Neo-liberalism’s real objective is the market’s formalization of the state and society

Evidence

1:odOiY’s neo-liberalism is, as is too often said, the resurgence* or recurrence of old forms of liberal economics which were formulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries~nd-are-nowbeingreactivated by capitalism for a variety ofreasons to-d.o with its impotence and crises as well as with some more or less local and determinate political objectives. In actual fact, something much more important is at stake in modern neo-liberalism, whether this takes the German form I am presently referring to, or the anarcho-liberal American form. What is at issue is whether a market economy can in fact serve as the principle, form, and model for a state which, because of its defects, is mistrusted by everyone on both the right and the left, for one reason or another. Everyone is in agreement in criticizing .!he state and identifying its destructive and harmful effects. But within this general critique-which is also a confused critique since it can be found with little difference from Sombart to Marcuse-through and in the shadow of this critique, will liberalism in fact be able to bring about its real objective, that is to say, a general formalization of the powers of the state and the organization of society on the basis of the market economy? Can the market really have the power offormalization for both the state and society? This is the important, crucial problem ofpresent-day liberalism and to that extent it represents an absolutely important mutation with regard to traditional liberal projects, those that were born in the eighteenth century. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 678

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what Foucault means by the stakes of neo-liberalism: the market as principle of state/society formalization, not just economic freedom.
• SEED: Angle: the shared anti-state critique from Sombart to Marcuse as the shadow under which the market’s formalizing power could rise — a genealogy of the right-left convergence.
• XREF: connects to: Neoliberalism extends market logic to regulate all human behavior. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 32; Neoliberalism is a governing rationality that frames all life in market terms — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 357; The economy functions as model, object, and project of neoliberal state rationality. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 107 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The economy functions as model, object, and project of neoliberal state rationality. #corroborates (0.90) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 107
• Neoliberalism is a governing rationality that frames all life in market terms #corroborates (0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 357