Neoliberal homo oeconomicus dissolves the citizen-bourgeois split that defined liberal democratic political life.

Evidence

At the dawn of what we have come to call “the West,” the citizen was an overtly political being, participating in rule of the common through which he is also realized, perfected, and freed. During the long centuries of feudalism, this strenuous notion of citizenship faded as the authority of the church and monarchies came to the fore. From this dark night, the revolutions of modernity were born. Coterminous with (and partly inciting) these political revolutions was the emergence of a mode of production that bore heavily on political life—shaping its institutions, driving its contents, conditioning it languages—but that still did not fuse with it, let alone fully commandeer its terms or organize its principles. At this point, a figure of the citizen emerged who, on the one hand, formally shared in political sovereignty and, on the other hand, was relentlessly concerned with the citizen’s own interests and well-being, finding its freedom in the pursuit of its own ends. Animated by desire, armed with rights, this figure ceded concern with shared political rule to its representatives and chased after its own satisfactions. This is the subject split between “citizen” and “bourgeois” that dogged liberal democratic theory for two centuries, that Marx makes the basis of his critique of the liberal state, and that the neoliberal form of homo oeconomicus will finally leave behind. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 546

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the central conceptual frame: the citizen-bourgeois split historically constitutive of liberal democracy, which homo oeconomicus collapses.
• XREF: Directly parallels the Marx-to-neoliberalism arc and connects to Brown’s broader argument; also resonates with Foucault’s Birth of Biopolitics as cited in note 13. — connects to: Neo-liberalism collapses labor into capital and frames the individual as an enterprise — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1218; Economic liberalism defines the political, collapsing the distinction between them — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 100; Neoliberalism replaces labor with human capital and dissolves the stable self — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 162 (+10 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: This condensed historical sketch is the chapter’s conceptual linchpin — the whole thesis that homo oeconomicus leaves behind the citizen/bourgeois split is packed into one paragraph. But given it is a single definitional sketch, deeming it top-tier is arguable.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal economic rationality is extinguishing the domains through which democracy materializes. #expands (0.88)
• Neo-liberalism collapses labor into capital and frames the individual as an enterprise #expands (0.85) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1218
• Foucault frames neoliberalism as a remaking of liberal governmentality rather than an economic break #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 87
• Neoliberalism’s construction of persons and states is emptying out democratic principles publicly. #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 42
• Economic liberalism defines the political, collapsing the distinction between them #expands (0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 100
• Neoliberalism abolishes classes, the individual, and Lockean property in one move #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 164
• Neoliberalism redefined liberty as economic rather than political. #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 380
• Neoliberalism replaces labor with human capital and dissolves the stable self #corroborates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 162
• Neoliberalism is a caricature of liberalism reduced to a theory of economic organization #qualifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2121
• Economists equated the bourgeoisie with homo economicus to naturalize class society #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1128
• Neoliberal market discipline was adopted to pacify unruly democratic publics #expands (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 122
• Neoliberalism suppresses both liberal and radical-democratic traditions. #expands (0.72) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 13