Economization and governance replace political contestation with managerial consensus.

Evidence

Economization replaces a political lexicon with a market lexicon. Governance replaces a political lexicon with a management lexicon. The combination transforms the democratic promise of shared rule into the promise of enterprise and portfolio management at the individual and collective level. In place of citizens sharing and contesting power, the resulting order emphasizes, at best, consensus achieved through stakeholder consultation, focus groups, best practices, and teamwork. The unruliness of democracy is stifled by a form of governing that is soft and total. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 409

Categorization

• DEFINE: Crisply defines the two-pronged move of economization (market lexicon) and governance (management lexicon) that together gut the political lexicon.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s standing interest in soft totalitarianism and to Tocqueville/Foucault on the flattening of political categories. — connects to: Free economic participation generates a permanent political consensus among its agents. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 550; Economization displaces democratic self-rule and its supporting institutions. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 15; Governance by incentives and benchmarks replaces top-down law and rule — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 56 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Austerity-bred consensus sustains further austerity in a self-reinforcing loop #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 235
• Neoliberal meetings expected contestation rather than consensus #contradicts (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 371
• A distinct managerial class merged government and corporate power within capitalism #corroborates (0.80) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 902
• Modern austerity requires managing public opinion through consensus and coercion combined #qualifies (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 818
• Modern economics replaced the class-conflict lens of classical political economy with individualist harmony #corroborates (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 30
• Economics is lateral to governing, not its internal rationality #corroborates (0.75) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1467