Neoliberal freedom can be a vehicle for governance and domination
Evidence
Foucault is clearly intrigued by the “freedom” that liberalism and neoliberalism promise. He knows we can be governed through such freedom, but refuses the Marxist point that what is being named as freedom elides and even discursively inverts crucial powers of domination. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 153
Categorization
- XREF: The governing-through-freedom thesis — freedom as a modality of power — directly connects to the reader’s prior work on silence/noise where freedom of informational choice becomes a mechanism of capture. — connects to: Neoliberalism governs people by getting them to self-regulate toward economic ideals. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 38; Neoliberal ‘freedom’ is internally redefined to mean market autonomy, not political liberty — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 166; Within neoliberalism, one’s theory of markets determines one’s definition of freedom — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 167 (+34 more)
Broader Connections
- The system’s celebrated freedoms function as instruments of domination
#corroborates(0.92) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 45 - Neo-liberal capitalism decentralizes authority yet intensifies domination.
#corroborates(0.90) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 141 - Neoliberal governability extends beyond what Foucault imagined through maximum freedom
#expands(0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 215 - Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy
#expands(0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2130 - Best practices exemplify neoliberal governance’s soft power and antipolitics
#exemplifies(0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 262