Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (Near Future Series)

This book is so well researched and how Wendy breaks down the nature of homo oeconomicus is so spot on it is scary! Please read this book and let’s make a change in this system.

A persuasive analysis of the corporatization of every phase of life, to the exclusion of humane values, and its dire effects on the democratic ideal of government for and by the people. The slow erosion of a life of meaning serves to obscure reality and leads us to believe falsely that the limited political, social, educational, cultural options---that are solely valued by their "productivity/profitability"---are as it was always intended and constitute all the options that we have. This important understanding may free some from the "trance" of corporatization and free others to live more exuberant lives untied to the expectations rigged by the our institutions.

I love their concept of responsibilization. Really good critical read.

I read it in four days and thought about it constantly when not reading.

The basic idea of this book isn't necessarily new, but it's worth repeating: that neoliberalism isn't just bringing economics into a more prominent role in public policy, it's destroying the very institutions of democracy and changing how we talk about politics. What might be novel about it is that the author's (WB's) argument is targeted to a very particular audience: Americans who are steeped in critical theory.Even though I'm outside the target audience and had encountered the basic idea elsewhere on a number of occasions (and agree with it), my copy now has a few stars in the margins, too. What I especially liked was WB's emphasis in several places on language: how the neoliberal vocabulary of governance -- based ostensibly on compromise and optimization -- is replacing that of politics, which is based on conflict; and that by doing so, neoliberalism is robbing us of ways to think about politics. In this regard, WB makes the striking observation that through "the vanquishing of homo politicus" and its replacement with "homo oeconomicus," neoliberalism eliminates the "open question of how to craft the self or what paths to travel in life" (@41). WB's concepts of the political draw heavily from Aristotle's Politics and Machiavelli's Discourses, two of my own favorite source-texts. There's also a very heartfelt and jargon-free chapter near the end of the book (Chap. VI) about the impact of neoliberal policies on public education, which I found all the more interesting since I myself recently started teaching undergraduates.That said, if you're an outsider like me you may find some aspects of the argument frustrating. WB's concept of neoliberalism is framed in response to Michel Foucault's 1978-79 Collège de France lectures on "neoliberal reason." Foucault's view, with WB's updates, is presented as authoritative about what neoliberalism is: aside from a couple of quotes from Margaret Thatcher and Milton Friedman, the actual writings of neoliberal thinkers themselves are pretty much ignored. I'd have appreciated a more primary source-based approach.Some arguments might have been stronger with better-chosen examples. For example, WB illustrates describes neoliberalism's spread through benchmarking and "best practices." The example she chooses to illustrate the latter, though is "Bremer Order 81" issued during the occupation of Iraq, pertaining to intellectual property and especially to plant varieties. Most pertinently, the order forbids Iraqi farmers from re-using seed from genetically modified crops, forcing them to buy new seeds every year. Problem is, the document itself doesn't explicitly rely on the rhetoric of "best practices" at all, and seems to be a very traditional government-sponsored boondoggle for corporate America, in this case Monsanto. WB acknowledges these points, but that's not enough to relieve the feeling of stretch in her argument, which invokes another scholar's characterisation of "best practices" in lieu of Bremer & al.'s own use of that term. Actually, the idea of disrupting traditional farming practices by preventing seed-reuse is a pervasive neoliberal theme in trade diplomacy, based not only on the 1991 treaty known by the French acronym UPOV and the TRIPS part of the WTO treaty but also much bilateral diplomacy -- and not just the US's. But this point about global neoliberalism is never mentioned.Similarly the book discusses the relationship between neoliberalism and law by focusing on the US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, with a brief mention of the Court's enthusiasm for favoring private arbitration over court-based trials. Once again, the example centers on the US, and discusses law peculiar to it. Of course, Citizens United is relevant because it's directly related to American political discourse. Arbitration, though, undermines democracy on a more global scale, and could have borne more attention. It eliminates the role of courts (whose judges may be elected directly, or at least nominated and vetted by elected officials), and even that of legislatures.Another global neoliberal legal phenomenon is the spread of "Law and Economics," a doctrine that originated with corporate funding at the University of Chicago Law School (led at the time by Milton Friedman's brother-in-law). Today even politically liberal law profs in the US rely on it, and it's also spread to places like France and Japan. But it's absent from this book.Outside the legal context as well, the book is a little shaky on economics. It often lumps together neoclassical economics and neoliberalism, but they're very different. Neoclassical economics originated in the late 19th Century, long before neoliberalism was born, and was further developed by socialists like Philip Wicksteed and fans of the welfare state like Paul Samuelson. WB also repeatedly emphasizes neoliberalism's love for economic growth, but I suggest this is off-point in a couple of ways. First, economic growth has been a goal of state policy since the Keynesian 1950s, and its instrumentalizing rhetoric (i.e., the best argument for any policy is that it contributes in some way to growth) not only has a long pedigree but affects even some economists one might hesitate to call neoliberal, such as Thomas Piketty. Second and more important, the real economy of goods and services, which is what's purportedly measured by GDP, has been much smaller than the financial economy since the 1990s, if not earlier. The combined annual value of trades on the NYSE and NASDAQ alone has exceeded US GDP since the late 1990s, and the aggregate value of global equity trading has exceeded global nominal GDP for much of the past decade too, including the past three years; and that's not even considering the value of currency, derivatives and other securities markets. The gains on such markets aren't included in the computation of GDP, and don't have any necessary connection to economic growth (a point that seems to have been misunderstood, e.g. @70). WB correctly points out that GDP figures have an impact on interest rates on sovereign debt, but that relationship is more psychological than algebraic. There's a lot more money to be made on the financial markets than in the real economy, and the wealth accumulated in that way is very narrowly distributed. Modern neoliberals realized that a long time ago -- just as they understand that the *rhetoric* of economic growth is useful to conceal their purpose, because people still think of the time before the 1980s when growth in developed countries really did coincide with improved incomes for many classes of society. A clearer parsing of this point would have strengthened WB's argument.The style of the book is engaged, even passionate, very serious and a little tough to read. Thanks probably to its Foucauldian foundations, there's a certain viscosity to the prose: one finds not 'ideas' or 'concepts' but "imaginaries," not 'issues or 'problems' but "problematics," and neither 'forms' nor 'versions' of things but "iterations" of them. (There's also a Foucauldian spin on "homo legalis" and "homo juridicus" that neither my law dictionary nor my well-worn Lewis & Short could totally de-mystify for me.) Unfortunately, the book's apparatus is poor. There are close to 60 pages of endnotes, without any separate list of references. The notes don't have any page guides, so when you open up to that part of the book you don't have any clue to where you are. Moreover, the notes lack any cross-references to the first citation of a work, making it a tough slog to locate the full bibliographic details of a cite. The index is very idiosyncratic: some entries are semi-meticulously (and circularly) cross-referenced, e.g. "Chile, 20, 151. See also Allende, Salvadore; Pinochet, Augusto," "Pinochet, Augusto, 20, 151. See also Chile," and simply "Allende, Salvadore, 20, 151" -- but major topics such as Aristotle and economic growth are entirely absent. I expected better quality from Zone and from its distributor, MIT Press.If you're allergic to critical theory, you might try the volume edited by Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe, "The Road from Mont Pèlerin" (Harvard UP 2009), and especially Mirowski's concluding essay, "Postface: Defining Neoliberalism," as well as the rather feisty book by Alain Deneault, « Gouvernance : Le management totalitaire » (Lux (Montréal) 2013), and the more sober but concise and terrific « La Gouvernance » by Philippe Moreau Defarges (PUF Que sais-je 4th ed. 2011). There are also narrower case studies that illustrate WB's main point, such as the volume "Contradictions of Neoliberal Planning" edited by T. Tasan-Kok and G. Baeten (Springer 2012) and A. Ogawa's excellent "The Failure of Civil Society?" (SUNY Press 2009). None of these are referenced in this book. But if, figuratively speaking, you're among the Ephesians, Corinthians or others to whom this work is addressed, you may find it very persuasive; and no doubt some readers who don't hail from those parts may find it enlightening too.

Absolutely loving this exploration of the hegemony of neoliberalisation/neoliberalism. An intelligent, important and timely read

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Great book!

Ever wonder why it's impossible to feel excited about politics? Read this book, it's incredible.

I highly recommend Berkeley political theorist Wendy Brown's latest book UNDOING THE DEMOS: NEOLIBERALISM'S STEALTH REVOLUTION (2015). She aptly demonstrates how neoliberal policies have undermined the democratic imaginary in recent decades, eroding the very idea of citizenship in a democratic polity. Homo politicus, she argues, is being displaced in all aspects of life by homo economicus, as everything becomes economized, and as we come to see ourselves as "human capital." Especially effective is her critique of the implementation of neoliberalism in higher education. Her book also contains a good critical assessment of Foucault's work on neoliberailsim. While his lectures at the College de France in the late 1970s (the lecture series entitled THE BIRTH OF POLITICS) were highly perceptive on the history and trajectory on neoliberal policies, from our perspective in the early twenty-first century, they were limited in significant ways. While Foucault was quite insightful regarding the political rationality of neoliberalism, he was, ironically enough, never able to theorize the political in an adequate manner. This book is a must read for those concerned with neoliberalism and its consequences.

大学に現在起こっていることは、新自由主義の余波ではなくて、大学は新自由主義の実践の最前線にいる。というのが本書の主張と理解しました。むろん本書は新自由主義についての論考であり、それを知ろうと読み始めたのですが、表紙からも分かるように荒廃した大学・その状況を明らかにしようとするのが本書の重要な目的だと思います。米国の大学について書かれているのに、日本の大学のおかれた状況と酷似していて驚くほどです。いや、あまりに酷似しているので、おそらく日本の大学関係者であればすらすら読めるはず。とはいえ広く読まれるべき本だと思うので、翻訳が待たれます。

One day behind guaranteed arrival date (probably due to canada post strike). Overall, satisfied.

A brilliant account of how 'neoliberalism' has developed into a fundamentally anti-democratic form. Well written, accessible, sophisticated and illuminating throughout. We are, after all, still in a class war: oligopolists against the rest.