Jason Read (yes, that guy) whose blog Unemployed Negativity expertly covers contemporary French and Italian political philosophy of the generally Autonomia strain, with special attention to Hegelian and Spinozist angles -- as well as television and movies) describes the same phenomenon as did Mark Fisher (author of Capitalist Realism) in the piece excepted in Monday's post: the production of competition and prevention of solidarity via massive intervention.
Here is Read, explicating Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, La nouvelle raison du monde: essai sur la société néolibérale by emphasizing the kettle logic at work: the artificial production of natural competition:
On this point Dardot and Laval cite Thomas Lemke's definition of the fundamental paradox of neoliberalism: it actively engenders a social relation which it declares to be natural. Competition is defined as something which is always already there, forming the basis of not only human society but nature as well. Despite this supposed fact, competition is constantly cultivated through laws and social relations that destroy even the forms of solidarity that capitalism engenders, such as classes. We could say that generalized this paradox defines much reactionary, or conservative thought, which always declares some hierarchy or principle natural while actively working to produce it. There is always something of Freud's "borrowed kettle" in such arguments which declare some practice or relation to be simultaneously unnatural and illegal. If it truly was the former, the latter would not be required. However, what makes neoliberalism different is that what is taken as natural is not some hierarchy, such as that between races or genders, but a principle of human action. As Dardot and Laval argue, this naturalization of competition is incredibly effective, it forces any opposition to neoliberalism to make some promethean claim, to change nature, obscuring the way in which this supposed nature is actually the product of a complete restructuring of economic, political, and social life in the last several decades.
Recent Comments