Page 39 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 39
m. olssen ■ neoliberalism and laissez-faire: the retreat from naturalism
Foucault, Röpke and Neoliberalism
Michel Foucault studied neoliberalism in his 1978 course at the College
de France, The Birth of Biopolitics. For Foucault, neoliberalism signals “a
shift from exchange to competition in the principle of the market” (2008:
p. 118). Competition assumes the role of a fundamental principle that sub-
tends democracy, which is to say, that the basic ordering of society as an
enterprise culture structured by competition is to be enforced by govern-
ment across all domains of the society. It becomes, as it were, the organ-
ising framework guaranteed by the state rather than as a function of the
market. Foucault marshals evidence by citing Eücken who tells us that the
government must be “perpetually vigilant and active” (p. 138), and must
intervene to establish this context through both regulatory actions (ac-
tions régulatrices) and organizing actions (actions ordonnatrices) (p. 138).
Although during the first half of the twentieth century western wel-
fare states were constituted through democratic determination, the ac-
complishment of neoliberalism, for the ordo liberals at least, was to at-
tempt to establish the principle of competition as prior to and outside of
democratic decision making; as determining the ‘framework’ through
which the market would rule. The framework must attend to both the
population, the order of justice and opportunity, as well as the techniques,
such as the availability of implements concerning such things as popula-
tion, technology, training and education, the legal system, the availabili-
ty of land, the climate, all seen by Eucken as the ‘conditions’ for the mar-
ket. Foucault refers to this active, top-down, positive role of the state as
constituting a “sociological liberalism” (p. 146, footnote 51), or a “policy
of society” (p. 146) which permits a new ‘art of government’ which dif-
fers radically from Keynesian-type systems. What is crucial is that for ne-
oliberalism the object of government action becomes “the social environ-
ment” (p. 146) acting on behalf of capital, or those the create wealth. The
aim is to engineer competition:
It is the mechanisms [of competition] that should have the greatest pos-
sible surface and depth and should also occupy the greatest possible vol-
ume in society. This means that what is sought is not a society subject to
the commodity effect, but a society subject to the dynamic of competi-
tion. (p. 147)
Competition becomes the new “eidos” (p. 147), the new dynamic of
this new form of society:
37
Foucault, Röpke and Neoliberalism
Michel Foucault studied neoliberalism in his 1978 course at the College
de France, The Birth of Biopolitics. For Foucault, neoliberalism signals “a
shift from exchange to competition in the principle of the market” (2008:
p. 118). Competition assumes the role of a fundamental principle that sub-
tends democracy, which is to say, that the basic ordering of society as an
enterprise culture structured by competition is to be enforced by govern-
ment across all domains of the society. It becomes, as it were, the organ-
ising framework guaranteed by the state rather than as a function of the
market. Foucault marshals evidence by citing Eücken who tells us that the
government must be “perpetually vigilant and active” (p. 138), and must
intervene to establish this context through both regulatory actions (ac-
tions régulatrices) and organizing actions (actions ordonnatrices) (p. 138).
Although during the first half of the twentieth century western wel-
fare states were constituted through democratic determination, the ac-
complishment of neoliberalism, for the ordo liberals at least, was to at-
tempt to establish the principle of competition as prior to and outside of
democratic decision making; as determining the ‘framework’ through
which the market would rule. The framework must attend to both the
population, the order of justice and opportunity, as well as the techniques,
such as the availability of implements concerning such things as popula-
tion, technology, training and education, the legal system, the availabili-
ty of land, the climate, all seen by Eucken as the ‘conditions’ for the mar-
ket. Foucault refers to this active, top-down, positive role of the state as
constituting a “sociological liberalism” (p. 146, footnote 51), or a “policy
of society” (p. 146) which permits a new ‘art of government’ which dif-
fers radically from Keynesian-type systems. What is crucial is that for ne-
oliberalism the object of government action becomes “the social environ-
ment” (p. 146) acting on behalf of capital, or those the create wealth. The
aim is to engineer competition:
It is the mechanisms [of competition] that should have the greatest pos-
sible surface and depth and should also occupy the greatest possible vol-
ume in society. This means that what is sought is not a society subject to
the commodity effect, but a society subject to the dynamic of competi-
tion. (p. 147)
Competition becomes the new “eidos” (p. 147), the new dynamic of
this new form of society:
37
