Neoliberalism swallows humanity through its form of valuation itself

Evidence

For Aristotle, Arendt, and Marx, the potential of the human species is realized not through, but beyond the struggle for existence and wealth accumulation. We need not even reach outside liberalism for this point: for John Stuart Mill, too, what makes humanity “a noble and beautiful object of contemplation” is individuality, originality, “fullness of life,” and above all, cultivation of our “higher nature.” Neoliberalism retracts this “beyond” and eschews this “higher nature”: the normative reign of homo oeconomicus in every sphere means that there are no motivations, drives, or aspirations apart from economic ones, that there is nothing to being human apart from “mere life.” Neoliberalism is the rationality through which capitalism finally swallows humanity—not only with its machinery of compulsory commodification and profit-driven expansion, but by its form of valuation. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 75

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that capitalism’s form of valuation — not its machinery — extinguishes higher humanity resonates with On Sacrifice’s concern with how rationality claims the whole self. — connects to: Neoliberalism replaces labor with human capital and dissolves the stable self — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 162; Neoliberal logic treats even selling one’s own organs as protected self-determination — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 416; Neo-liberalism collapses labor into capital and frames the individual as an enterprise — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1218 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism redefined human being itself as human capital. #expands (0.90) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 134
• The neoliberal subject must constantly self-invest across all life domains #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 360
• Neoliberalism’s ultimate ideal self is the autonomous self-made individual #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 430
• Neoliberalism replaces class analysis with a cynical catechism of limitless self-transformation #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 332