Foucault’s biopolitics resembles but misleads analysis of everyday neoliberalism

Evidence

I can imagine my reader poised to retort, “That was precisely Foucault’s point!” Power is not simply exercised between the ruler and the ruled; it has been integrated directly into the makeup of modern agency, it fills up the pores of our most unremarkable day; it is the default option of our reflex assumptions about what others think and do. It gets under our skin; which is one way to try to understand what Foucault meant by his seductive term “biopolitics.” Yet, as I have already hinted, leaning on Foucault as a guide to everyday neoliberalism can be a treacherous proposition, at best. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 262

Categorization

• XREF: Builds the thought-collective argument by warning against reading Shteyngart through Foucault — connects to the reader’s advanced-critique goal of tracing how theorists both map and distort the neoliberal object. — connects to: Foucault’s prescience about everyday neoliberalism came from adopting neoliberal doctrine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 278; Foucault’s account of neoliberalism missed its transnational and postnational dimensions — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 144; Foucault’s political coordinates cannot capture neoliberalism’s effects on democracy — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 146 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Foucault’s prescience about everyday neoliberalism came from adopting neoliberal doctrine #responds-to (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 278
• Foucault’s political coordinates cannot capture neoliberalism’s effects on democracy #corroborates (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 146
• Foucault ignored neoliberalism’s material politics and focused on its transformations of the subject #qualifies (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 94
• Foucault’s account of neoliberalism missed its transnational and postnational dimensions #qualifies (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 144