Neoliberal rationality discursively erases stratification and power differences among speakers.

Evidence

In a rhetorically structured field in which there is only speech and its endangerment by government and in which the unimpeded flow of speech benefits all, while government intervention invariably targets and discriminates, significant differences among speakers disappear. Whether the speaker is a homeless woman or Exxon, speech is speech, just as capital is capital. This disavowal of stratification and power differentials in the field of analysis and action is a crucial feature of neoliberal rationality, precisely the feature that discursively erases distinctions between capital and labor, owners and producers, landlord and tenant, rich and poor. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 323

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pinpoints the defining move of neoliberal rationality: the disavowal of power differentials that flattens all actors (homeless woman or Exxon) into equivalent capital units.
• XREF: Parallels Brown’s earlier chapters on homo oeconomicus and the expansion of market metrics to all spheres. — connects to: Denunciations of egoism leave power imbalances and inequality untouched — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 736; Neoliberalism replaces class analysis with a cynical catechism of limitless self-transformation — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 332; Newspaper critics of the crisis are themselves cogs in the neoliberal discourse machine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 832 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal rationality makes inequality normal and normative in democracy #expands (0.88) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 63
• Neoliberalism removed race from public vocabulary while privatizing it #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1781
• Neoliberal discourse encourages racism without being itself racist #expands (0.82)