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16 Sep 16
Carly CollinsBourdieu
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15 Mar 15
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27 Feb 15
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This tutelary theory is a pure mathematical fiction. From the start it has been founded on a formidable abstraction. For, in the name of a narrow and strict conception of rationality as individual rationality, it brackets the economic and social conditions of rational orientations and the economic and social structures that are the condition of their application.
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That said, this “theory” that is desocialised and dehistoricised at its roots has, today more than ever, the means of making itself true and empirically verifiable. In effect, neoliberal discourse is not just one discourse among many. Rather, it is a “strong discourse” - the way psychiatric discourse is in an asylum, in Erving Goffman’s analysis
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14 Jul 13
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11 Dec 12
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From this sort of original
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07 Jul 12
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11 Apr 11
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17 Oct 10
Tamer MowafyWhat is neoliberalism? A programme for destroying collective structures which may impede the pure market logic.
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10 Sep 10
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12 Jan 10
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27 Jul 09
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08 Jul 09
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it brackets the economic and social conditions of rational orientations and the economic and social structures that are the condition of their application
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think just of the educational system. Education is never taken account of as such at a time when it plays a determining role in the production of goods and services as in the production of the producers themselves
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desocialised and dehistoricised
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it is a "strong discourse" - the way psychiatric discourse is in an asylum
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has on its side all of the forces of a world of relations of forces, a world that it contributes to making what it is
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political project
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a programme of the methodical destruction of collectives.
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Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
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political and economic power of those whose interests it expresses: stockholders, financial operators, industrialists, conservative or social-democratic politicians
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high-level financial officials
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an economic system conforming to its description in pure theory
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globalisation of financial markets
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progress of information technology
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corporations themselves have to adjust more and more rapidly to the exigencies of the markets
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strategies of "delegating responsibility" tending to ensure the self-exploitation of staff
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a Darwinian world emerges
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reserve army of employees rendered docile by these social processes that make their situations precarious,
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structural violence of unemployment,
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condition of the "harmonious" functioning of the individualist micro-economic model is a mass phenomenon, the existence of a reserve army of the unemployed.
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free trade faith
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derive their justification for existing
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preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy
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suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses
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confuse the things of logic with the logic of things.
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look down upon the results of the other historical sciences
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speculative bubbles
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give reality to the ultra-logical utopia (ultra-logical like certain forms of insanity)
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the poverty of an increasingly large segment of the most economically advanced societies
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destruction of all the collective institutions
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the idea of the public realm
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imposition everywhere, in the upper spheres of the economy and the state as at the heart of corporations, of that sort of moral Darwinism that, with the cult of the winner, schooled in higher mathematics and bungee jumping, institutes the struggle of all against all and cynicism as the norm of all action
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market, whose nature as a site where interests are exercised is forgotten
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If there is still cause for some hope, it is that forces still exist, both in state institutions and in the orientations of social actors (notably individuals and groups most attached to these institutions, those with a tradition of civil and public service
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rational pursuit of ends collectively arrived at and collectively ratified.
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This could be done with the aid of labour unions by organising the elaboration and defence of the public interest
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the public interest will never emerge, even at the cost of a few mathematical errors, from the vision of accountants (in an earlier period one would have said of "shopkeepers") that the new belief system presents as the supreme form of human accomplishment.
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23 Feb 09
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That said, this "theory" that is desocialised and dehistoricised at its roots has, today more than ever, the means of making itself true and empirically verifiable. In effect, neoliberal discourse is not just one discourse among many. Rather, it is a "strong discourse" - the way psychiatric discourse is in an asylum, in Erving Goffman’s analysis (2).
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It is so strong and so hard to combat only because it has on its side all of the forces of a world of relations of forces, a world that it contributes to making what it is. It does this most notably by orienting the economic choices of those who dominate economic relationships. It thus adds its own symbolic force to these relations of forces. In the name of this scientific programme, converted into a plan of political action, an immense political project is underway, although its status as such is denied because it appears to be purely negative. This project aims to create the conditions under which the "theory" can be realised and can function: a programme of the methodical destruction of collectives.
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that aim to call into question any and all collective structures that could serve as an obstacle to the logic of the pure market: the nation, whose space to manoeuvre continually decreases; work groups, for example through the individualisation of salaries and of careers as a function of individual competences, with the consequent atomisation of workers; collectives for the defence of the rights of workers, unions, associations, cooperatives; even the family, which loses part of its control over consumption through the constitution of markets by age groups.
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Neoliberalism tends on the whole to favour severing the economy from social realities and thereby constructing, in reality, an economic system conforming to its description in pure theory, that is a sort of logical machine that presents itself as a chain of constraints regulating economic agents.
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Subjected to this permanent threat, the corporations themselves have to adjust more and more rapidly to the exigencies of the markets, under penalty of "losing the market’s confidence", as they say, as well as the support of their stockholders.
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competition among autonomous divisions as well as among teams forced to perform multiple functions
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individualisation
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structural violence of unemployment, of the insecurity of job tenure and the menace of layoff that it implies
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For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks. And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses.
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And yet the world is there, with the immediately visible effects of the implementation of the great neoliberal utopia: not only the poverty of an increasingly large segment of the most economically advanced societies, the extraordinary growth in income differences, the progressive disappearance of autonomous universes of cultural production, such as film, publishing, etc. through the intrusive imposition of commercial values, but also and above all two major trends. First is the destruction of all the collective institutions capable of counteracting the effects of the infernal machine, primarily those of the state, repository of all of the universal values associated with the idea of the public realm. Second is the imposition everywhere, in the upper spheres of the economy and the state as at the heart of corporations, of that sort of moral Darwinism that, with the cult of the winner, schooled in higher mathematics and bungee jumping, institutes the struggle of all against all and cynicism as the norm of all action and behaviour.
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These effects themselves are concealed, paradoxically, by the resistance to which this transition is currently giving rise among those who defend the old order by drawing on the resources it contained, on old solidarities, on reserves of social capital that protect an entire portion of the present social order from falling into anomie. This social capital is fated to wither away - although not in the short run - if it is not renewed and reproduced.
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One that will not have as its only law the pursuit of egoistic interests and the individual passion for profit and that will make room for collectives oriented toward the rational pursuit of ends collectively arrived at and collectively ratified.
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29 Sep 08
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28 May 08
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19 Apr 08
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Without a doubt, the practical establishment of this world of struggle would not succeed so completely without the complicity of all of the precarious arrangements that produce insecurity and of the existence of a reserve army of employees rendered docile by these social processes that make their situations precarious, as well as by the permanent threat of unemployment. This reserve army exists at all levels of the hierarchy, even at the higher levels, especially among managers. The ultimate foundation of this entire economic order placed under the sign of freedom is in effect the structural violence of unemployment, of the insecurity of job tenure and the menace of layoff that it implies. The condition of the "harmonious" functioning of the individualist micro-economic model is a mass phenomenon, the existence of a reserve army of the unemployed.
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Economists may not necessarily share the economic and social interests of the true believers and may have a variety of individual psychic states regarding the economic and social effects of the utopia which they cloak with mathematical reason. Nevertheless, they have enough specific interests in the field of economic science to contribute decisively to the production and reproduction of belief in the neoliberal utopia. Separated from the realities of the economic and social world by their existence and above all by their intellectual formation, which is most frequently purely abstract, bookish, and theoretical, they are particularly inclined to confuse the things of logic with the logic of things.
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All direct and conscious intervention of whatever kind, at least when it comes from the state, is discredited in advance and thus condemned to efface itself for the benefit of a pure and anonymous mechanism, the market, whose nature as a site where interests are exercised is forgotten. But in reality, what keeps the social order from dissolving into chaos, despite the growing volume of the endangered population, is the continuity or survival of those very institutions and representatives of the old order that is in the process of being dismantled, and all the work of all of the categories of social workers, as well as all the forms of social solidarity, familial or otherwise.
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Like it or not, the public interest will never emerge, even at the cost of a few mathematical errors, from the vision of accountants (in an earlier period one would have said of "shopkeepers") that the new belief system presents as the supreme form of human accomplishment.
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26 Feb 08
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06 Jul 07
Julia Lesageat the end of his life, Bourdieu devoted himself to the analysis and critique of neoliberalism, the political economy of globalization. "Neoliberalism [is] a programme for destroying collective structures which may impede pure market logic."
politics culture politicaleconomy space definitions theory essays
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01 May 07
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The essence of neoliberalism What is neoliberalism? A programme for destroying collective structures which may impede the pure market logic. By Pierre Bourdieu
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The essence of neoliberalism What is neoliberalism? A programme for destroying collective structures which may impede the pure market logic. By Pierre Bourdieu
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26 Aug 06
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17 Dec 05
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10 Jan 05
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