Foucault and Neoliberalism: A Response to Recent Critics and a New Resolution

Mark Olssen

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Chapter 12 Foucault and Neoliberalism

A Response to Recent Critics and a New Resolution

In: A Normative Foucauldian

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Mark Olssen

Mark Olssen
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 328–355

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004464452_012

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Abstract

While Foucault has traditionally been represented as a critic of neoliberalism, recent work by Zamora (2016), Zamora and Behrent (2016), as well as François Ewald, and others (see Becker et al., 2012), claims that Foucault’s later writings demonstrate a degree of support for neoliberalism and that “supply-side” models offers some insurance against the “bads” associated with old socialistic models of the state. This paper critically re-examines Foucault’s perspectives on neoliberalism in order to ascertain the extent to which he can be seen as offering support or opposition to the neoliberal revolution. After briefly summarizing the recent literature on the topic, I will seek a more nuanced reconsideration whereby I aim to dampen the exuberance of these critics who have called Foucault’s criticisms of neoliberalism into question. While Foucault saw neoliberal technologies as manifesting some positive effects, in overall terms he sees it as a new form of biopower which replaces liberalism’s protections of naturalistic rights and freedoms in order to extend forms of control from the arena of the economy to apply to all spheres of society and all forms of voluntary behaviour. In the final section of the paper, I claim that far from supporting neoliberalism, Foucault can be seen to advocate a form of republican social democracy, based upon the final lecture (April 4th) in The Birth of Biopolitics, where he identifies Adam Ferguson as effectively resolving the conundrums of laissez-faire, Homo economicus and positive state power, in a distinctively 18th-century conception of “civil society”.

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A Normative Foucauldian

Selected Papers of Mark Olssen

Series: Educational Futures, Volume: 74

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004464452

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 13 Sep 2021

Subjects
- Education

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Chapter 12 Foucault and Neoliberalism

A Response to Recent Critics and a New Resolution

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A Normative Foucauldian

Selected Papers of Mark Olssen

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