Page 73 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 73
m. a. peters ■ neoliberalism as political discourse ...
constituted as subjects of ‘human capital’. Seven of the twelve lecture are
devoted to German and American neoliberalism. In the ninth lecture he
turns explicitly to American neoliberalism to focus on its differences with
the German versions and its claim to global status, turning immediate-
ly to human capital theory as both an extension of economic analysis in-
cluding the classical analysis of labour and its imperial extension to all
forms of behaviour (those areas previously consider the belong to the non-
economic realm). In this context Foucault examines the epistemological
transformation that American neoliberal effects in the shift from an anal-
ysis of economic processes to one that focuses on the production of hu-
man subjectivity through the redefinition of homo oeconomicus as “entre-
preneur of himself.” In this same context, he examines the constitutive
elements of human capital in terms of its innate elements and genetic im-
provements and the problem of the formation of human capital in educa-
tion and health that together represent a new model of growth and eco-
nomic innovation.
In the tenth lecture, again he discusses American neoliberalism in-
cluding the application of the human capital model to the realm of the
social and the generalizability of the enterprise form to the social field.
In this lecture, he also discusses aspects of American neoliberalism in re-
lation to delinquency and penal reform, homo oeconomicus as the crimi-
nal subject and the consequences of this analysis for displacing the crim-
inal subject and ‘disciplinary society.’ In the eleventh lecture, he returns
to the question of how homoo economicus in American become generaliz-
able to every form of behaviour. This is the genealogy of homo economi-
cus that begins as the basic element of the new governmental reason ap-
peared in the eighteenth century before Walras and Pareto. In Hume and
British empiricism we witness ‘the subject of interest’ that is differentiat-
ed from the legal subject and juridical will, representing contrasting log-
ics of the market and the contract. He also charts and discusses the eco-
nomic subject’s relationship with political power in Condorcet and Adam
Smith, the link between the individual’s pursuit of profit and the growth
of collective wealth. In this environment political economy emerges as a
critique of governmental reason.
In the course of discussion Foucault mentions Gary Becker twelve
times, as the Vice-President of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1989, winner
of the Nobel Prize in 1992 and author of ‘Investment in human capital: a
theoretical analysis’, published in the Joumal of Political Economy in 1962,
and considerably expanded into Human Capital: A theoretical and empir-
ical analysis with special reference to education in 1964. He regards Becker
as ‘the most radical of the American neo-liberals’ and writes:
71
constituted as subjects of ‘human capital’. Seven of the twelve lecture are
devoted to German and American neoliberalism. In the ninth lecture he
turns explicitly to American neoliberalism to focus on its differences with
the German versions and its claim to global status, turning immediate-
ly to human capital theory as both an extension of economic analysis in-
cluding the classical analysis of labour and its imperial extension to all
forms of behaviour (those areas previously consider the belong to the non-
economic realm). In this context Foucault examines the epistemological
transformation that American neoliberal effects in the shift from an anal-
ysis of economic processes to one that focuses on the production of hu-
man subjectivity through the redefinition of homo oeconomicus as “entre-
preneur of himself.” In this same context, he examines the constitutive
elements of human capital in terms of its innate elements and genetic im-
provements and the problem of the formation of human capital in educa-
tion and health that together represent a new model of growth and eco-
nomic innovation.
In the tenth lecture, again he discusses American neoliberalism in-
cluding the application of the human capital model to the realm of the
social and the generalizability of the enterprise form to the social field.
In this lecture, he also discusses aspects of American neoliberalism in re-
lation to delinquency and penal reform, homo oeconomicus as the crimi-
nal subject and the consequences of this analysis for displacing the crim-
inal subject and ‘disciplinary society.’ In the eleventh lecture, he returns
to the question of how homoo economicus in American become generaliz-
able to every form of behaviour. This is the genealogy of homo economi-
cus that begins as the basic element of the new governmental reason ap-
peared in the eighteenth century before Walras and Pareto. In Hume and
British empiricism we witness ‘the subject of interest’ that is differentiat-
ed from the legal subject and juridical will, representing contrasting log-
ics of the market and the contract. He also charts and discusses the eco-
nomic subject’s relationship with political power in Condorcet and Adam
Smith, the link between the individual’s pursuit of profit and the growth
of collective wealth. In this environment political economy emerges as a
critique of governmental reason.
In the course of discussion Foucault mentions Gary Becker twelve
times, as the Vice-President of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1989, winner
of the Nobel Prize in 1992 and author of ‘Investment in human capital: a
theoretical analysis’, published in the Joumal of Political Economy in 1962,
and considerably expanded into Human Capital: A theoretical and empir-
ical analysis with special reference to education in 1964. He regards Becker
as ‘the most radical of the American neo-liberals’ and writes:
71
