CHAPTER ONE
Undoing Democracy: Neoliberalism's Remaking of State and Subject
Ths book s a theoretcal consderaton of the ways that neolberalsm, s m, a pecular pec ular rm of reason reason that congures all aspects aspec ts of exstence exstence n economc terms, s quetly undong basc elements of democracy. These These element elementss nclude nclude vocabulares vocabulares , prncples p rncples of j ustce, poltcal cul tures tures , habts habts of ctenshp, practces of rule, and above above all, democrat democratcc magnares mag nares . My argument s not merel merelyy that markets and money money are corruptng or degradng democracy, that poltcal n sttutons and outoutcomes are ncreasngly domnated by nance and corporate captal, or that democracy s beng replaced by plutocracyrule by and r the rch. Rather, neolberal reason, ubqutous today n statecraft and the workplace, n jursprudence, educaton, culture, and a vast range of quotdan actvty, actvty, s convertng convertng the d stnctly st nctly plitical character cha racter,, meanng, and operaton of democracy's democracy 's consttuen cons ttuentt elements nto ecnmic ones. Lberal democratc nsttutons, practces, and habts may not survve ths converson. Radcal democratc dreams may not ether. Thus, ths book charts both a dsturbng contemporary condton and the potental barrenness r ture democratc projects contaned n ths troubled present. The nsttutons and prncples amed at securng n g democracy, democracy, the cu ltures requred to noursh nours h t, the energes energ es needed to anmate anmate t, and and the ctens pracc praccng, ng, carng r or desrng t all of these are challen c hallenged ged by neolberalsm's neolberal sm's "economaton of poltcal poltc al lfe lfe and of other heretore heretore noneconom noneco nomcc spheres sp heres and actvte ac tvtess .
17
What s the connecton between neolberalsm's hollowng out of contemporary lberal democracy and ts mperlng of more radcal democratc democratc magnares ? Lberal democratc democratc practces and and nsttutons almost always ll short of ther promse proms e and at at tmes cruelly nvert nvert t, yet lberal democratc pr ncples hold, h old, and hold hold out, deals of both ee ee dom and equalty unversally shared and of poltcal rule by and r the people. Most Mo st other rmulatons rmulatons of democracy share these these deals , nterpretng them deren derently tly and ofte often n seekng seek ng to t o reale them more substantvely than lberalsm's rmalsm, prvatsm, ndvdualsm, and and relatve relatve complacency about about captalsm captals m makes poss po ss ble. oweve oweverr f, f, as ths book suggests su ggests , neolberal reason s evacuatng evacuatng these deals and desres om actually exstng exst ng lberal democrac es, es , om what platrm would would more ambtous ambtous democratc proj proj ects be launched? launched ? ow would would the desre r more or better democ democracy racy be kndled om the ash heap of ts bourgeos rm? Why would peoples want or seek democracy n the absence of even ts vaporous vaporous lberal lberal democratc democratc nstantaton nstantaton?? And what n dedemocrated subjects and subjectvtes would yearn r ths poltcal regme, a yearnng that s nether prmordal nor cul tured by by ths hstorcal hs torcal condton? condton? These Thes e questons are remnders remnders that the the problem problem of o f what what knds of peoples peo ples and and c ultures would s eek or bu ld democracy, r om beng one manly pertnent to the nonWest, s of drvng mportance n the contemporary West. emocracy can be undone, undone, hollowed hollowed out om wthn, wth n, not only overthr overthrown own or st ymed yme d by antdemocrats And desre r democracy s nether gven nor uncor ruptble; ndeed, even even democratc democratc theors theors ts such as Rousseau Rous seau and and Mll acknowledge the dculty of craftng democratc sprts om the materal materal of European mo dernty. dernty.
Any eort to theore the relaton of democracy and neolberalsm s challenged by the ambgutes and multple sgncatons of both
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words "emocracy s among the most contested and promscuous terms n our modern poltcal vocabulary In the popular magnary, "democracy stands r everythng om ee electons to ee markets , om protests aganst dctators to law and order, om the centralty of rghts t o the stablty of states , om the voce of the assembled mult tude to the protecton of ndvdualty and the wrong of dcta mposed by crowds For some, democracy s the crown jewel of the West; r others, t s what the West has never really had, or t s manly a gloss r Western mperal ams emocracy comes n so many varetes socal, lberal, radcal, republcan, representatve, authortaran, drect, partcpatory, delberatve, plebsctethat such clams often speak past one another In poltcal scence, emprcal scholars se ek to stab le the term wth metrcs and meanngs that poltcal theorsts con test and problemate Wthn poltcal theory, scholars are sangune or unhappy to derent degrees about the contemporary monopoly on "democratc theory by a sngle rmulaton (lberal) and method (analytc) Even the Greek etymology of "democracy generates ambguty and dspute Dms/kratia translates as "people rule or "rule by the peo ple But who were the "people of ancent Athens? The properted? The poor? The uncounted? The many? Ths was a dspute n Athens tself, whch s why r Plato, democracy s proxmate to anarchy, whle r Arstotle, t s rule by the poor In contemporary Contnental the ory, Gorgo Agamben dentes a constant ambgutyone that "s no accdent about the demos as referrng both to the entre polt cal body and to the poor2 Jacques Rancre argues (through Plato's Laws) that the demos refers to nether, but nstead to those unqualed to rule, to the "uncounted Thus, r Rancre, democracy s always an erupton of "the part that has no part3 E tenne Balbar augments Rancre's clam to argue that democracy's sgnature equalty and eedom are "mposed by the revolt of the excluded, but always then "reconstructed by ctens themselves n a process that has no end4
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Acceptng the open and contesable sgncaton of democracy s essental to ths work because I want to release democracy om contanment by any partcular rm whle ns stng on ts value n connotng poltcal selfrule by the people, whoever the people are. In ths, democracy stands opposed not ony to tyranny and dctatorshp, scsm or totaltaransm, arstocracy, plutocracy or corporatocracy, but also to a contemporary phenomenon n whch rule transmutes nto governance and management n the order that neolberal ratonalty s brngng about. " eolberalsm , too, s a loose and shftng sgner. It s a scholarly commonplace that neolberalsm has no xed or settled coordnates , that there s temporal and geographcal varety n ts dscursve rmulatons, polcy entalments, and materal practces.5 Ths commonplace exceeds recognton of neolberalsms multple and dverse orgns or the recognton that neolberalsm s a term manly deployed by ts crtcs, and hence ts very exstence s questonable.6 eolberalsm as economc polcy, a modalty of governance, and an order of reason s at once a global phenomenon, yet nconstant, derentated, unsystematc, mpure. It ntersecs n Sweden wth the contnued legtmacy of welr sm, n S outh Aca wth a po stAparthed expectaton of a democratng and reds trbutve state, n Chna wth Concansm, postMaosm, and captalsm, n the Unted States wth a strange brew of longestablshed antstatsm and new manageral sm . eolberal polces also come through derent portals and agents. Whle neolberalsm was an "experment mposed on Chle by Augusto Pnochet and the Ch lean economsts known as "the Ch cago Boys after ther 973 overthrow of Salvador Allende, t was the Internatonal Monetary Fund that mposed "structural adjustments on the Global South over the next two decades. Smlarly, whle Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan sought bold eemarket rerms when they rst came to power, neolberalsm also unlded more subtly n EuroAtlantc natons through technques of governance usurpng a
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democrac wh an economc vocabulary and socal conscousness. Moreover, neolberal raonaly self has alered over me, especally, bu no only n he ranson om a producve o an ncreasngly nancaled economy.7 A paradox, hen. eolberalsm s a dsncve mode of reason, of he producon of subjecs, a "conduc of conduc, and a scheme of valuaon. I names a hs orcally sp ecc economc and polcal reac on agans Keynesansm and democrac soca ls m, as well as a more generaled pracce of "economng spheres and acves hereo re governed by oher ables of value. Ye n s derenal nsana ons acros s counres , regons, and secors , n s varous nersecons wh exan culures and polcal radons, and above all, n s con vergences wh and upakes of oher dscourses and developmens, neolberalsm akes dverse shapes and spawns dverse conen and normave deals, even deren doms . I s globally ubquous, ye dsu ned and nondencal wh self n space and over me. owhsandng hese dverse nsanaons, r reasons ha wll become clear, I wll be more concerned o spulae a meanng r "neo lberalsm han r "democracy n hs work. owever, hese aspecs of neolberalsms unevenness, s lack of selfdeny, s spaal and emporal varably, and above all, s avalably o recongura on are mporan o underscore n an argumen cused on s era on n he me we may call conemporary and he place we may call he Euro Alanc world. Alerness o neolberalsm's nconsancy and plascy cauons agans denfyng s curren eraon as s essen al and global ruh and agans makn g he sory I am ellng a eleo logcal one, a dark chaper n a seady march oward end mes.
In he Republic Plao mously oers a src homology beween he cy and he soul. Each has he same consuen pars reason
N DO I NG DE MOCRACY
21
(phlosophers) , sprt (warrors) , and appette (workers ) and each s properly or mproperly ordered n he same way. If appette or sprt, rather than reason, governs ether the ndvdual or poltcal lfe, the cost s justce or vrtue. Poltcal theorsts have challenged Plato's homology often enough, yet t has a way of recurrng. Ths book wll suggest that neolberal reason has returned t wth a vengeance: both persons and states are construed on the model of the contemporary rm, both persons and states are expected to comport themselves n ways that maxme ther captal value n the present and enhance ther ture value, and both persons and states do so through practces of entrepreneuralsm, selfnvestment, and/or attractng nvestors. Any regme pursung another course ces scal crses, downgraded credt, currency or bond ratngs, and lost legtmacy at the least, bank ruptcy and dssoluton at the extreme. Lkewse, any ndvdual who veers nto other pursuts rsks mpovershment and a loss of esteem and credtworthness at the least, survval at the extreme. Most strkng about the new homology between cty and soul s that ts coordnates are economc not poltcal. As both ndvdual and state become projects of management, rather than rule, as an eco nomc amng and economc ends replace poltcal ones, a range of concerns become subsumed to the project of captal enhancement, recede altogether, or are radcally transrmed as they are "econo med. These nclude justce (and ts subelements, such as lberty, equalty, rnes s ) , ndvdual and popular soveregnty, and the rule of law. They also nclude the knowledge and the cultural orentaton rel evant to even the most modest practces of democratc ctens hp. Two examples, one concernng the soul and one concernng the state, wll help to make ths pont. Remaking the Sul. It s no news that uropean and orth Amer can unverstes have been radcally transrmed and revalued n recent decades. Rsn g tuton rates declnng state support, the rse of rprot and onlne educaton, the remakng of unverstes through
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NDO ING E DEOS
corporate "be st practces, and a growng busness culture of "competences n place of "certcates have cast the vory tower of just thrty years ago as anachronstc, expensve, and ndulgent. Whle Brtan has semprvated most publc nsttutons and ted remanng state ndng to a set of academc productvty metrcs that measure knowl edge accordng to "mpact, the con of transrmaton n the Unted States s a bt derentprolferaton of more nrmal rankng systems proxmate to crowdsourcng. Older measures of college qualty (themselves contestable nsor as hey were heavly bound to the cal ber and s e of applcant pool , along wth endowments) are beng rap dly supplanted by a host of new "best bang r the buck rankngs . 1 ° Oered by venues rangng om Kiplinger's Persnal Finance to the Princetn Review and Frbes Magazine the algorthms may be compl cated, but the cultural shft s plan: replacng measures of educatonal qualty are metrcs orented entrely to return on nvestment (ROI) and centered o n what knd of job placement and ncome enhancement student nvestors may expect om any gven nsttuton. The ques ton s not mmoral, bu t obvously shr nks the value of hgher educaton to ndvdual economc rsk and gan, removng quant concerns wth developng the person and cten or perhaps reducng such development to the capacty r economc advantage. More mportantly, there s a government plan n the works to base allocatons of $0 bllon n federal nancal ad on these new metrcs, permttng schools that earn a hgh ratng to oer more student ad than those at the bottom. If the plan materales, whch seems lkely, nsttu tons and students alke wll not be vaguely nterpellated or "ncen tved but rcelly remade by the metrcs , as unverstes , lke any other nvestment, are rated n terms of rsk exposure and expected yeld.11 The ratng system would have nsttutonal ramcatons vastly exceedng ts express ed concerns wth cappng cos ts at unverstes, nstead nctng rapd compres son of general educaton requrements and tme to degree, undermnng whatever remans of both the
U N D O I N G D E M O C R A CY
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lberal arts and recrutment of hstorcally dsadvantaged populatons, and more broadly, remakng pedagogy, pathways, and standards r knowledge acquston expected of college graduates. The new metrcs, n short, both ndex and drve a hghereducaton revoluton. Once about developng ntellgent, thoughtl eltes and reproducng culture, and more recently, enactng a prncple of equal opportunty and cultvatng a broadly educated ctenry, hgher educaton now produces human captal, thereby turnng classcally humanst values on ther head. A s Chapter argues at greater length , when hgher educaton s revolutoned n ths way, so are the soul, the cten, and democracy. Remaking the State Presdent Obama opened hs second term n oce wth apparently renewed concern r those left out of the Amercan dream by vrtue of class, race, sexualty, gender, dsablty, or mmgraton status. s "We the People nauguraton speech n January 0 sounded those concerns loudly; combned wth hs State of the Unon address three weeks later, the presdent seemed to have redscovered hs Left base or perhaps even hs own justcemnded sprt after a centrst, comproms ng, dealmakng rst term n oce. Perhaps Occ upy Wall Street could even clam a mnor vctory n s hftng popular dscourse on who and what Amerca was r. Certanly, t s true that the two speeches featured Obama's "evoluton on gay marrage and renewed determnaton to extrcate the Unted States om ts mltary quagmres n the Mddle ast. They expressed concern, too, wth those left behnd n the neolberal race to rches whle "corporate prots . . . rocketed to alltme hghs.12 In these ways, t seemed that the lght of "hope and change on whch Obama had glded to power n 0 0 8 had ndeed been regnted. Close consderaton of the State of the Unon address, however, reveals a dfferent placng of the accent marks . Whle Obama called r protectn g Medcare; progressve tax rerm; ncreasng government nvestment n scence and technology research, clean energy, home ownershp,
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ND ONG TH E DEOS
and educaton; mmgraton rerm; ghtng sex dscrmnaton and domestc volence; and rasng the mnmum wage, each of these ssues was amed n terms of ts contrbuton to economc growth or Amercan compettveness.13 "A growng economy that creates good, mddleclass jobsthat must be the orth Star that gudes our eorts the presdent ntoned. "Every day, he added, "we must ask ourselves three questons as a naton.14 What are these supervenent gudes to law and polcy r maton, to collectve and ndvdual conduct? "ow do we attract more jobs to our shores ? ow do we equp our people wth the sklls needed to do those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent lvng? 5 Attractng nvestors and developng an adequately remunerated sklled workrce these are the goals of the worlds oldest democracy led by a justcemnded presdent n the twentyrst century. Success n these areas would n turn reale the ultmate goal of the naton and the government that stewards t, "broadbased growth r the economy as a whole. More mportantly, every progressve value om decreasng domestc volence to slowng clmate change Obama rep resented as not merely reconclable wth economc growth, but as drv ng t. C lean energy would keep us compettve "as long as countres lke Chna keep gong alln on clean energy, so must we. 16 Fxng our agng nastructure would "prove that there s no better place to do busness than the Unted S tates of Amerca. 1 7 More accessble mort gages enablng "responsble young mles to buy ther rst home wll "help our economy grow.1 I nvestng n educaton would reduce the drags on growth caused by teen pregnancy and volent crme, put "kds on a path to a good job, allow them to "work ther way nto the mddle class, and provde the sklls that would make the econ omy compettve. Schools should be rewarded r partnerng wth "colleges and employers and r creatng "classes that cus on sc ence, technology, engneerng and math the sklls todays employers
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are looking r1 Immigration rerm will "harness the talents and ingenuity of striving, hopel immigrants and attract "the highly skilled entrepreneurs and engineers that will help create jobs and grow our economy Economic growth would also result "when our wives, mothers and daughters can live their lives ee om discrimination and fear of domestic violence, when "we reward an honest days work with honest wages with mini mum wage rerm, when we rebuild decimated ctory towns, and when we strengthen milies through "removing nancial deterrents to marriage r lowincome couples and doing more to encourage therhood 1 Obamas January 0 State of the Union speech thus recovered a liberal agenda by packaging it as economic stimulus, promising that it would generate competitiveness, prosperity, and continued recovery om the recessions induced by the 008 nancecapital meltdown Some might argue that this packaging was aimed at coopting the oppo sition, not simply neutralizing, but reversing the charges against taxandspend Democrats by rmulating social justice, government investment, and environmental protection as el r economic growth That aim is patently evident But exclusive cus on it elides the way that economic growth has become both the end and legitimation of government, ironically, at the very historical moment that honest economists acknowledge that capital accumulation and economic growth have gone separate ways , in part becaus e the rent extractions cilitated by nancialization are not growth inducing In a neoliberal era when the market ostensibly takes care of itself, Obamas speech reveals government as both responsible r stering economic health and as subsuming all other undertakings (except national secu rity) to economic health Striking in its own right, this rmulation means that democratic state commitments to euality, liberty, inclusion, and constitutionalism are now subordinate to the project of eco nomic growth, competitive positioning, and capital enhancement These political commitments can no longer stand on their own legs
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U NDOIN G TE DEMOS
and, the speech implies, would be jettisoned if und to abate, rather than abet, economic goals What the Obama speech also makes clear is that the states table of purposes and priorities has become indistinguishable om that of modern rms, especially as the latter increasingly adopts concerns with justice and sustainabiity or rms and the state alike, competitive positioning and stock or credit rating are primary other ends om sustainable production practices to worker justice are pursued insor as they contribute to this end As "caring becomes a market niche, green and irtrade practices, along with (miniscule) prot diversion to charity, have become the public ce and market strategy of many rms today Obamas State of the Union speech adjusts the semantic order of things only slightly, regrounding j ustice issues even as they are tethered to competitive positioning The conduct of government and the conduct of rms are now ndamentally identical both are in the business of justice and sustainability, but never as ends in themselves Rather, "social responsibility, which must itself be entrepreneurialized, is part of what attracts consumers and investors3 In this respect, Obamas speech at once depicts neoliberal statism and is a brilliant marketing ploy borrowed directly om business increasing his own credit and enhancing his value by attracting (re)investment om an ecologically or justiceminded sector of the public These are but two examples of the contemporary neoliberal transrmations of subjects, states, and their relation that animate this book: What happens to rule by and r the people when neoliberal reason congures both soul and city as contemporary rms, rather than as polities What happens to the constituent elements of democracy its culture, subjects , principes , and institutions when neoliberal rationality saturates political life Having opened with stories, I hasten to add that this is mainly a work of political theory whose aim is to elucidate the large arc and
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key mechanisms through which neoliberalisms novel construction of persons and states are evacuating democratic principles, eroding democratic institutions and eviscerating the democratic imaginary of European modernity It is, in the classic sense of the word, a critique an efrt to comprehend the constitutive elements and dynamics of our condition It does not elaborate alternatives to the order it illuminates and only occasionally identies possible strategies r resisting the developments it chars However, the predicaments and powers it illuminates might contribute to the development of such alternatives and strategies , which are themselves vital to any ture r democracy
eoliberalism i s most commonly understood as enacting an ensemble of economic policies in accord with its root principle of airming ee markets These include deregulation of industries and capital flows radical reduction in welre state provisions and protections r the vulnerable privatized and outsourced public good s, ranging om education, parks, postal services, roads, and social welre to prisons and militaries replacement of progressive with regressive tax and tari schemes the end of wealth redistribution as an economic or social political policy the conversion of every human need or desire into a protable enterprise, om college admissions preparation to human organ transplants , om baby adoptions to pollution rights , om avoiding lines to securing legroom on an airplane and, most recently, the fnancialization of everything and the increasing dominance of nance capital over productive capital in the dynamics of the economy and everyday life Critics of these policies and practices usually concentrate on ur deleterious eects The frst is intensed inequality in which the very top strata acquires and retains ever more wealth, the very bottom is
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U NDOIN G TE DEMOS
literally turned out on the streets or into the growing urban and suburban slums of the world, while the middle strata works more hours r less pay, fewer benets, less security, and less promise of retirement or upward mobility than at any time in the past half century. While they rarely use the term "neoliberalism, this is the emphasis of the valuable critiues of Western state policy oered by economis ts Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglit and of development policy oered by Amartya Sen, James Ferguson, and Branko Milanvic, among others. 4 Growing ineuaity is also among the eects that Thomas Pi ketty establishes as ndamental to the recent past and near ture of postKeynesian capitalism. The second criticism o f neoliberal s tate economic p olicy and deregulation pertains to the crass r unethical cmmercializatin of things and activities considered inappropriate r marketiation. The claim is that marketiation contributes to human exploitation or degradation (r example, Third World baby surrogates r wealthy First World couples ) , because it limits or straties access to what ought to be broadly accessible and shared (education, wilderness, inastructure) , or because it enables something intrinsically horric or severely denigrating to the planet (organ tracking, pollution rights, clearcutting, acking) . Again, while they do not use the term "neoliberalis m, this i s the thrust of the critiues rwarded in Debra Sats Why Sme Things Shuld Nt Be fr Sale and Michael Sandels What Mney Can't Buy 25 Thirdly, critics of neoliberalism understood as state economic policy are also distressed by the ever-grwing intimacy f crprte and nance capital with the state and corporate domination of political decisions and economic policy. Sheldon S . Wolin emphasies this in Demcracy Incrprated although Wolin, too, avoids the descriptor "neoliberalism. These themes are also the signature of lmmaker Michael Moore, and are developed in a dierent way by Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker in Winner-Take-All Plitics 27
U N D O N G D E M O C A CY
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Finally, critic s of neoliberal state policy are often concerned with the ecnmic havc wreaked on the economy by the ascendance and liberty of nance capital, especially the destabiliing eects of the inherent bubbles and other dramatic fluctuations of nancial markets Made vivid by the immediate shock as well as the long tail of the 0 080 0 9 nancecapital meltdown, these eects are also underscored by the routinely widening discrepancies between the tes of Wall Street and the socalled "real economy They are charted by a range of thinkers including Grard Dumnil and Dominiue Lvy in The Crisis f Ne liberalism Michael Hudson in Finance Capitalism and Its Discntents Yves Smith in E-CONned: Hw Unrestrained SeInterest Undermined Demcracy and Crrupted Capitalism Matt Taibbi in Gpia: A Stry f Bankers Pliticians and the Mst Audacius Pwer Grb in American Histry and Philip Mirowski in Never Let a Serius Crisis G t Waste: Hw Neliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdwn 2 ntensied ineuality, crass commodication and commerce, evergrowing corporate infuence in government, economic havoc and instabilitycertainly all of these are conseuences of neoliberal policy, and all are material r loathing or popular protest, as indeed, Occ upy Wall Street, the Southern E uropean protests against austerity policies, and, earlier, the "Antiglobaliation movement loathed and protested them However, in this book, neoliberalism is rmulated somewhat dierently and cuses on dierent deleterious eects n contrast with an understanding of neoliberalism as a set of state policies, a phase of capitalis m, or an ideology that set loose the market to restore protability r a capitalist class, join Michel Foucault and others in conceiving neoliberalism as an order of normative reason that, when it becomes a scendant, takes shape as a governing rationality extending a specic rmulation of economic values, practices, and metric s to every dimension of human life Thi s governing rationality involves what Koray Cali skan and Michel Callon term the "economiation of heretore noneconomic spheres
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and practices, a process of remaking the knowledge, rm, content, and conduct appropriate to these spheres and practices 3 I mportantly, such economization may not always involve monetization That i s, we may (and neoliberalism interpellates us as subjects who do) think and act like contemporary market subj ects where monetary wealth generation is not the immediate is sue, r example, in approaching ones education, health, tness, mily life, or neighborhood3 To speak of the relentless and ubiuitous economization of all features of life by neoliberalism is thus not to claim that neoliberalism literally marketizes all spheres, even as such marketization is certainly one important eect of neoliberalis m Rather, the point is that neoliberal rationality disseminates the mdel fte marke t to all domains and activities even where money is not at issueand congures human beings exhaustively as market actors, always, only, and everywhere as m ecnmicus Thus, one might approach ones dating life in the mode of an entrepreneur or investor, yet not be trying to generate, accumulate, or invest monetary wealth in this domain3 Many upscale online dating companies dene their clientele and oerings in these terms , identifying the importance of maximizing return on investment of aect, not only time and money33 The Supreme Court might construe ee speech as the right to advance or advertise ones worth without this worth being monetized we will see an instance of this in Citizens United disc ussed in Chapter 5. A s tudent might undertake charitable service to enrich her college application prole however, the service remains unwaged, and the desire r a particular college may exceed its promise of income enhancement Similarly, a parent might choose a primary school r a child based on its placement rates in secondary schools who have high placement rates in elite colleges , yet not be calculating primarily either the monetary outlays r this child or the income that the grown child is expected to earn Widespread economization of heretore noneconomic domains, activities, and subjects, but not necessarily marketization or moneti
U N D O I N G D E O C R ACY
zation of them, then, is the distinctive si gnature of neoliberal rationality However, "economization is itself a broad term, with no constant content or rce acros s dierent his torical and spatial instantiations of "economy To say that neoliberalism construes subj ects as relentlessly economic actors does not tell us in what roles Producers Merchants ntrepreneurs Consumers Investors Similarly, the economization of society and politics could occur through the model of the household, a nation of laborers, a nation of clients or consumers, or a world of human capitals These are among the pos sibilities carried by economization in recent histories of state socialism, welre statism, social democracy, national socialism, and neoliberalism I ndeed, Carl S chmitt argued that liberal democracy was already a rm of economizing the state and the political, and r Hannah Arendt and Claude Lert, the economization of society, politics , and man was a signature of Marxism in theory and practice34 So what is distinctive about neoliberal economization Part of the story pertains to economizations enlarged domain it reaches to practices and crevices of desire heretore unimaginable But the shift is more than a matter of degree Contemporary neoliberal rationality does not mobilize a timeless gure of economic man and simply enlarge its purview That is hm ecnmicus does not have a constant shape and bearing across the centuries Two hundred years ago, the igure mously drawn by Adam Smith was that of a merchant or trader who relentlessly pursued his own interests through exchange One hundred years ago, the principle of hm ecnmicus was reconceived by Jeremy Bentham as avoidance of pain and pursuit of pleasure, or endless costbenet calculations Thirty years ago, at the dawn of the neoliberal era, hm ecnmicus was still oriented by interest and prot seeking, bu now entrepreneurialized itself at every turn and was rmulated as human capital As Foucault puts it, the subject was now submitted to diusion and multiplication of the enterprise rm within the social body35 Today, hm ecnmicus
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maintains aspects of that entrepreneurialism, but has been signicantly reshaped as nancialied human capital: its project is to selfinvest in ways that enhance its value or to attract investors through constant attention to its actual or gurative credit rating, and to do this acros s every sphere of its exis tence 3 The contemporary "economiation of subjects by neoliberal rationality is thus distinctive in at least three ways First, in contrast with classical economic liberalism, we are everywhere hm ecnmicus and only hm ecnmicus This s one of the novelties that neoliberalism introduces into political and social thought and is among its most subversive elements Adam Smith, assau Senior, JeanBaptiste Say, David Ricardo, and James Steuart devoted a great deal of attention to the relationship of economic and political life without ever reducing the latter to the rmer or imagining that economics could remake other elds of existence in and through its own terms and metrics37 Some even went so r as to designate the danger or impropriety of allowing the economy too great an influence in political, not to mention moral and ethical life Second, neoliberal hm ecnmicus takes its shape as human cap ital seeking to strengthen its competitive positioning and appreciate its value, rather than as a gure of exchange or interest This, too, is novel and distinguishes th e neoliberal subject om the subject drawn by classical or neoclassical economists, but also by Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx, Karl Polanyi, or Albert 0. Hirschman Third, and related, today, the specic model r human capital and its spheres of activity is increasingly that of nancial or investment capital, and not only productive or entrepreneurial capital Marketeering based on protable exchange and entrepreneurialiing ones assets and endeavors has not entirely vanished and remains part of what contemporary human capital is and does ncreasingly, however, as Michel Feher argues, hm ecnmicus as human capital is concerned with enhancing its portlio value in all domains of its life, an
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activity undertaken through practces of selfinvestment and attracting investors3 Whether through social media "llowers, "likes, and "retweets, through rankings and ratings r every activity and domain, or through more directly monetized practices, the pursuit of education, training, leisure, reproduction, consumption, and more are increasingly congured as strategic decisions and practices related to enhancing the selfs ture value Of course, many contemporary rms continue to be oriented by interest, prot, and market exchange; commodication has not disappeared om capitalist economies, nor has entrepreneurialis m T he point, however, is that nance capital and nancialization bring about a new model of economic conduct, one that is not only reserved to investment banks or corporations Even entrepreneurial rms that continue to seek prots through cost reducion, development of new markets, or adaptation to changing environments also pursue carel strategies of risk management, capital enhancement, leveraging, speculation, and practices designed to attract investors and enhance credit ratings and portlio value Thus, the conduct and subjectivity of hm ec nmicus shaped in the era of nance capital diers signicantly om Smithian truck, barter, and exchange, and om Benthamite pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain As neoliberal rationality remakes the human being as human capital, an earlier rendering of hm ec nmicus as an interest maximizer gives way to a rmulation of the sub ject as both a member of a rm and as itself a rm, and in both cases as appropriately conducted by the governance practices appropriate to rms These practices, as Chapter 4 will explore in detail, substitute everevolving new management techniques r topdown rule in state, rm, and subject alike Centralized authority, law, policing, rules, and quotas are replaced by networked, teambased, practiceoriented techniques emphasizing incentivization, guidelines, an d benchmarks When the construction of human beings and human conduct as hm ecnmicus spreads to every sphere, including that of political
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life itself, it radically transrms not merely the organization, but the purpose and character of each sphere, as well as relations among them In political life, the cus of this book, neoliberalization transposes democratic political principles of ustice i nto an economic idiom, transrms t he s tate itself into a manager of the nation on the model of a rm (Thailands prime minister, Thaksin S hinawatra, declared himself "CO of Thailand Inc in the 990s), and hollows out much of the substance of democratic citizenship and even popular sovereignty Thus , one important eect of neoliberalization is the vanquishing of liberal democracy s already anemic m pliticus a vanquis hing with enormous consequences r democratic institutions, cultures, and imaginaries
Ho w do human beings come to be igured as m ecnmicus and more specically as "human capital across all spheres of life How does the distinctive rm of reason that is neoliberalism become a governing rationality saturating the practices of ordinary institutions and discourses of everyday life While neoliberal policy was often imposed through at and rce in the 90 s and 980s, neoliberalization in the uroAtlantic world today is more often enacted through specic techniques of governance, through best practices and legal tweaks, in short, through "soft power drawing on conse nsus and buy in, than through violence, dictatorial command, or even overt political platrms eoliberalism governs as sophisticated common sense, a reality principle remaking institutions and human beings everywhere it settles, nestles, and gains armation Of course, there are dustups, including protests and political altercations with police, over the privatization of public goods, union busting, benets reductions, publicservice cuts, and more But neoliberalization is generally more termitelike than lionlike its mode of reason boring in capillary
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shion into the trunks and branches of workplaces, schools, public agencies, social and political discourse, and above all, the subect Even the termite metaphor is not uite apt Foucault would remind us that any ascendant political rationality is not only destructive, but brings new subects , conduct, relations, and worlds into being Within neoliberal rationality, human capital is both our "is and our "ought what we are said to be, what we should be, and what the rationality makes us into through its norms and construction of environments We have already seen that one way neoliberalism differs om classical economic liberalism is that all domains are markets, and we are everywhere presumed to be market actors Another dierence, underscored by Foucault, is that in neoliberal reason, competition replaces exchange as the markets root principle and basic good3 (As we will see in Chapter 2, Foucault also argues that neoliberal reason rmulates competition as normative, rather than natural, and thus reuires cilitation and legal support ) This subtle shift om exchange to competition as the e ss ence of the market means that all market actors are rendered as little capitals (rather than as owners, workers, and consumers) competing with, rather than exchanging with each other uman capials constant and ubiuitous aim, whether studying, interning, working, planning retirement, or reinventing itsel fin a new life, is to entrepreneurialize its endeavors , appreciate its value, and increase its rating or ranking n this , it mirrors the mandate r contemporary rms, countries, academic departments or ournals , universities, media or websites entrepreneurialize, enhance competitive positioning and value, maximize ratings or rankings This gure of the human as an ensemble of entrepreneurial and investment capital is evident on every college and ob application, every package of study strategies, every nternship, every new exercise and diet program The best university scholars are characterized as entrepreneurial and investment savvy, not simply by obtaining grants or llowships, but by generating new proects and publications om old
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research, calculating publication and presentation venues, and circulating themselves and their work according to what will enhance their value4 The practice of networking now so ubiuitous in all elds of endeavor is a practice Michel Feher calls "attracting investors 41 These examples remind us again that as neoliberal rationality disseminates market values and metrics to new spheres , this does not always take a monetary rm rather, elds, persons, and practices are economied in ways that vastly exceed literal wealth generation This point will be crucial to understanding the neoliberal remaking of democracy Rendering human beings as human capital has many ramications Here, I cus only on those relevant to my argument First, we are human capital not just r ourselves, but also r the rm, state, or postnational constellation of which we are members Thus , even as w e are tasked with being responsible r ourselves in a competitive world of other human capitals, insor as we are human capital fr rms or states concerned with their own competitive positioning, we have no guarantee of security, protection , or even survival A subject construed and constructed as human capital both r itself and r a rm or state is at persistent risk of ilure, redundancy and abandonment through no doing of its own, regardless of how savvy and responsible it is Fiscal crises , downsiing, outsourcing, rloughs all these and more can j eopardie us, even when we have been savvy and responsible investors and entrepreneurs This jeopardy reaches down to minimum needs r od and shelter, insor as socialsecurity programs of all kinds have been dismantled by neoliberalism Disintegrating the social into entrepreneurial and selfinvesting bits removes umbrellas of protection provided by belonging, whether to a pension plan or to a citienry only miliali sm , discussed in Chapter 3, remains an acceptable social harbor, even as public supports r mily life, om aordable housing to education, have themselves be en degraded by neoliberalism Moreover, as a matter of political and moral meaning, human capitals do not have the standing of Kantian individuals,
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ends in themselves, intrinsically valuable Nor do specically political rights adhere to human capital their status grows unclear and inco herent As Chapter 5 will argue, rights themselves can be economized, sharply recast in meaning and application As human capital, the sub ject is a t once in charge of itself, responsible r itself, yet an instrumentalizable and potentially dispensable element of the whole In this regard, the liberal democratic socia contract is turning inside out Second, ineuality, not euality, is the medium and relation of competing capitals When we are gured as human capital in all that we do and in every venue, euality ceases to be our presumed natural relation with one another Thus, euality ceases to be an a priori or ndament of neoliberalized democracy In legislation, jurisprudence, and the popular imaginary, ineuality becomes normal, even norma tive A democracy composed of human capital features winners and losers , not eual treatment or eual protection In this regard, too , the social contract is turning inside ou Third, when everything is capital, labor disappears as a category, as does its collective rm, class, taking with it the analytic basis r alienation, exploitation, and association among laborers Dismantled at the same time is the very rationale r unions, consumer groups, and other rms o f economic solidarity apart om cartels among capi tals This paves the way r challenging several centuries of labor law and other protections and benefts n the E uroAtlantic world and, per haps as important, makes illegible he undations of such protections and benets One instance of this illegibility is the growing popular opposition to pensions, security of employment, paid holidays, and other hardwon achievements by publicsector workers in the nited States Another measure of it is the absent sympathy r the eects of lifethreatening austerity measures imposed on Southern Europe ans amid the 2 o r r - 2 0 1 2 European nion crises German Chancellor Merkels inmous "lazy Greeks speech during this crisis was impor tant not only r eling reactionary populist sentiments in Northern
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Europe, but also r delivering as common sense the charge that Spanis h, Portuguese, and Greek workers should not enjoy comrtable lives or retirements4 Fourth, when there is only hm ecnmicus, and when the domain of the political itself is rendered in economic terms , the undation vanishes r citienship concerned with public things and the common good ere, the problem is not just that public goods are dended and common ends are devalued by neoliberal reason, although this is so, but that citienship itself loses its plitical valence and venue Valence hm ecnmicus approaches everything as a market and knows only market conduct; it cannot think public purposes or common problems in a dstinctly political way Venue Political life, and the state in particular (about which more in a moment) , are remade by neoliberal rationality The replacement of citienship dened as concern with the public good by citienship reduced to the citien as hm ecnmicus also elminates the very idea of a people, a demos asserting its collective political sovereignty As neoliberalism wages war on public goods and the very idea of a public, including citienship beyond membership, it dramatically thins public life without killing politic s Struggles remain over power, hegemonic values , resources, and ture trajectories This persi stence of politics amid the destruction of public life and especially educated public life, combined with the marketiation of the political sphere, is part of what makes contemporary politics peculiarly unappealing and toxic ll of ranting and posturing, emptied of intellectual seriousness, pandering to an uneducated and manipulable electorate and a celebrityandscandalhungry corporate media eoliberalism generates a condition of politics absent democratic institutions that would support a democratic public and all that such a public represents at its best inrmed passion, respectl deliberation, aspira tional sovereignty, sharp containment of powers that would overrule or undermine it
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ifth, as the legitimacy and task of the state becomes bound exclusively to economic growth , global competitiveness , and maintenance of a strong credit rating, liberal democratic justice concerns recede The economy becomes the organizing and regulative principle of the state and of postnational constellations such as the European Union This is what Obamas January 2013 State of the Union spe ech made clear: justice, peace, or environmental sustainability may be pursued to the extent that they advance economic purposes It was also underscored by the EU bailouts in Southern Europe: the welre of millions was s acriced to avert debt deult and currency downgrades such is the te of citizenship converted to human capital Similarly, not shuttered pub lic services, but the eect on the stock market, on Americas credit rating, and on the growth rate dominated pundits worries about the ll 2 0 1 3 government shutdown and the congressional acas over lifting the debt ceiling The success of neoliberal rationality in remaking citizenship and the subject is indexed by the lack of a scandalized response to the states new role in prioritizing, serving, and propping a supposedly eemarket economy The economization of everything and every sphere, including political life, desensitizes us to the bold contradiction between an allegedly eemarket economy and a state now wholly in service to and controlled by it As the s tate itself is privatized, enlded, and animated by marke rationality in all of its own nctions, and as its legitimacy increasngly rests in cilitating , rescui ng, or steering the economy, it is measured as any other rm would be Indeed, one of the paradoxes of the neoliberal transrmation of the state is that it is remade on the model of the rm while compelled to serve and cilitate an economy it is not supposed to touch, let alone to challenge The absence of a scandalized resp onse to the states role in propping up capital and demoting justice and citizen wellbeing is also the eect of neoliberalisms conversion of basic principles of democracy om a
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political to economic semantic order More than merely demoted, state enactments of the principles of ju stice are transrmed by neoliberal rationality when, in Foucaults words, "neoliberalism models the over all exercise of political power on the principles of the market and the economic grid tests action and gauges validity43 Wen such economiation congures the state as the manager of a rm and the subject as a unit of entrepreneurial and sefinvesting capital, the eect is not simply to narrow the nctions of state and citien or to enlarge the sphere of economically dened eedom at the expense of common investment in public life and public goods Rather, it is to transpose the meaning and practice of democratic concerns with euality, ee dom, and sovereignty om a political to an economic register Here is how this goes As liberty is relocated om political to economic life, it becomes subject to the inherent ineuality of the latter and is part of what secures that ineuality The guarantee of euality through the rule of law and participation in popular sovereignty is replaced with a market rmulation of winners and losers iberty itself is narrowed to market conduct, divested of association with mastering the conditions of life, existential eedom, or securing the rule of the demos Freedom conceived minimally as selfrule and more robustly as participation in rule by the demos gives way to comportment with a market instrumental rationality that radically constrains both choices and ambitions With the vanuishing of hm pliticus the creature who rules itself and rules as part of the demos , no longer is there an open ues tion of how to craft th e selfor what paths to travel in life Thi s is o ne of many reasons why institutions of higher education cannot now recruit students with the promise of discovering ones pas sion through a lib eral arts education Indeed, no capital, save a suicidal one, can eely choose its activities and life course or be indierent to the innovations of its competitors or parameters of success in a world of scarcity and ineuality Thus , in the neoliberal plitical imaginary that has taken a
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responsibilized turn, we are no longer creatures of moral autonomy, eedom, or euality We no longer choose our ends or the means to them We are no longer even creatures of interest relentlessly seeking to satisfy ourselves44 In this respect, the construal of m ec nmicus as human capital leaves behind not only m pliticus, but humanism itself As the province and meaning of liberty and euality are recalibrated om political to economic, political power comes to be gured as their enemy, an interference with both This open hostility to the political in turn curtails the promise of the modern liberal demo cratic state to secure inclusion, euality, and eedom as dimensions of popular sovereignty Again, as each term is relocated to the economy and recast in an economic idiom, inclusion inverts into competition, euality into ineuality, eedom into deregulated marketplaces, and popular sovereignty is nowhere to be und There, compressed to a rmula, is the means by which neoliberal rationality hollows out both liberal democratic reason and a democratic imag inary that would exceed it Moreover, in their newly economized rm, neoliberal states will shed as much as possible the cost of developing and reproducing human capital Thus, they substitute individually debtnanced education r public higher education, personal savings and interminable employment r social security, individually purchased services r public s ervices of all kinds , privately sponsored research r public research and knowledge, fees r use r public inastructure Each of these intensies ineualities and rther constrains the liberty of neoliberalized subj ects reuired to procure i ndividually what was once provisioned in common It is diicult to overstate the signicance r democracy of these remakings of the purpose and orientations of both states and citizens Of course, they entail th e dramatic curtailment of public values , public goods, and popular participation in political life They cilitate the
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increasing power of large corporations to shion law and policy r their own ends, not simply crowding out, but overtly demoting the public interest Obviously, too, governance according to market metrics displaces classic liberal democratic concerns with justice and balancing diverse interests But neoliberalization extinguishes something else As economic parameters become the onl parameters r all conduct and concern, the limited rm of human existence that Aristotle and later Hannah Arendt designated as "mere life and that Marx called life "conned by necessity concern with survival and wealth acquisitionthis limited rm and imaginary becomes ubiquitous and total acro classes 45 eoliberal rationality eliminates what these thinkers termed "the good life (Aristotle) or "the true realm of eedom ( Marx) , by which they did not mean luxury, leisure, or indulgence, but rather the cultivation and expression of distinctl human capacities r ethical and political eedom, creativity, unbounded reflection, or invention Here is Marx: Jus t as the savage must wrestle with Nature to sati sfy his wants , to mai ntai n and reproduce lfe, so must cvilized man . . . . Freedom in this eld can only consist i n . . . the assocated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, brin g ng t under their common control, in stead of being ruled by it as by the blind rces of Nature; and achievi ng this . . . under conditions most vorable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless sti ll remain s a realm of necessity. Beyond it be gi ns that development o f huma n energy which i s a n en d in i tself, the true realm of eedom, which however can blossom rth only with the realm o f necessity as its b asi s. 4
For Aristotle, Arendt, and Marx, the potential of the human speci es i s realized not through, but beyond the struggle r existence and wealth accumulation We need not even reach outside liberalism r this point: r John Stuart Mill, too, what makes humanity "a noble and beautil object of contemplation is individuality, originality,
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"llness of life, and above all, cultivation of our "higher nature47 eoliberalism retracts this "beyond and eschews this "higher nature : the normative reign of hm ecnmicus in every sphere means that there are no motivations, drives, or aspirations apart om economic ones, that there is nothing to being human apart om "mere life eoliberalism i s th e rationality through which capitalism nally swallows humanity not only with its machinery of compulsory commodiication and protdriven expansion, but by its rm of valuation As the spread of this rm evacuates the content om liberal democracy and transrms the meaning of democracy tut curt it subdues democratic desires and imperils democratic dreams Of course, liberal democracy has never been untainted b y capitalist powers and meanings The story is well known: repeatedly marginaliing or coopting various republican and radical democratic insurgencies and experiments, it emerged acros s modern urope and orth America as a very constrained and conscripted rm of democracy Contoured by nationstate sovereignty, capitalism , and bourgeois individualism, the content of this rm has been everywhere (dierently) rife with internal exclusions and subordinations in addition to class, those pertaining to gender, sexuality, race, religion, ethnicity, and global origin Liberal democracy has featured both imperial and colonial premises I t has secured private property and thus the propertyless , cilitated capital accumulaton and thus mass exploitation, and presumed and entrenched privileges r a bourgeois white heterosexual male subject All of this is common knowledge However, r several centuries, liberal democracy has also carried or monopolied, depending on your view the language and promise of inclusive and shared political equality, eedom, and popular sovereignty What happens when this language disappears or is perverted to signify democracys opposite What happens to the aspiration r popular sovereignty when the demos is discursively disintegrated How do subjects reduced to human capital reach r or even wish
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r popular power What do radical aspirations r democracy r humans crafting and controlling their tes together draw upon as subjective desires mobilizable as paradoxes or legitimating precepts What if neoliberal rationality were to succeed in completely recasting both city and sou l in its terms What then
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