Governments conflate capitalist economic rationality with rationality itself.
Evidence
Given their view of that system, it is easy to understand why governments should wish to help business in every possible way, yet do not at all feel that this entails any degree of bias towards particular classes, interests and groups…. The much-derided phrase “What is good for General Motors is good for America” is only defective in that it tends to identify the interests of one particular enterprise with the national interest. But if General Motors is taken to stand for the world of capitalist enterprise as a whole, the slogan is one to which governments in capitalist countries do subscribe, often explicitly. And they do so because they accept the notion that the economic rationality of the capitalist system is synonymous with rationality itself, and that it provides the best possible set of human arrangements in a necessarily imperfect world. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 369
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies how the ‘national interest’ manages to feel neutral while serving capital — the ideological mechanism underlying the whole chapter.
- XREF: connects to: Economics serves power more effectively when it operates in innocence of serving it — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 241; Austerity is economically irrational yet politically rational for preserving capitalism; The economy functions as model, object, and project of neoliberal state rationality. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 107 (+12 more)
Broader Connections
- Austerity is economically irrational yet politically rational for preserving capitalism
#exemplifies(0.85) - Depoliticizing economics is how the capitalist order sustains itself
#corroborates(0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 21 - The economy functions as model, object, and project of neoliberal state rationality.
#expands(0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 107 - Neoliberalism is a governing rationality, not just economic policy or ideology.
#expands(0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 14 - Economics is lateral to governing, not its internal rationality
#corroborates(0.80) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1467 - Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational
#expands(0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 124 - Capitalism governs through a technological rationality so pervasive that it no longer needs ideology
#corroborates(0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 228 - Capital’s systemic imperatives cannot be reduced to economic rationality alone
#expands(0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 151 - Capitalist economic laws are both real and socially necessary illusions
#qualifies(0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1343