Page 70 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 70
šolsko polje, letnik xxix, številka 1–2
Declaration of Independence (1776), The US Constitution (1787), and the
Universal Declaration of Human Right (1948).
Individualism/Community – Freedom/Equality
Neoliberalism, then, represents a struggle between two forms social poli-
cy discourse based on opposing and highly charged ideological metaphors
of ‘individualism’ and ‘community’ together with their operating philo-
sophical values of freedom and equality. One form posits the sovereign in-
dividual emphasizing the primacy over community and State; the other,
what might be called a rejuvenated social democratic model, inverts the
hierarchy of value to emphasize community or ‘the social’ over the indi-
vidual. As such it is an intellectual struggle that runs through twentieth
century thought and traverses a range of subjects, with roots going back
at least to the Enlightenment in different native traditions. It is therefore
a complex, subtle and dynamic discourse, changing its historical and dis-
ciplinary forms as it matured as a political doctrine, international move-
ment, and set of political and policy practices (Peters, 2011).
Since the early 1980s the terms ‘individual’ and ‘community’ – and
their associated discourses of individualism and communitarianism to-
gether with their guiding values of freedom and equality – have defined
the ideological space within which competing conceptions of the state,
welfare, market, and education have been articulated. During the last for-
ty years in countries around the world, the reform of the core public sec-
tor, the massive privatisation program involving state assets sales, the re-
structuring of health and education, the welfare benefit cuts bear witness
to the triumph of a discourse of individualism over one of community.
Indeed, since the mid- 1980s many countries have experienced the effects
of an experiment modelled on a neoliberal view of community: broad-
ly speaking, that of a society in which free individuals pursue their own
interests in the marketplace. This view of community as ‘the free socie-
ty’ implies a restricted role for government with clear limitations in pro-
viding certain common goods by way of taxation – the ‘night-watchman’
state. In short, this neoliberal view rests on a discourse of individualism as
the most fundamental and unifying premise which emphasizes individual
responsibility within a free-market economy and, thereby, defends the no-
tion of the minimal state on moral as well as efficiency grounds.
Foucault on Neoliberalism
Michel Foucault was one of the very first philosophers to explore the con-
ceptual genealogy of neoliberalism as one of the four main forms of eco-
nomic liberalism emerging in the early twentieth century with links back
68
Declaration of Independence (1776), The US Constitution (1787), and the
Universal Declaration of Human Right (1948).
Individualism/Community – Freedom/Equality
Neoliberalism, then, represents a struggle between two forms social poli-
cy discourse based on opposing and highly charged ideological metaphors
of ‘individualism’ and ‘community’ together with their operating philo-
sophical values of freedom and equality. One form posits the sovereign in-
dividual emphasizing the primacy over community and State; the other,
what might be called a rejuvenated social democratic model, inverts the
hierarchy of value to emphasize community or ‘the social’ over the indi-
vidual. As such it is an intellectual struggle that runs through twentieth
century thought and traverses a range of subjects, with roots going back
at least to the Enlightenment in different native traditions. It is therefore
a complex, subtle and dynamic discourse, changing its historical and dis-
ciplinary forms as it matured as a political doctrine, international move-
ment, and set of political and policy practices (Peters, 2011).
Since the early 1980s the terms ‘individual’ and ‘community’ – and
their associated discourses of individualism and communitarianism to-
gether with their guiding values of freedom and equality – have defined
the ideological space within which competing conceptions of the state,
welfare, market, and education have been articulated. During the last for-
ty years in countries around the world, the reform of the core public sec-
tor, the massive privatisation program involving state assets sales, the re-
structuring of health and education, the welfare benefit cuts bear witness
to the triumph of a discourse of individualism over one of community.
Indeed, since the mid- 1980s many countries have experienced the effects
of an experiment modelled on a neoliberal view of community: broad-
ly speaking, that of a society in which free individuals pursue their own
interests in the marketplace. This view of community as ‘the free socie-
ty’ implies a restricted role for government with clear limitations in pro-
viding certain common goods by way of taxation – the ‘night-watchman’
state. In short, this neoliberal view rests on a discourse of individualism as
the most fundamental and unifying premise which emphasizes individual
responsibility within a free-market economy and, thereby, defends the no-
tion of the minimal state on moral as well as efficiency grounds.
Foucault on Neoliberalism
Michel Foucault was one of the very first philosophers to explore the con-
ceptual genealogy of neoliberalism as one of the four main forms of eco-
nomic liberalism emerging in the early twentieth century with links back
68
