some parts of the decision‐making process. Both professionals and patients are subject to the structural frame of the medical field, formed of both neoliberal framework and medical logic. The decision‐making competence in relation to the choice of treatment is placed away from the professionals and seen as belonging to the patient. A ‘projectification’ of the patient occurs, whereby the patient becomes responsible for his/her choices in treatment and care and the professionals support him/her with knowledge, preferences, and alternative views, out of which he/she must make his/her own choices, and the responsibility for those choices now and in the future. At the same time, there is a tendency towards de‐professionalization. In that light, participation of patients in decision‐making can be regarded as a tacit governmentality strategy that shapes the location of responsibility between individual and society, and independent patients and healthcare professionals, despite the basically desirable, appropriate, and necessary idea of involving patients in their own situations from a humanistic perspective. (shrink)

A partir de los planteamientos de Michel Foucault se abordan las maneras de gobernar del Estado neoliberal con el objetivo de identificar y comprender las diferencias que existen entre la gubernamentalidad liberal y neoliberal. También se busca determinar si los Estados neoliberales sustentan su gubernamentalidad en la producción de precariedad, planteamiento propuesto por Isabell Lorey. Se concluye, de este ejercicio, que el neoliberalismo establece unas formas de gobernar distintas a las del liberalismo clásico, formas que se encuentran en (...) constante expansión como procesos económico-jurídicos inacabados que reposan, fundamentalmente, sobre el Estado. Se logra determinar, también, que no es un objetivo del Estado neoliberal producir precariedad. Sin embargo, la precariedad es producto de una manera de gobernar que considera que tanto el Estado como los sujetos y las poblaciones se encuentran sometidos a las reglas del mercado. (shrink)

International education is impacted by multiple discourses, in particular the discourse of university as an educational institution responsible for producing and curating knowledge for the public good, pursuing truth and transforming student life, and the neoliberal marketing discourse which portrays the university as a business organization providing a service for international students as customers/consumers. Following a multimodal discourse analytic perspective, this study examines ‘Why Choose’ webpages of one British and two Australian universities to identify how the apparently conflicting higher (...) education and neoliberal marketing discourses are managed in the interdiscursive space using language, images and videos. The results reveal that ‘Why Choose’ webpages are hybrid texts where the discourse of higher education is upheld in relation to the neoliberal marketing discourse through multimodal strategies of accentuation, infusion and progression. The study argues for the necessity of undertaking a multimodal discourse approach to understand how various positions are negotiated interdiscursively in online media. (shrink)

The paper studies political consequences of the establishment of neoliberal democ-racy, which means the onset of a post-political state of the world. It is demonstrated that at the “end of politics,” the democratic principle of equal rights turns into its opposite—a radical inequality between transnational elites, personifying the power of “pure” capital, and the local population, representing the idea of “pure” life. Neoliberal democracy is studied as a limit concept, which shows the exhaustion of the democratic principle of (...) equality. The paper shows that the return to democracy as the principle of equality becomes the driving ambition of modern politics of activism as a subjective process, unfolding in places where a situation of radical inequality arises. (shrink)

En este trabajo, analizamos los efectos de los regímenes extractivistas en los territorios y los cuerpos desde el lugar situado de las mujeres. Centramos el análisis en la ciudad de Allen (Río Negro), a partir de la conversión de su territorio frutícola en área de extracción de hidrocarburos no convencionales. Hipotetizamos que la gubernamentalidad neoliberal que se impone en estos territorios arrasados genera una crisis de la reproducción social que impacta en el trabajo vivo útil para la producción y (...) reproducción de la vida humana; y que son las mujeres, en tanto subjetividades históricamente subalternizadas y relegadas a la esfera reproductiva, quienes pueden dar cuenta de los despojos del extractivismo desde miradas que trascienden las dicotomías de la modernidad: público / privado, Estado / mercado, productivo / reproductivo. Nos situamos en la epistemología feminista para analizar las narrativas de mujeres que habitan territorios de despojo desde los cuales ellas hacen posible la vida. Nos interesa aportar al conocimiento de los efectos de los regímenes extractivistas desde la producción y circulación de sentidos “otros” acerca de sus impactos, construidos en las intersecciones de género, clase y territorio. A partir de rondas de entrevistas bajo la modalidad de autorrelato, planteamos una reconstrucción genealógica de la memoria larga de la experiencia en estos territorios que habilita a lecturas sobre el extractivismo. Para ello nos valemos de un diseño de tipo flexible y de un procedimiento intensivo que nos permite un ida y vuelta no lineal entre la complejidad del campo y la teorización. Como apuesta metodológica buscamos darles contenido político a las experiencias invisibilizadas, pensando la palabra como medio de transformación y terreno de disputa. Nos interesa aportar al conocimiento de los efectos de los regímenes extractivistas desde la producción y circulación de sentidos “otros”, construidos en las intersecciones -de género, clase, territorio- desde las cuales se vivencian y construyen oposiciones a la ofensiva extractivista. (shrink)

In her 2018 book, What the Eyes Don’t See, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha wrote that it is the duty of doctors to speak out against injustice. In fact, no other physician or institution in Flint had done the research and spoken out, as a whistleblower, against the poisoning of Flint’s children by Michigan government. Why had Dr. Hannah-Attisha? Unfortunately, in the absence of a medical education system that teaches community-oriented primary health care in the tradition of the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration, (...) there is little reward in doing so. This article focuses on three movements that are challenging medical education orthodoxy: 1) primary health care 2) the medical humanities and 3) “Study Up your Town” medicine. How can we create a radical health pedagogy – one that draws the links between several pandemics raging across the planet: capitalist collapse, climate disruption, Covid-19, racism, and an emergent neoliberal fascism – to enable doctors, health professionals and citizens to see them as all of one piece? Medical educators must employ critical pedagogy to create legions of “constructive troublemakers” who challenge the social-structural obstacles that are driving millions to premature death. We have reached the “end times.” A new “planet medicine” is finally emerging. (shrink)

O que é o sujeito neoliberal? Quem é ele? Como se torna o que é ou aparenta ser? O que significaria a transformação deste sujeito em outro? O objetivo deste artigo é tentar responder a estas questões, tendo Foucault como principal interlocutor. Para isso, este artigo tem três momentos. No primeiro momento, reconstruo o horizonte conceitual foucaultiano onde a questão da subjetividade se coloca. No segundo momento, procuro identificar elementos que nos permitem caracterizar o sujeito neoliberal de hoje; (...) um sujeito que assimila e incorpora na sua própria construção os valores e ideologias do mercado. Por fim, identifico os elementos foucaultianos que devem ser mantidos para transformar o sujeito atual num seu ‘outro’, imaginando que tipo de nova subjetividade podemos construir hoje. (shrink)

Drawing on research from digital media studies, political theory and rhetoric, this article explores online radical conservative and reactionary ‘ideological entrepreneurs’. It argues that online media are uniting an ‘ideological family’ around concepts of natural inequality and hostility to those who deny them. Placing this phenomenon in context, the article shows how online culture reinvigorates well-established discourses of opposition to bureaucrats, intellectuals and experts of all kinds, rejecting one version of the neoliberal state and of its personnel, a ‘new (...) class’ understood to dominate through discursive, cultural power and imagined through the figures of the ‘Social Justice Warrior’ and the ‘Cultural Marxist’. In competing for a share of the marketplace of ideas, these ideological entrepreneurs promise insights – the revelations of the ‘red pill’ – critiquing ‘actually-existing’ neoliberalism yet insisting on the ‘rationality’ of governance through markets and promising adherents techniques for achieving success as liberated entrepreneurial selves. (shrink)

This chapter begins by identifying certain core conditions of the neoliberal university. Drawing on recent scholarship in the field which have viewed the neoliberal university as ‘toxic’ (Smyth in The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars, and Neoliberal Ideology. Palgrave MacMillan, London, 2017) and as operating a regime of ‘terror’ (Roberts in The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 35:27–43, 2013) it is argued that the manifestation of neoliberalism within universities serves to increase anxiety, precarity (...) and fear as fundamental features of contemporary academic life and, in doing so, thereby limits relational and other-regarding virtues such as compassion, kindness and humility. Yet, at the same time, the fact that academic lives have become more anxious, precarious and fearful actually serves to increase the need for relational and other-regarding dispositions, such as compassion, in educational institutions, including universities. Drawing on Gravlee’s (Journal of the History of Philosophy 38(4):461–477, 2000) work on Aristotle and hope, the chapter argues that hope is needed for deliberation with others and that other-regarding virtues can provide pathways for hope in academic workplaces through their focus on relational ways of working based on mutual concern and solidarity. (shrink)

Is security seen? Is security seen in images of peace and safety, or is it perceived in the troubled images of the horrors of violence and suffering? Vision has played a crucial role in shaping the modern Western preoccupation with, and prioritisation of security. Historically, security has been visually represented in a variety of ways, typically involving the depiction of its absence. In Medieval and Early Modern Europe especially, security and insecurity were presented as coterminous insofar as each represented separate (...) conditions – their shared boundary envisioned in representations of the temporal threshold separating human mortality from divine salvation. This ocular demonstration of thresholds has been heightened by the ‘war on terror’ conducted by neo-liberal states since 2003. Neoliberalism operates as a discourse of constant global circulations premised on a perpetual anticipation and pre-emption of insecurity. In the neoliberal scheme, security and insecurity are no longer coterminous, but mutually sustaining in perpetuity. In that sense, neoliberal security is ‘sight unseen’ - an uncanny presence that is not there. In the reiterated troubled images of horror amplified by the seemingly endless 'war on terror', neoliberal security operates as a terrifying visual reflex: we cannot see it but in new horrors. (shrink)

An exploration of the theories, histories, practices, and contradictions of liberalism today. What does it mean to be a liberal in neoliberal times? This collection of short essays attempts to show how liberals and the wider concept of liberalism remain relevant in what many perceive to be a highly illiberal age. Liberalism in the broader sense revolves around tolerance, progress, humanitarianism, objectivity, reason, democracy, and human rights. Liberalism's emphasis on individual rights opened a theoretical pathway to neoliberalism, through private (...) property, a classically minimal liberal state, and the efficiency of “free markets.” In practice, neoliberalism is associated less with the economic deregulation championed by its advocates than the re-regulation of the economy to protect financial capital. Liberalism in Neoliberal Times engages with the theories, histories, practices, and contradictions of liberalism, viewing it in relation to four central areas of public life: human rights, ethnicity and gender, education, and the media. The contributors explore the transformations in as well as the transformative aspects of liberalism and highlight both its liberating and limiting capacities. The book contends that liberalism—in all its forms—continues to underpin specific institutions such as the university, the free press, the courts, and, of course, parliamentary democracy. Liberal ideas are regularly mobilized in areas such as counterterrorism, minority rights, privacy, and the pursuit of knowledge. This book contends that while we may not agree on much, we can certainly agree that an understanding of liberalism and its emancipatory capacity is simply too important to be left to the liberals Contributors Alejandro Abraham-Hamanoiel, Patrick Ainley, Abdullahi An-Na'im, Michael Bailey, Haim Bresheeth, Başak Çalı, David Chandler, William Davies, Costas Douzinas, Natalie Fenton, Des Freedman, Roberto Gargarella, Priyamvada Gopal, Jonathan Hardy, John Holmwood, Ratna Kapur, Gholam Khiabany, Ray Kiely, Monika Krause, Deepa Kumar, Arun Kundnani, Colin Leys, Howard Littler, Kathleen Lynch, Robert W. McChesney, Nivedita Menon, Toby Miller, Kate Nash, Joan Pedro-Carañana, Julian Petley, Anne Phillips, Jonathan Rosenhead, Annabelle Sreberny, John Steel, Michael Wayne, Milly Williamson. (shrink)

This book explores the question of how and to what extent the ongoing neoliberal transformation of higher education exerts influence on the university and academic everyday life in different societies. By listening to, observing, and comparing the critical voices of academics and students - the voices that matter - the book reviews first hand experiences from different societies and university cultures located within the European and semi-Mediterranean landscape, including the Czech Republic, Morocco, Turkey, and United Kingdom.

This book draws upon original research at a celebrated flagship secondary school, to explore how new forms of neoliberal governmentality are reproducing raced, classed and gendered inequalities. Considering the complex narratives of students, teachers and parents, the book examines the stories underlying the school’s glossy veneer of success, highlighting the persistent structural inequalities concealed beneath its rhetoric of aspirational citizenship. Chapters demonstrate how hopes and dreams are harnessed and mobilized to exact social control, and how marketized education systems reshape (...) inequality, foreclosing spaces of democratic participation through the imposition of authoritarian discipline and self-belief. (shrink)

In Sweden, and most Western countries, pervasive neoliberal policies have dramatically transformed the entire education sector in a matter of decades. As teacher educators, we have experienced how neoliberal currents have pushed Swedish teacher education towards a teacher training paradigm which may risk undermining the foundations for professional judgement. Moreover, the Bologna Process and the introduction of New Public Management have had significant consequences for what it means to be a teacher educator. In this study, we present our (...) everyday experiences of being teacher educators, immersed in a teacher education culture in Sweden which has evolved under the pressures of neoliberalism. To address these complex lived experiences we engaged in a phenomenological first-person account. Three main themes emerged from an analysis of lived experience descriptions: Alignment Slaves; Audit Puppets; Techno Phobes. These themes reflect different lived dimensions of being teacher educators confronted with neoliberal agendas. The paper concludes with a call for resistance to bring about change within teacher education. (shrink)

"In this edited collection, an international ensemble of scholars examine what contemporary cinema tells us about neoliberal capitalism and cinema, exploring whether filmmakers are able to imagine progressive alternatives under capitalist conditions. Individual contributions discuss filmmaking practices, film distribution, textual characteristics and the reception of films made in different parts of the world. They engage with topics such as class struggle, debt, multiculturalism and the effect of neoliberalism on love and sexual behaviour. Written in accessible, jargon-free language, Contemporary Cinema (...) and Neoliberal Ideology is an essential text for those interested in political filmmaking and the political meanings of films."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)