A Genealogy of Homo-Economicus: Neoliberalism and the Production of Subjectivity

By J. Read. 2009

591 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article examines Michel Foucault’s critical investigation of neoliberalism in the course published as Naissance de la biopolitique: Cours au College de France, 1978-1979. Foucault’s lectures are interrogated along two axes. First, examining the way in which neoliberalism can be viewed as a particular production of subjectivity, as a way in which individuals are constituted as subjects of “human capital.” Secondly, Foucault’s analyses is augmented and critically examined in light of other critical work on neoliberalism by Wendy Brown, David Harvey, Christian Laval, Maurizo Lazzarato, and Antonio Negri. Of these various debates and discussions, the paper argues that the discussion of real subsumption in Marx and Negri is most important for understanding the specific politics of neoliberalism. Finally, the paper argues that neoliberalism entails a fundamental reexamination of the tools of critical thought, an examination of how freedom can constitute a form of subjection.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/33d3835be8d191b0a37dccb86b780c005fe2651e

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Citations in the corpus

The Handbook of Neoliberalism (2016, background): “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 constituted as subjects of ‘human capital’ (Read 2009).”
Human Capital Theory (2014, background): “As it is pointed out by Read (2009), workers themselves are entrepreneurs and labor is no longer limited to specific sites of the factory but rather it is any conduct that promotes the desirable ends (utility).”