Foucault saw early neoliberalism as amoral and tolerant, not punitive

Evidence

For Michel Foucault, lecturing in 1979, the newly ascendant neoliberalism seemed to offer a refreshing break with the punitive moralism of earlier liberalisms. In the ‘purely economic analysis’ of the Chicago School’s human capital theorist Gary Becker, Foucault saw a fundamentally amoral account of the criminal as a homo economicus, who acts expecting a profit and bears the risk of penal sanction. From this perspective, Foucault notes, ‘there is no difference between the infraction of the highway code and a premediated murder’. Consequently, a neoliberal penal policy would merely adjust penalties and rules to reduce the supply of crime, while eschewing the attempt to discipline the criminal and cure her of an assumed pathology. Foucault speculated that a neoliberal society would not be a moralising society of normalisation and exclusion, but one in which ‘minority individuals and practices are tolerated’. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 16

Categorization

• DEFINE: Characterizes the amoral human-capital account of homo economicus that defined Foucault’s reading of Chicago School neoliberalism — useful baseline for the debate.
• QUESTION: The author hints Foucault’s human-rights politics coexisted uneasily with his amoral reading of neoliberalism — a thread likely developed through the chapter.
• XREF: connects to: Foucault’s lectures were not a neo-Marxist critique of neoliberalism — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 94; Early neoliberals justified the market primarily through political and moral virtues, not efficiency

Broader Connections

• Foucault’s lectures were not a neo-Marxist critique of neoliberalism #corroborates (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 94
• Early neoliberals justified the market primarily through political and moral virtues, not efficiency #qualifies (0.75)