Neoliberalism is a governing rationality, not just economic policy or ideology.
Evidence
The claim that neoliberalism is profoundly destructive to the fiber and future of democracy in any form is premised on an understanding of neoliberalism as something other than a set of economic policies, an ideology, or a resetting of the relation between state and economy. Rather, as a normative order of reason developed over three decades into a widely and deeply disseminated governing rationality, neoliberalism transmogrifies every human domain and endeavor, along with humans themselves, according to a specific image of the economic. All conduct is economic conduct; all spheres of existence are framed and measured by economic terms and metrics, even when those spheres are not directly monetized. In neoliberal reason and in domains governed by it, we are only and everywhere homo oeconomicus, which itself has a historically specific form. Far from Adam Smith’s creature propelled by the natural urge to “truck, barter, and exchange,” today’s homo oeconomicus is an intensely constructed and governed bit of human capital tasked with improving and leveraging its competitive positioning and with enhancing its (monetary and nonmonetary) portfolio value across all of its endeavors and venues. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 14
In contrast with an understanding of neoliberalism as a set of state policies, a phase of capitalism, or an ideology that set loose the market to restore profitability for a capitalist class, I join Michel Foucault and others in conceiving neoliberalism as an order of normative reason that, when it becomes ascendant, takes shape as a governing rationality extending a specific formulation of economic values, practices, and metrics to every dimension of human life. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 48
Categorization
- DEFINE: Core definitional move of the book: neoliberalism as normative order of reason / political rationality rather than policy set.
- XREF: Connects to Foucault’s biopolitics/gouvernementalité lectures and to later literature on financialization of the self; also parallels the figure-ground of homo oeconomicus vs. Adam Smith’s natural trader. — connects to: Neoliberalism extends market logic to regulate all human behavior. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 32; Governments conflate capitalist economic rationality with rationality itself. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 369; Neoliberalism was both a class-power project and a coherent ideology. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 478 (+12 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The reconception of humans as self-managing ‘human capital’ in every domain is a paradigm-shifting reframe that resists one-sentence summary.
- QUESTION: How does the governing-rationality definition change the targets and tools of critique versus the policy critique?
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 14; Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 48
Broader Connections
- Neoliberalism is a normative mode of reason, not merely an economic policy set
#corroborates(1.00) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 80 - Neoliberalism governs as a normative form of reason, not ideology or material force.
#corroborates(0.97) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 219 - Neoliberalism is a governing rationality that frames all life in market terms
#expands(0.90) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 357 - Neoliberalism makes the enterprise the formative power of society, not merely an economic policy.
#corroborates(0.90) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 120 - The economy functions as model, object, and project of neoliberal state rationality.
#expands(0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 107 - Neoliberalism generalizes the economic form across the entire social field, unlike classical liberalism.
#expands(0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 105 - Neoliberalism is a reprogramming of liberal governmentality, not a reaction to capitalist crisis
#expands(0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 83