My notes from Lecture
1 ‘The Neoliberal Condition and its predecessors: Redemption, Fulfilment,
Appreciation’ 2013
Michel
Feher lectures—The Neoliberal Condition Goldsmiths London
Outline
of lectures
1. The precursors of the Neoliberal
Condition
·
The
Augustinian Condition and Pastoral Power C5th AD to C17th AD.
o
Good
disposition=charity.
o
Bad
disposition=cupidity/ desire
·
The
Liberal Condition C18th AD.
o
Good
disposition=yearning to pursue one’s interests rationally and be recognised as
praiseworthy.
o
Bad
disposition=Passions- violent, rash, inconsistent
2. Shift from Liberal to Neoliberal
economy. From profit to credit
3. Shift from Liberal to Neoliberal
psychology
a. Liberal subject seeks to optimize
satisfaction: from want to fulfilment
b. Neoliberal subject seeks to
maximize self-esteem: from self-hatred to self-appreciation, making the NLS
(Neoliberal subject) vulnerable, opposed to the ‘wanting’ Liberal subject.
4. Social and love life of L and NL
subject. Shift in sociality
a. Liberal subject is subject of
exchange: interested and disinterested
b. NLS is subject of sharing: credit
and (debt?) ‘Credit is bound to self-esteem in same way that profit is bound to
satisfaction’
(Lectures 5 + 6 not outlined)
Introduction
The NLC (Neoliberal
Condition)
2 central propositions put forward in the lectures:
1. Ascertaining the existence of the
NLC
·
Past
30 yrs transformed statecraft/ coporate governance and personal motivation and
conduct
2. Embracing the NLC as means to
resist and fight current NL policies. Turn key practices and concepts to social
aims. Must recognise how resilient Neoliberalism has been, even after 2008
financial crash.
Neoliberalism
The terms belongs to the foes and critics of Neoliberalism
Alexnader Rustov coined term c1938 Walter Lippmann Conference
Key NL figures did not use term to identify their approaches/
theories:
·
Milton
Freidman saw himself as laissez faire, old style classical Liberal
·
von
Hayek saw himself as an old whig
Term reappeared with Balir/ Clinton 3rd
way—indicates they didn’t know its history
Neoliberalism as term only used today by critics, yet amongst
these critics there is no agreement about what it is:
1. A return to pre-welfare state
capitalism. Dismantlement of post-war Fordism
2. ‘Neo’ refers to a set of new
practices and concepts (Feher identifies with this approach). 4 major changes:
a. Financialisation
Rise of financial markets
Deregulation of these markets—FK
(Financial Capital) circulates globally and across institutions
Innovative financial engineering
eg derivatives
b. Transformation in corporate
governance
Creating value for
shareholders—new phenomenon late 1970s/80s
c. New Public Managament
Transformation in statecraft:
state is managed the way corporations are managed now.
As sharholders are for
corporations, the bondholders are for states. State is accountable, in final
instance, to bondholders as corporations are to shareholders.
d. Workfare
Replaced/ replacing welfare
Social programs to help people
‘return’ to work
Aim no longer full employment but
employability. From being employed to being employable
3. Our condition has changed
—subjective form, personal motivation and conduct.
Foucault BOBP (Birth of Biopolitics
1979): Neoliberalism is radically new—a subjective
transformation—self-entrepreneur: entrepreneur of oneself
Feher will lean heavily of
Foucault in the lectures but his (Feher’s) view is informed by dominance of
Financialization: self as entrepreneur is obselete replaced by self as
portfolio manager (portfolio of conducts)
Neoliberal Condition
Neoliberalism
brings a representation of the human condition with it
Every
mode of government is sustained, is articulated, is predictaed on a certain
representation of the human condition
(Leaning
heavily of Foucault for the following)
2 kinds of power in the West (Foucault)
1. Sovereign power—sovereignty
·
Power
to take and redistribute—a special right belonging to the sovereign
·
Power
to levy and reallocate/ confiscate and redistribute/ take and give back/ kill
and give grace/ tax and redistribute
2. Government power—governmentality
·
Acting
on people’s action rather than taking and giving back
·
Modifying
people’s conduct to certain ends/ goals eg pastoral power: Priest seeks to
modify conduct of faithful to being about their salvation.
·
In
Medieval/ early renaissance (C12th) period, power of the church is exceeded.
Pastoral power expands beyond the church
Legitimations
1. Sovereign power: ruler has
special quality/ God’s mandate/ popular mandate
2. Government: is needed because of
the special defect(s) of the governed as they are not able to govern
themselves. These defects are known because of the ‘natural’ propensities in
each historical instance of the human condition—natural, spontaneous
propensities in people in their pre-governed state/ condition. This makes
government necessary and possible/ justified and effective.
Good and bad dispositions
Forms of government presuppose a human condition, and a human
condition presupposes a form of government. Government implies that people have
two types of inclinations/ propensities/ dispositions:
1. Bad propensities
These make it impossible for a
subject/ person to govern themselves without help/ governmental intervention
2. Good propensities
Show governing is possible and
necessary. Tells you what good government is and does
Good govt. enhances and
stimulatesgood dispositions and wards off bad ones.
If there
are only bad propensities then government might be necessary but good
government would be impossible.
Representation of the Human Condition (HC)
Not
ideologies produced by governments to justify what they do
Rather,
govt. and HC are a relationshop of mutual presuppositions: Govt and HC
presuppose and lean on each other
A certain
representation of the HC can be raised to justify a mode or government and to
criticise it—Feher’s strategy throughout the lecture series will be to use key
elements of the Neoliberal Condition (the Neoliberal instantiation of the Human
Condition) to critique and show a way through Neoliberal Government.
The NLC
is a new representation of the Human Condition: the correlative of the
Neoliberal mode of government.
Major shifts in representations of the Human
Condition
2 major
shifts since 5th Century AD
1. The Augustinian Condition and Pastoral
Power C5th to C17th AD.
a. Good
disposition=charity—yearning/ desire to give
b. Bad disposition=cupidity/ desire
This
representation of the HC, challenged and accommodated over this period
2. The Liberal Condition C18th AD.
a. Good disposition=yearning to
pursue one’s interests rationally and be recognised as praiseworthy.
b. Bad disposition=Passions—violent,
rash, inconsistent
3. The Neoliberal Condition late
1970s/ 80s
a. Good disposition=Self-appreciation
b. Bad disposition=Self-loathing
The Augustinian Condition
Pelagian Controversy
Augustine responding to the Pelagian controvery c411—422 AD
Pelagius (390-418) Christian aristocrats merged Hellenist/classical
ideals with Christianity—God Given scriptures + free will. Challenged the
pastoral power of the church.
Classical and Hellenistic world
Source of evil is external
Men (and subject=men-citizens) are endangered by fate/ fortuna/
hazzard/ matter the devil.
A pure soul beset by external dangers and internal appetites/
senses/ fantasies.
Kernel of soul remained pure/ rational.
This part needed to dominate the lower, bodily part. Need
self-mastery—autonomy from outside attack. Purify the self.
Aim: redemption/ salvation
Augustine’s human condition:
cupidity and charity
Reinterprets the Fall: HC is original sin
We are ruled by cupiditas—utterly infected by original sin/
nothing good in us/ nothing that we can save
Only good that is in us is the charity that God has put in our
hearts—we can access it, but it’s not ours—it’s his
Cupidity—insatiable, ungovernable and
irrepressible desires.
·
Can’t
be vanquished—they are too strong
·
Lust—desire
for pleasure
·
Greed—desire
for possession
·
Pride—desire
for domination
How to access charity when cupidity is overwhelming?
2 ways—realise we are slave to desires:
1. Pride of Adam
·
try
to control=libertine response
·
try
to eliminate=ascetic response
2. Humility
·
Realise
you are a slave and humbled before desires. In this state of humiliation, God’s
love can enter from the outside. God loves you for the desire soaked, wretch
you are. You are awed and humbled.
·
You
cultivate your humilityàgratitudeàaccess to charity
·
Charity
is gift of God—countervailling power to give—giving to others with no regard
for own satisfaction
Charity
Charity expresses piety and love neighbour because unlike God,
neighbours are very hard to love.
Cultivating humility is core of Augustinian ethics—how to
access charity
Augustinian Pastoral Government
Priests govern flock via cultivating humility to escape nature
Becomes general mode of ethics by C12th
Because most people too fallen to being to be humble, only
clergy to have access
Late C11th to early C 12th
economic development à everyone can be charitable. Can turn lust,
greed and pride into charity
What matters in your act is your intention—true charity, which
earns salvation, requires true intention
Merchants satisfying self=sin satisfying
others=charity influenced by Luke’s gospel
Adaptations of the Augustinian
Condition (AC)
From C12 onwards—appropriations of the AC as ethics and mode of
government
2 profane appropriations:
1. Development of Charity
Aristocratic
ethics
Largesse of lords is reciprocated
by loyalty, creating a virtuous circle. Lord give fiefàloyalty.
A profane treatment of pride
NOT an exchange
2. Development of lust
(Christianizing nobility)
Courtly
love
Noble man
wants a lady’s mercy/ gift
Not greed (?) usury is not charity but its opposite antidora
(?)
The Liberal
Condition (LC)
Full bloom market Km (Capitalism) doesn’t arrive until early
C20
Development of LC—mostly associated with Scottish Enlightenment
of C18-David Hume and Adam Smith
Rehabilitation of INTEREST as a
form of greed
2 canonical books addressing this topic:
·
Weber’s
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism
·
Albert
Hirschman’s The Passions and the Interest
Interest (avarice) rehabilitated by theorists/ proponent of
Reason of State (Hirschman and Foucault)
Post-Machiavellian advisors to absolutist monarchs
Reason of State
C17=time when states accept they are here to stay/ sustainable
and in competition with other states
Governmentality moves out of pastoral domain and becomes a way
of reinforcing the state which needs to be strong by mobilizing its populationà
secular governmentality
·
People
to become more disciplined, work harder, commit to prosperity of the state,
maximise their docility and utility
à Problem, because people still dominated by
their cupidity—passsions—desires which are volient and inconstant
Reason of State advisors: people have passions and interests
Interests are passions informed by reason—thinking about how to
get what you want abd thinking about the risk and the relationship between
rick/ rewards—costs/ benefits
State needs to stimulate and cultivate these interests to make
population more productive and controllable because interests are calculated
and calculations can be strimulated and reproduced à
Absolutist monarchs’ mercantilist/ protectionist policies in
C17. Develops manufacturing and wealth and glory of the state.
Liberals—intervene in this in name of the merchant middle class—Scottish
Enlightenment.
·
They
accept the representation of the human condition (subect of passions and
interests) BUT
·
Argue
that because of these elements to the HC the state should leave us alone
(Fouc’s we are governed too much)
·
Because
these intereste are rational and productive, YOU should not govern us too much.
·
Liberal
appropriation of subject of interests is turned against absolutist state/govt.
·
Give
us what we need to pursue our interests, then leave us aloneàdevelop interests of nation +
state
Moral Anthropologies—Hume and
Smith
1. David Hume
·
We
are motivated by our passions/ desires
·
Basic
orientation is to max. pleasure/ min. pain
·
Anti-Augustinian—not
a sin
·
We
also have instrumental reasonàthink on best way to satisfy passion/
desires
·
Interest
= passion informed by reason
·
Society?
Comes from sexual attractionà pleasure, which creates benevolence between
lovers and within familie/ kin and small local groups—extended families
·
Sex
makes for benevolent kin groups but these are too atomistic as basis for
Society which requires the development of interestsà systems of exchange and forms of
justice—3 rules:
i.
Right
to private propertyu (protected)
ii.
Right
to alienate/ sell what is yours
iii.
Obligation
to respect/ honour contracts
·
Society
is based on Justice—rule of law—alongside which runs a slow process of
optimizing interests.
2. Adam Smith
Takes
Hume a step further
WON
(Wealth of Nations) + (TMS) Theory of Moral Sentiments are contradictory?
WON—we
are all driven by pursuit of interests, But
TMS—we
are all driven by pursuit of sympathy
Not
a contradiction (or rather, the contradiction is ‘resolved’ in a specific way: via
modes of government) because
The
source of pursuit of interests to improve conditions comes from SON (State of
Nature)
SON
is a primitive state ruled by scarcity—survival is hard and atomistic
Best
way to improve conditions is by multiplying exchanges, but this is not known in
SON, rather there is a dormant propensity to exchange à commerceàinterest is best served by
exchanging, in turn à division of labour, increased productivity
and specialization
Development
of market economy
All
pursuing self-interest—guided by invisible handàcreate max. prosperity for all +
evenly distributed . . .but Smith asks why is this taking so long? Because
there is a residual/ remnant propensity from SON to hoard
The
more we exchange the more we live in societyà Sympathy—a new yearning. At best
we have ability to simulate the thoughts/feelings of others so that we can
increase access to self via gaze of others. Wanting to know whether or not you
are liked is beginning of morality
Some
want to be praised-to be liked but
it is better to be likable/ praiseworthyàQ how do you choose the right
person to ask if you are praiseworthy?
1. these are the people you find
praiseworthy. You then, abstract the best qualities from these people into an
impartial spectator in your mind (super ego?) who monitors own conduct cf
panopticon
Only by engaging in exchanges with others do you begin to build
up a bank of praiseworthy experiences
These are not commercial exchanges–but exchanges of
information—giving receiving judgmentàdevelopment of a disinterested exchange
Liberal Condition
2 propensities
·
Interest—commercial
·
Disinterested
praiseworthiness (cf aesthetics of Kant, M. Arnold)—be recognized as likable
and praiseworthy
How to combine the 2?
Smith—one of the best ways to be recognized as praiseworthy is
to get rich
But, have to mindful of others who envy you,
and watch for the poor who might band together. Smith also has some doubts . .
.
Smith applies Hume’s 2 spheres: private/benevolent --
Public/justice
Victorian Liberal Condition
Men pursue interests in the public sphere where they seek
praise and the invisible hand of the market rules
In the private sphere, the realm of disinterested exchanges,
the invisible hand of the difference of the sexes rules . . .
Women’s nature is ruled by 2 qualities: modesty and maternal/
motherly love
While some desires can be turned into interest, sex cannot as
men are brutes
Women are naturally modest and will resist attacks on their
virtueàmen
admire women who keep their virtue entact
Men are looking for someone who is worthy of calling him praiseworthy—an
admirable person/ impartial spectatoràhe offers marriage to this person. Once
married her modesty is replaced by motherly love.
The man respects his wife and makes $ in the public sphere
which he brings into the household.
Public sphere dominated by men and a private sphere dominated
by morality.
This sketch of the Victorian Liberal Condition (VLC) can be
seen Richardson’s Pamela.
Thus VLC= 2 invisible hands:
1. Realm of interest=market that
allows and enable self-interested people to produce collective prosperity—interested
commercial exchanges
2. Realm of disinterest=domestic sphere,
based on maternal love—disinterested, domestic-intimate exchanges
Good liberal government is not anarchic, but
responsible:
1. Sustains markets—private property/
freedom of exchange/up holds conracts
2. Ensures families prosper—encourages
women to be modest + maternal + incites men to respect modesty
Liberal Government
Exchanges in both spheres:
·
governs
taxpayers—maximizes their interests
·
fosters
disinterested relationship between Nation + mother-children of the nation—gives
national identity and children given life for war
Different appropriations of the liberal condition:
Non-liberal
Romantic
Socialist
Feminist
Evolution and crisis of liberal condition à rise of Neoliberalism.
