Brains, Media and Politics

Generating Neoliberal Subjects

Rodolfo Leyva

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781032083681
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429670831
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Conservatism & Liberalism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Following the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, a number of prominent academics, journalists, and activists were quick to pronounce the demise of neoliberal capitalism and governance. This rather optimistic prediction, however, underestimated the extent to which neoliberalism has shaped the 21st-century world order and become entrenched in our sociopolitical and cognitive fabric. Indeed, 11 years after the crisis, and in spite of the significant levels of socioeconomic inequality, psychological distress, and environmental destruction generated by neoliberal policies and corresponding business and cultural practices, the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism has not been supplanted, nor has it really faced any serious unsettling. How, then, has neoliberalism inflected and shaped our "common-sense" understandings of what is politically, economically, and culturally viable? To help answer this question, this book combines leading theories from sociology, media-communication research, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, and draws on primary evidence from a unique mix of ethnographic, survey, and experimental studies – of young people's leisure practices and educational experiences, of young adults' political socialisation processes in relation to exposure to social networking sites, and of the effects of commercial media viewing on material values and support for social welfare. In doing so, it provides a nuanced and robustly empirically tested account of how the conscious and non-conscious cognitive dimensions of people's subjectivities and everyday social practices become interpellated through and reproductive of neoliberal ideology. As such, this book will appeal to scholars across the social and behavioural sciences with interests in neoliberalism, political engagement, enculturation, social reproduction, and media effects.

1 Homo economicus and the neoliberal society

This chapter provides a brief documentation and overview of how neoliberalism came to be, what it entails, and how social discourses and practices consistent with its ideology are institutionally and culturally presented to and imposed on Britons and Americans. To facilitate this endeavour, I first review the intellectual history, ontological presuppositions, evaluative dimensions, and policy implications and rationale of neoliberalism. Secondly, I describe how neoliberal ideas have helped form some of the major economic and public policies implemented by British and American governments since the 1980s. Then, I describe how these policies have shaped the governance, educational institutions, urban centres, and media-cultural environments of contemporary UK and US societies.

What is so new about liberalism?

In the influential global bestseller, The End of History and the Last Man, ­political scientist Francis Fukuyama (1992) famously declared that the neoliberal or what he referred to as the liberal-democratic model, is the final evolutionary form of human ideological, governmental, and economic organisation.¹ That is, Fukuyama draws on Karl Marx’s materialist conception of history, and (likely unknowingly) a pre-Darwinian understanding of evolution derived from the long-discredited orthogenetic hypothesis of progressionism. As such, his central thesis positions neoliberalism as a natural and historical inevitability, i.e., the ultimate and most optimal outcome of a presumably impartial and determined process of sociocultural natural selection. However, numerous anthropological and political-historical works on imperial, feudal, plutocratic, theocratic, and collectivist societies clearly show that at any time and in any part of the world where people inhabit, any number of different economic bases and accompanying superstructures can emerge and take root (see e.g., Diamond, 2004; Habermas, 1991; Graeber, 2004; Polanyi, 2001; Voutsaki, 1997). Most of these societal systems eventually collapsed, but others have throughout history re-emerged in classic or modified forms. In any case, their genesis, longevity, and/or reoccurrence have been primarily shaped by the available material resources, ideas, customs, histories, and neighbouring sovereign communities that volitional individuals within any given society are exposed to; and the economic, human, and social capital and practices that they can then choose to generate from these availabilities. Societies can, therefore, progress, regress, or completely break down, but their development and endurance – far from being preordained – are largely the product of indeterminate historical happenstances and human agency. What all this means is that the neoliberal model represents a historically coincidental social construction. Its societal manifestation is thus no more fated, viable, permanent, and independent of political machinations than say chattel slavery or anarcho-syndicalism. Nevertheless, by appealing to the falsified Lamarckian view of linear evolution (see Leyva, 2014b), and by understating the role of human volition in the enactment and maintenance of political-economic orders, Fukuyama’s (1992) book has helped to serve two ideological functions. The first is to convince or reassure many readers – and especially those who are in positions of power – that the global expansion of neoliberalism is a sort of nouveau and unstoppable manifest destiny. The second is to obscure the fact that this expansion has, in the first instance, been the result of an ongoing and currently 70-year-long active political project (Harvey, 2005; Mirowski, 2014).

1 The term “liberal-democracy” can also refer to pre-neoliberal forms of political-economic organisation that marked early 20th century Western societies. However, from the context of Fukuyama’s (1992) arguments (which were written as a response to the fall of the Soviet Union), it can be inferred that he is specifically referring to the neoliberal model of open global markets and representative/parliamentarian modes of democratic governance that underpinned the 1980s UK and US neoliberal revolutions (Hall, 2011; Gill, 2003).

You might now rightfully be thinking, “okay, but what exactly is neoliberalism?” Well, frankly, like “post-modernism” or “Foucauldian”, it is often just an academic buzzword that is loosely exclaimed but vaguely explained. Moreover, even when used correctly and discussed seriously, the term “neoliberalism” applies to a plethora of political-economic assumptions, theories, and geographic contexts rendering any attempt at an exact definition somewhat problematic. Still, despite these caveats, a cohesive framework for understanding neoliberalism, consisting of its key ideological and policy features, can be sketched by reviewing the genealogy of ideas developed by the group of Western intellectuals who have been instrumental in creating and enacting neoliberalism. Formed in 1947, this group is known as the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS). Among other highly prominent economists, historians, and philosophers, original MPS members included Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Karl Popper, and Ludwig von Mises (Mirowski & Plehwe, 2009), and their initial convergence and raison d’être stem from the following historical context.²

2 The MPS is still around, highly active, and its past and present membership comprise a venerated who’s who list of predominantly old, rich, white, and male academics and political elites.

After experiencing the failures of laissez-faire economics that led to the 1929 Great Depression, and the devastation of the Second World War that followed, Western governments implemented a post-war system of robust market regulation. Heavily influenced by the demand-side economic theories of economists John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White, advocates of the then leading post-war consensus argued that left to their own devices, markets would create large-scale unemployment, social inequalities, and volatile and unpredictable business cycles. Therefore, in order to avoid a repeat of the mass unemployment and discontent that helped cause World War II, Western governments led by Britain and America implemented the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. This agreement created a post-war global monetary system of capital controls supported by fixed currency exchange rates pegged to the price of gold. The purpose of this system was to spur international economic development and prevent competitive devaluations, balance of payment deficits, and capital flight (Ellwood, 2011; McNally, 2009). At the domestic level, these governments instituted robust financial, health, safety, and wage standards and protections; increased funding for and access to higher and vocational education; and set up a series of anti-poverty welfare institutions that would guard the less fortunate against extreme poverty and destitution. Labour were also granted major concessions, such as the rights to organise and to collective bargaining (Harvey, 2005; Steger & Roy, 2010).

The MPS, however, dismissed Keynesianism and the positive freedom that it sought to advance as naïve and inherently authoritarian. Founding and present members of the MPS were and are instead moved by the notions of instrumental rationality and negative freedom of 18th-century classical liberalism (Davies, 2017).³ According to their reformulation of these notions, human beings are predominantly possessive and rational individuals who will, primarily and mostly behave in accordance with their perceived self-interests (Friedman, 2002). Importantly, the conception of rational/rationality fashioned by the MPS refers to the making of decisions and choices that garner the most benefit or utility for the individual regardless of how much this impacts others.⁴ This differs considerably from the more familiar philosophical and scientific conception, which refers simply to the ability to reason, viz., to be able to consciously establish and verify facts, apply logic, and change or justify beliefs and practices based on existing or new information (Kompridis, 2000). Anyways, from their cynical and essentialist understanding of human nature follows their normative position that people’s self-interested predispositions can and should be channelled for progressive socioeconomic development. But, this must only be done through political economies that engender the legal protection and appropriation of private capital, relatively unfettered market forces, and negative freedom (Hartwell, 1995; Hayek, 1994).

3 In political philosophy, negative freedom refers to the capacity to act free from external and unjust social restraints of any form, not just those of the state. However, the neoliberal reformulation of negative freedom only refers to the capacity to engage in economic activates free from government interference – such as the freedom to choose between competing consumer products and services, or dump toxic waste into rivers and poor neighbourhoods. This narrower formulation does not entail freedom from coercive, intrusive, and oppressive corporate authority, nor the freedom to challenge the autocratic powers and actions of property owners over non-property owners (Chomsky, 2011; Polanyi, 2001).

4 This ontological view of humans as essentially hyper selfish and anti-social agents mirrors John Stuart Mill’s characterisation of Homo Economicus (Patel, 2010). Interestingly, the only people who actually behave like this are clinical psychopaths (which make up about 1% of the population), and kindergarteners – most of which go on to naturally develop pro-social dispositions and behaviours in late childhood (Geraci & Surian, 2011).

In other words, rather than try to hinder or sublimate people’s innate and basically psychopathic dispositional and behavioural properties, the MPS argues that political-economic systems should instead let these run free because natural and unhindered market mechanisms will ensure outputs that are beneficial to both the individual and society (Friedman, 2002). This may seem like a paradoxical view, but according to this logic if people are free to pursue their own selfish goals and desires (e.g., prestige and/or capital accumulation), and if these pursuits are channelled through unrestricted competitive market endeavours, then positive societal outcomes will organically manifest themselves. Let me elaborate on this point. Selfie-sticks, mobile phones, fast-fashion clothing, pumpkin-spice lattes, and subject-specific academic essays are all examples of commercial products that are readily available because of self-interested goals and competitive behaviours. For the businesses that provide these goods do so solely because of their motivations to accumulate wealth. And, since they are in competition with other businesses that are also seeking to maximise profits, we as customers benefit by having a variety of these goods at varying prices and quality that we are free to purchase based on our calculated needs and means. Businesses unable to provide market-demanded products or services at competitive prices and quality will, therefore, eventually shut down, whereas those that can, will continue to thrive and improve. Thus the theory goes that, in aggregate, these micro and organisational economic behaviours will generate -the most efficient supply chains and manufacturing procedures; -perpetual innovations in services and technologies; and -fair compensation for capable, risk-taking, and hard-working entrepreneurs and their workers.

Conversely, any attempts to harness the powers of the state to redistribute wealth and regulate markets for the public good, however benevolent and well intentioned, will have disastrous social and economic results. This is primarily because these objectives as traditionally advanced by state socialism and to a lesser extent by Keynesian forms of regulated capitalism, require excessive government economic intervention that distorts the natural pricing equilibrium mechanisms of supply and demand. Invariably, this results in the inefficient and wasteful allocation of finite resources and services (Friedman, 2002). The long bread lines in the former Soviet Union are often cited as an example of this economic inefficiency (Chang, 2010). Further, these political-economic systems necessarily infringe on individuals’ freedom to utilise their capital as they choose. This has the consequent effect of stifling the psychological incentives necessary for entrepreneurial innovation and economic growth.⁵ Coupled, all these cumulative macro and micro effects inevitably generate high inflation, stagnant economies, and unproductive state-dependent citizenries that in extreme cases can lead to despotism (Hayek, 1994). Polanyi (2001, p. 260), writing in direct response to these MPS arguments, notes that

Planning and control are being attacked as a denial of freedom. Freedom and enterprise and private ownership are declared to be essential to freedom. No society built on other foundations is said to deserve to be called free. The freedom that regulation creates is denounced as unfreedom; the justice, liberty and welfare are decried as a camouflage of slavery.

5 So, for example, why bother working for a promotion, or starting a new business that creates jobs if this is going to increase your marginal income tax, or so this type of thinking goes.

Guided by their homo economicus ontological assumptions and unwavering faith in the role of the metaphysical “invisible hand” of the free market in correcting economic inefficiencies and externalities, the MPS zoomed, narrowed, and morphed classical liberalism into a Social Darwinian variant that we now know as and term “neoliberalism”. To wit, classical liberalism, and Adam Smith’s version in particular – which is unfortunately often conflated with neoliberalism – are not just based on the innate selfishness of humanity. Classical liberalism is much more nuanced than is commonly depicted, and very much coincided with the thinking of Enlightenment Age that valued reason, creativity, and human freedom over dogma and all forms of oppressive authority deemed to be an affront to human dignity. In that context, classical liberalism largely underscored humanist and even radically leftist values and ideas (Patel, 2010). For instance, Smith (1796) did posit that humans are selfish, but also noted extensively and eloquently in his less well-known work The Theory of Moral Sentiments that people are equally compassionate and altruistic. Based on this more complex understanding of human nature, and predating Karl Marx, Smith even went as far as to rail against corporate privileges, rent-seeking, greed, the over-commodification of social life, and the concentration of private wealth (Norman, 2018). He also supported public education and government policies that favoured the working classes. For example, in The Wealth of Nations, the landmark book that many neoclassical (i.e., neoliberal) economists,⁶ often cite but likely have never actually read, Smith (1796. p. 93) writes that “when the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters”.

6 To be fair, for most of its 100-plus-year existence, neoclassical economics was not inherently neoliberal. However, and despite political and some ideological differences between MPS type neoliberal theorists and university neoclassical economists, for over the last 20 years, these two camps have very much worked in tandem to advance basically the same economic prescriptions (Mirowski, 2014).

Furthermore, much of what Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and most classical liberals argued for was in many ways a utopian society that can only function if it met the following key conditions. First, truly free-market nations have to allow free flow of labour within and across their borders so that workers can find the most optimal wages and working conditions. Second, these nations’ economies must be composed of various small enterprises with limited division of labour to, as can be inferred from Smith’s (1796) observations of a pin factory, avoid or at least temper the alienation and cognitive decline of workers that can result from overspecialisation in the form of constant and repetitive monotonous routines. Third, capital should be anchored in those communities in which the owners themselves reside so that they can experience first-hand and correct any negative externalities induced by their industries. Fourth, these enterprises must operate in a state of “perfect competition” – a hypothetical market condition where no cartel, single firm, or buyer can control resources and distort prices. (Note that this would require an abolishment of corporate conglomeration and oligopolies and the enactment of very stringent anti-trust laws to prevent monopolisation and oligopolisation.) Fifth, equilibrium under this hypothetical competitive condition can only be engendered by educated, rational, and sovereign individuals who possess “perfect information”. This entails a cognitive condition in which all buyers and sellers know or have immediate access to undistorted knowledge about all of the retail prices, utilities, cost functions, and externalities of all goods and services. Such condition is virtually impossible to meet, but an approximation of it would at the minimum require large government expenditure on education to ensure a literate, critical, and numerate populace along with laws requiring businesses to be completely transparent about their pricing, production methods, and product ingredients. Sixth, trade between nations must be equally balanced so that one does not become dependent or indebted to another (Ellwood, 2011; Patel, 2010). International trading arrangements and treaties must, therefore, be made to ensure non-zero-sum outcomes.

However, MPS members and intellectual offshoots – specifically those from the Chicago School, disregarded or downplayed the necessity of the six structural conditions outlined. For example, they give primacy to the maximisation of utility over perfect competition, and hence argue against anti-trust laws. In fact, they find monopolisation and price fixing to be acceptable on the basis that these could only be the result of a given company having greater efficiencies and services or product quality than their perished or perishing competition (Davies, 2017). Moreover, they argue for the unrestricted and transnational movement of capital and wealthy capitalists, but say little, and when presented, have posed contradictory ideas about the unregulated transnational mobility of workers and their rights. Mirowski and Plehwe (2009, p. 26) further point out that “notably absent [from the MPS manifestos] are the range of human and political rights traditionally embraced by liberals (including the right to form coalitions and freedom of the press)”. This inattention to propositions on how to cultivate and safeguard humanity’s better angels, likely ste...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Homo economicus and the neoliberal society
• 2 Neoliberal cognition, subjectification, and reproduction
• 3 Reproducing neoliberalism in everyday life: A cross-national ethnographic study
• 4 How new media help generate neoliberal subjectivities : A survey study
• 5 Experimental insights into mass media’s cultivation of a neoliberal habitus
• 6 A cognitive-sociological theory of neoliberal reproduction
• References
• Index