Page 66 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 66
šolsko polje, letnik xxix, številka 1–2
for the efficiency of the market as a superior allocative mechanism for the
distribution of scarce public resources; and, (ii) claims for the market as
a morally superior form of political economy. This simple historical naïve
and unreflective revival of homo oeconomicus involves a return to a crude
form of individualism which is competitive, ‘possessive’ and often con-
strued in terms of ‘consumer sovereignty’ (‘consumer is king’). The argu-
ment of public choice is then to set about redesigning public services by
making them consumer-driven, and, for example, creating the student as
a consumer of education, or citizen as a consumer of health which also
means that these services can be easily privatised and marketised.
In terms of political economy, the market-driven ideology puts an
emphasis on freedom over equality where ‘freedom’ is construed as the
capacity to exercise a rational choice in the marketplace based on one’s
self-interest. This underlying concept of freedom is both negative and
strictly individualistic. Negative freedom is freedom from state interfer-
ence which implies an acceptance of inequalities generated by the mar-
ket. The discourse of the neoliberal market thus changes the emphasis
and priority of values of freedom and equality reversing these values in
the transformation of welfare state discourse to neoliberal market dis-
course. Neoliberalism as pure theory adopts an anti-state, anti-bureau-
cracy stance, with attacks on ‘big government’ and ‘big bureaucracy’. Its
tries to replace state paternalism, big mummy state, arguing that the in-
dividual better placed that the state to purchase their own education and
health arrangements. The attack on `big’ government made on the basis
of both economic and moral arguments, and tends to lead corporatisation
and privatisation strategies to limit the state. Foucault draws our atten-
tion to the fact that liberalism is a doctrine of the self-limiting state – it
is of course against all forms of totalitarianism and Fascism (that by con-
trast holds there is nothing outside the state). The doctrine of the self-lim-
iting state has blind faith in the market as a mechanism of distribution of
resources that in the long-term results in a trickled down equality. It ig-
nores the way that markets can be controlled by huge utilities and oligar-
chies that care little for the rights of consumers or for the inequalities gen-
erated by the market as Thomas Pickerty has demonstrated so well. Often
this discourse framed up as theory or doctrine is written up as a protec-
tion of the individual’s rights against the state. In the digital age, such pro-
tection means protection of personal data and privacy but little protection
for the way capitalism relies on advertising and psychological digital pro-
filing that active in preference formation especially for the pre-verbal very
young that it schools as consumers. It is also the case in practice that neo-
liberalism, pure market doctrine, has achieved power through a marriage
64
for the efficiency of the market as a superior allocative mechanism for the
distribution of scarce public resources; and, (ii) claims for the market as
a morally superior form of political economy. This simple historical naïve
and unreflective revival of homo oeconomicus involves a return to a crude
form of individualism which is competitive, ‘possessive’ and often con-
strued in terms of ‘consumer sovereignty’ (‘consumer is king’). The argu-
ment of public choice is then to set about redesigning public services by
making them consumer-driven, and, for example, creating the student as
a consumer of education, or citizen as a consumer of health which also
means that these services can be easily privatised and marketised.
In terms of political economy, the market-driven ideology puts an
emphasis on freedom over equality where ‘freedom’ is construed as the
capacity to exercise a rational choice in the marketplace based on one’s
self-interest. This underlying concept of freedom is both negative and
strictly individualistic. Negative freedom is freedom from state interfer-
ence which implies an acceptance of inequalities generated by the mar-
ket. The discourse of the neoliberal market thus changes the emphasis
and priority of values of freedom and equality reversing these values in
the transformation of welfare state discourse to neoliberal market dis-
course. Neoliberalism as pure theory adopts an anti-state, anti-bureau-
cracy stance, with attacks on ‘big government’ and ‘big bureaucracy’. Its
tries to replace state paternalism, big mummy state, arguing that the in-
dividual better placed that the state to purchase their own education and
health arrangements. The attack on `big’ government made on the basis
of both economic and moral arguments, and tends to lead corporatisation
and privatisation strategies to limit the state. Foucault draws our atten-
tion to the fact that liberalism is a doctrine of the self-limiting state – it
is of course against all forms of totalitarianism and Fascism (that by con-
trast holds there is nothing outside the state). The doctrine of the self-lim-
iting state has blind faith in the market as a mechanism of distribution of
resources that in the long-term results in a trickled down equality. It ig-
nores the way that markets can be controlled by huge utilities and oligar-
chies that care little for the rights of consumers or for the inequalities gen-
erated by the market as Thomas Pickerty has demonstrated so well. Often
this discourse framed up as theory or doctrine is written up as a protec-
tion of the individual’s rights against the state. In the digital age, such pro-
tection means protection of personal data and privacy but little protection
for the way capitalism relies on advertising and psychological digital pro-
filing that active in preference formation especially for the pre-verbal very
young that it schools as consumers. It is also the case in practice that neo-
liberalism, pure market doctrine, has achieved power through a marriage
64
