Page 72 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 72
šolsko polje, letnik xxix, številka 1–2
the emergence of civil society based on rights. Foucault’s genealogy of the
emerging political rationality grafts reason of state on to ‘science of police’
(polizeiwissenschaft) which come to prominence with the rise of market
towns. The police are a condition of existence of the new towns and co-ex-
tensive with the rise of mercantilism in particular regulating and protect-
ing the market mechanism. They are a correlate of the rise of capitalism
and the new science of political economy.
Neoliberalism can be seen as an intensification of moral regulation
resulting from the radical withdrawal of government and the responsibi-
lisation of individuals through economics. It emerges as an actuarial form
of governance that promotes an actuarial rationality through encourag-
ing a political regime of ethical self-constitution as consumer-citizens.
Responsibilisation refers to modern forms of self-government that require
individuals to make choices about lifestyles, their bodies, their education,
and their health at critical points in the life cycle, such as giving birth,
starting school, going to university, taking a first job, getting married, and
retiring. Choice assumes a much wider role under neoliberalism: it is not
simply ‘consumer sovereignty’ but rather a moralization and responsibili-
sation, a regulated transfer of choice-making responsibility from the state
to the individual in the social market. Specifically, neoliberalism has led
to the dismantling of labor laws that were an important component of
the welfare state and to increased reliance on privatized forms of welfare
that often involve tougher accountability mechanisms and security/vid-
eo surveillance.
A genealogy of the entrepreneurial self, reveals that it is a relation
that one establishes with oneself through forms of personal investment
(including education, viewed as an investment) and insurance that be-
comes the central ethical and political components of a new individual-
ized, customized, and privatized consumer welfare economy. In this nov-
el form of governance, responsibilised individuals are called upon to apply
certain managerial, economic, and actuarial techniques to themselves as
citizen-consumer subjects – calculating the risks and returns on in- vest-
ment in such areas as education, health, employment, and retirement. This
process is both self-constituting and self-consuming. It is self-constituting
in the Foucauldian sense that the choices we make shape us as moral, eco-
nomic, and political agents. It is self-consuming in the sense that the en-
trepreneurial self creates and constructs him- or herself through acts of
consumption.
In The Birth of Biopolitics Foucault (2008) provides an account of
how American neoliberalism is a form of governmentality based on
the production of subjectivity, and in particular how individuals are
70
the emergence of civil society based on rights. Foucault’s genealogy of the
emerging political rationality grafts reason of state on to ‘science of police’
(polizeiwissenschaft) which come to prominence with the rise of market
towns. The police are a condition of existence of the new towns and co-ex-
tensive with the rise of mercantilism in particular regulating and protect-
ing the market mechanism. They are a correlate of the rise of capitalism
and the new science of political economy.
Neoliberalism can be seen as an intensification of moral regulation
resulting from the radical withdrawal of government and the responsibi-
lisation of individuals through economics. It emerges as an actuarial form
of governance that promotes an actuarial rationality through encourag-
ing a political regime of ethical self-constitution as consumer-citizens.
Responsibilisation refers to modern forms of self-government that require
individuals to make choices about lifestyles, their bodies, their education,
and their health at critical points in the life cycle, such as giving birth,
starting school, going to university, taking a first job, getting married, and
retiring. Choice assumes a much wider role under neoliberalism: it is not
simply ‘consumer sovereignty’ but rather a moralization and responsibili-
sation, a regulated transfer of choice-making responsibility from the state
to the individual in the social market. Specifically, neoliberalism has led
to the dismantling of labor laws that were an important component of
the welfare state and to increased reliance on privatized forms of welfare
that often involve tougher accountability mechanisms and security/vid-
eo surveillance.
A genealogy of the entrepreneurial self, reveals that it is a relation
that one establishes with oneself through forms of personal investment
(including education, viewed as an investment) and insurance that be-
comes the central ethical and political components of a new individual-
ized, customized, and privatized consumer welfare economy. In this nov-
el form of governance, responsibilised individuals are called upon to apply
certain managerial, economic, and actuarial techniques to themselves as
citizen-consumer subjects – calculating the risks and returns on in- vest-
ment in such areas as education, health, employment, and retirement. This
process is both self-constituting and self-consuming. It is self-constituting
in the Foucauldian sense that the choices we make shape us as moral, eco-
nomic, and political agents. It is self-consuming in the sense that the en-
trepreneurial self creates and constructs him- or herself through acts of
consumption.
In The Birth of Biopolitics Foucault (2008) provides an account of
how American neoliberalism is a form of governmentality based on
the production of subjectivity, and in particular how individuals are
70
