Disintegrating the Populace: The Neoliberal Quiet Revolution

Neoliberalism, which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, drastically altered the relationship between the state and the market. Neoliberalism views the state and market as opposing forces, characterized primarily by deregulation of the state, privatization of public enterprises and services, and an assault on the welfare state. Critics of neoliberalism often focus on the following points: escalating inequality, arbitrary commodification and reckless business practices, the increasing influence of corporations and capital in government, and a succession of economic disasters and instability.

The author of this book, Brown, takes a different approach to understanding and critiquing neoliberalism. Starting from Foucault’s discourse on neoliberalism in The Birth of Biopolitics, she understands neoliberalism as an evolving rational order. When this governmental rationality is widely disseminated, it extends specific economic values, practices, and metrics to all aspects of human life. Both the state and the individual are modeled after contemporary corporations: we all become homo oeconomicus, and nothing else.

When everything is economized, when the world is reduced to only homo oeconomicus, and when the realm of political life (a domain untouched by Foucault's theory) is also reconstructed in economic terms, the fundamental elements of democracy—such as principles of justice, political culture, civic habits, practices of governance, and democratic imagination—are silently eroded. The space for public concern and the foundation for the common good disappear, and the substantive content of citizenship and political sovereignty is hollowed out. A significant effect of neoliberalism is the effacement of the already precarious homo politicus.

Through a historical review of political philosophy and a meticulous analysis of neoliberal legal and political practices, governance, and education, Brown analyzes the various harms caused by neoliberalism. She also clearly states that if democracy is to have a future, it must engage in a deeper reflection and re-examination of the mindset that cedes all future-shaping power to the market, insisting that the market "knows best." It must also develop a compelling alternative scheme that differs from capitalist globalization.