This document was submitted as a final reflection for a book reading series on Dardot & Laval’s new text "The New Way of The World", which contextualizes neoliberal economic theory in a historical and political framework. These are my main takeaways:
While Dardot & Laval’s text was certainly a challenge to read, it was an insightful experience. What I found most interesting was the ways it pushed up against my political views with meaningful and substantiated arguments. After reading the text, I find myself drifting away from favoring a purely socialistic political stance, to explore a localized form of capitalism. The text allows us to see where neoliberalism has led capitalism to spiral out of control, but through that lens we can also see what worked fairly well. Their rhetoric reminded me that the best way to argue against a particular ideology is to know it well.
This being said, every idea in the text has some merit and it was helpful to view the foundations of neoliberalism from such a generous and well-crafted perspective. While it was often frustrating to see such contentious thought in print, I ultimately found it more stimulating to power through these arguments than to read neoliberal criticism. Texts like Jennifer Silva’s Coming Up Short incite anger but do not leave us with a solution. This text justifies and outlines how we got to where we are today. Each step along that journey was supposed to be the best economy, and in retrospect we can see why they failed, but can also recycle those older ideas and use what we’ve learned to try again. With this in mind, here is an outline of some of my most important takeaways from section one:
Chapters 1+2
Page 3 - Neoliberalism is “not merely destructive of rules...it is also productive of certain kinds of social relations, certain ways of living”.
We tend to think of neoliberalism as a completely destructive force that limits our democracy, takes away our rights and turns us into creatures of habit. It is imperative to remember that what neoliberalism really does, is redirect currently existing structures into form a new “governmentality”. The result may destroy our democracy, but its initial aim is a mere restructure of governmental size & involvement, or as Hayak would put it - a production of freedom. Neoliberalism is capable of de-democratization, but is that its primary goal?
Page 47 “Neoliberals accept the need for state intervention and reject pure governmental passivity, they are opposed to any action that might frustrate the operation of competition between private interests.”
This governmentality is described as a “third way” or “highway code”, which finds a regulatory compromise between laissez-faire, whimsical liberalism and planist authoritarianism (52).
Importantly, these changes go beyond the state to affect the citizen. This individuating force is the stem of most hostility present in neoliberal criticism, because it strips our freedoms in practice while claiming to give us more in principle. Fundamentally, neoliberalism tries to change what citizens think of each other. It blames “the growth of state power” as the culprit for the destruction of communal bonds (72) and expects us to interact in different ways.
This new methodology ties into what Röpke calls the principle of subsidiarity, which felt especially poignant in light of Stacy Mitchell’s work. In this model the state is supposed to respect the ‘hierarchical natural spheres’ that citizens inhabit in their particular community and empower them to uphold their responsibility, “sense of obligation to each other” and appetite for performing their duties.
Chapters 3+4
This sense of community-collaboration is nicely illustrated by the relationship of the scientist to the worker on page 116. In this model, every individual is necessicary for the function of the system and no one can be rendered disposable.
Herein we see a conflict. During the class we explored the ways in which neoliberalism acts as an individuating and disempowering force, destroying democracy, but the books exploration of ordo-liberalism led me to believe that there’s more to it than that.
Consider how a true socialist regime would find a way to reach 0.0% unemployment, but most contemporary economists would say a 4.5% rate is “healthy” because it allows individuals the flexibility to change careers and leaves some gaps open. This familiar neoliberalism is one that gives “full opportunity to the spontaneous plans of the individual” (83). On the surface, this may seem to draw us apart, but isn’t this flexibility a key tenant of a good democracy? Flexibility, more broadly might be akin to the democratic ability for individuals to create and share new ideas. Surely, this is a good thing for competition.
What we must seek to overcome, then is not flexibility itself, but the barriers of identity that prevent everyone from participating in this system equally. The ordo-liberals claim they work to “Abolish anything that might resemble a privilege” (88), but we seem a long way from that goal.
What makes this altruistic flexibility idea different from democracy is a lack of discourse. We must strive for ordo-liberalism’s respect of dignity and ideas, while working to extend it to all sects of society and maintaining an open conversation about community needs.
In light of this “freedom”, I find myself wondering what kind of responsibility Röpke is referring to. Is it merely a duty to formulate individuated technologies of the self and contribute to a capitalist market, or is there a potential for neoliberal collectivism? Are individuals merely driven by private human capital and the destruction of all competition, or can they play off of one another’s strengths?
I think it comes down to a sense of scale. When the contemporary neoliberal citizen faces a large corporation, disempowerment is a natural reaction. When market forces become tangible, however, such as in community-banking, competition can be healthy and empowering.
Page 94 “If we wish to avoid the ‘ant heap society’ of large-scale capitalism and collectivism, it is necessary to act in such a way that social structures furnish individuals with the bases of their independence and dignity.”
For Röpke and others, the key way of formulating this sense of responsibility is to make people property owners, so that people “depend on no one but themselves” (98). But as Mitchell would question, what happens when you make a group of people a property owner in common interest?
In chapter four we encounter multiple varieties of entrepreneurialism. By some standards of neoliberal thought, every citizen is trained to be an entrepreneur by leveraging technologies of the self (112). This individualist mentality was something we focused upon greatly this past fall, and it’s where I think we go wrong. Our economy no longer becomes competitive without the spark of creativity. On the outward surface, it looks as if though all citizens are competing, but they all have the same goal and no one has a space to take risks because they’re afraid of being disposed.
A theorist named Schumpeter gives a different definition of the entrepreneur. He believes that entrepreneurialism should only be attributed to leaders who do not merely calculate, but can “create destructively” and go against the current. Perhaps this is what all good neoliberal subjects intend to do, but in actuality by following in the footsteps of our successful ancestors we are only setting ourselves up for failure. If everyone tries to be unique, they all end up being the same. If we all wear the same fashion, and think in the same way, will our economy truly grow (118)?
For the rest of us, we aspire to these same goals–the golden carrot of capitalism–but never fully reach success. In everyday life, we stick to patterns of success rather than breaking the norm. What consequences does this have for the uniqueness and competitiveness of our society?
Chapter 5
We can no longer reconcile with our differences, because our struggles are individuated and ideas are private. Rather than fighting the war on inequality, a lack of common substance between individuals, we are fighting the war on illusive poverty – those who can’t get ahead by themselves (183).
The reasons for this coldness are articulated by the definition of a spontaneous order as a nomocracy rather than a teleocracy–a system governed by law, rather than purpose (125). Neoliberal citizens are not permitted to question the laws that govern their existence, or the reasons these laws are put in place. Any benevolent government “intervention aimed at reducing the inevitable differences of material situation that result from the mechanism of the catallaxy is to be excluded” (139). In other words, it is not the government’s job to “turn the enemy into friend” (126). This does not mean benevolence is not worth attempting, but perhaps that government intervention undertakes too large a scope to effectively establish a sense of caring. Perhaps it is better to think of these connections on a tangible, local level in the form of people we actually know.
How can we use a free market to establish benevolence and caring? Should we work towards a conception of larger, national public goods, or privately held goods in a tangible public interest? Do not the larger authoritarian moves of socialism or the welfare state become equally illusive as individuated responsibility? When large governmental programs come into our region, without the specific knowledge of local habitudes, are we not worse off?
What value can we retain from the motivation of private ownership? The strength of the small business owner, in tandem with a public investment; a customer base of citizens, who understand the regions locality all working together, as civil servants, with their dollar or hands. Working because they cannot imagine living without the presence of that particular entrepreneurs private ambition, and because it fuels and inspires their own.
It is hard to know the best answers to these questions, but ultimately this text has led me to consider whether supporting each other’s private goals in the public interest might allow us to obtain a balance between a turgid socialism and intangible individualism.
Works Cited
Mitchell, Stacy. Big Box Swindle. Print.