Neoclassical agent theory collapsed when selves became infinitely plastic.
Evidence
Homo economicus was not so much “atomistic” as atomized in the mathematics. The conceptual problem with human capital was that the purely plastic self could hardly be asserted to exhibit self-identity. To solve some technical problems, economists began to write down models with “multiple selves” collated into a single mega-utility function. This, in turn, led to Sissyphyssian task of shoring up whatever was left of the concepts of “agency” and “preference.” … It is a mug’s game to trumpet the virtues of a market that gives people what they want, if people are portrayed as desperate to transform themselves into the type of person who wants what the market provides. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 327
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reading purpose on the ‘thought collective’ — Mirowski tracing how economists’ own modeling of flexible selves mirrors everyday neoliberal selfhood. — connects to: Neo-liberalism collapses labor into capital and frames the individual as an enterprise — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1218; The actualist State-as-superior-entity theory reduces individuals to abstractions; Neoliberalism’s scientific program collapsed under its own ideological contradictions — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 92 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Neoliberalism’s scientific program collapsed under its own ideological contradictions
#corroborates(0.82) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 92 - The actualist State-as-superior-entity theory reduces individuals to abstractions
#corroborates(0.80) - The plastic-brain model emerged alongside capitalism’s shift to auto-organization
#expands(0.80) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 18 - Neoliberalism abolishes classes, the individual, and Lockean property in one move
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 164 - Neo-liberalism collapses labor into capital and frames the individual as an enterprise
#expands(0.78) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1218 - The 1962 stock-market crash triggered Abstract Expressionism’s collapse
#exemplifies(0.75) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 243 - Postmodern subjectivity loses active historical consciousness and lives in a perpetual present.
#complicates(0.72) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 152