Capitalism absorbed its critics’ language to legitimize neoliberal privatization

Evidence

As Boltanski and Chiapello (2005, 167–225; Rolnik 2011) point out, over the 1970s and 1980s these ironically became the watchwords for the reorganization of capitalism itself, as it incorporated both its “social” and “artistic” critique in order to shrug off the imposition of Keynesian regulations (themselves the residual compromise of pre-war anti-capitalist struggles). … Under the banner of liberating individuals from the shackles of “big government” and paternalistic corporations, a new paradigm of neoliberal privatization was implemented. … In this period, as Angela McRobbie (2001; 2011) notes, the artist was held up as the “pioneer of the new economy,” their contract-based employment and seamless integration of work life with social life with home life with a passionate dream life having been positioned as a beacon to those “uncreative” souls struggling to make ends meet through the drudgery of multiple part-time, temporary jobs. … To be clear, we need to make a distinction between the actual sociological trends towards “creative” work and the function of the celebratory rhetoric as a means to discipline and shape the subjectivities of workers more broadly. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 439

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the deWaard cultural argument this reading builds toward, and connects to Boltanski and Chiapello’s recuperation thesis. — connects to: Neoliberalism extinguishes the political subject that critiques of capitalism presupposed — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 218; Neoliberals weaponized human rights language to protect private property and market order — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 76; Neoliberals actively shaped the postwar human rights discourse that later legitimized markets — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 40 (+17 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that capitalism absorbed its own social and artistic critique to legitimize deregulation is a paradigm-shifting inversion of conventional ‘workers won concessions’ narratives.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals weaponized human rights language to protect private property and market order #exemplifies (0.92) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 76
• Neoliberals deployed human rights language to justify property rights and dismantling welfare #exemplifies (0.92) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 7
• Neoliberalism claimed openness to all viewpoints while privately enforcing ideological conformity #exemplifies (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 200
• Neoliberals actively shaped the postwar human rights discourse that later legitimized markets #corroborates (0.82) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 40
• Neoliberalism extinguishes the political subject that critiques of capitalism presupposed #qualifies (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 218
• Capitalism co-opts opposition and must be escaped rather than confronted #expands (0.80) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 468
• Neoliberalism’s invisibility was manufactured by both its architects and its critics #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 77
• Ordoliberalism’s founding critique of capitalism was culturally conservative and antimodernist #complicates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 509
• Neoliberals held that rights originate from capitalism rather than nature #corroborates (0.75)