There has been a spate of recent books on neoliberalism. The conclusion makes a case for what is lost when practices of democratic subjectivity have little more than formal significance and examines the role that sacrifice plays in neoliberal governmentality. The second section of the book, consisting of final three chapters of the book, examines the impact of neoliberal rationality upon the institutional structures of politics, the judiciary, and education. The book is divided into two parts, with the first three chapters delineating Brown’s conception of neoliberalism followed by two chapters that engage Foucault’s lecture course at the Collége de France.
Rather than democratic political agency, individuals are construed (and increasingly construe themselves) simply as economic actors (or as entrepreneurs of themselves as Foucault puts it in The Birth of Biopolitics).
Her basic claim, as the title indicates, is that neoliberalism increasingly renders democratic political agency impossible. In this engaging new book, Wendy Brown employs a careful reading and critique of Michel Foucault’s 1978-1979 lecture course The Birth of Biopolitics as a way to think about neoliberal government rationality in advanced democracies today.
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