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Grahame Thompson
© Grahame Thompson 2007
In this contribution I ask how far can anybody now fully 'escape' the neo-liberal embrace? Has this become such an integral part of the fabric of our lives that it is impossible to remain 'outside' of it. Is the left itself now so embedded in this that it too must reassess its attitude towards neo-liberalism? Are those who are of the left partly enacting and performing the neo-liberal project on themselves and others, if unwittingly and unknowingly at times?
These are very difficult, uncomfortable, and no doubt controversial questions to ask. But how often do the readers of Soundings change energy suppliers, or change their mobile telephone network, or scrutinize and change their financial savings provider? How much do they fret about which hospital to use or school to send their child to? Although these may seem mundane even trivial matters, exercising them has become the taken for granted manifestation of 'choice' that we all have learned to live with, and more besides. In addition, I would argue these are no longer just new exclusively middle-class preoccupations.
It may be fashionable nowadays to dismiss the term neo-liberalism as a passing phase of advanced capitalism, one that has peaked and is now going into decline as 'third-wayisms' of various kinds take over the centre ground of politics in western countries. Whilst there may be some truth in this sentiment, to dismiss neo-liberalism so readily would be a mistake. The reason that such an attitude can take hold in precisely because neo-liberalism has been ingested into the body politic so successfully that it has become the prevailing commonsense of everyday life and hovers there almost unnoticed in its productive inventiveness. So just as in the aftermath of the Second World War we all became 'social democratic subjects' in one way or another, we may now all have become similarly constituted as 'neo-liberal subjects' in ways that we still do not fully understand or recognize.
I think there are two senses to the meaning of neo-liberalism that are worth analytically separating, at least in the first instance.
The first and more traditional sense is to see it as a regime of politico-economic organization with its attendant ideological and discursive justifications. The key aspects here would be an emphasis on competitive markets as the most efficient way of organizing the allocation of resources; the liberalization and de-regulation of economic activities and the privatization of previously publicly owned assets. All this is set within the context of open international borders, with 'global' (rather than national) responses to any economic problem. Clearly, viewed against the backdrop of the progressive liberalization and privatization of the energy, transport and communications sectors - and much more besides - since the later 1970s this aspect of neo-liberalism has been, in its own eyes, one of its greatest 'successes'.
But the second sense of neo-liberalism is to consider it as a mode of governance with its own attendant justifications. The key aspects here are to stress the responsibilization of autonomous agents; the production of 'freedoms' that this engenders for economic agents and the encouragement of self-governance and self-reliance on their part; and the institution of mechanisms of indirect 'governance at a distance' rather than direct interventionism. Furthermore, it means organizing the 'conduct of conduct', which involves the production of benchmarks, standards, targets, norms, etc., that are set for agents and that can be audited - rather than the use of hierarchical administrative means of governance.
In part this latter sense of governmental neo-liberalism is what Foucault termed 'advanced liberalism'. But I would suggest that this has now merged with or fused into neo-liberalism proper. They are more or less indistinguishable aspects of the same reality, though I would still stress the latter as the most forceful expression of the present condition. The former more traditional sense established the preconditions for the latter, which has emerged as a governmental principle with an overwhelming presence and multiple embrace few would have thought possible twenty years ago. One of neo-liberalism's most effective moves has been to unite the left's commitment to 'participation' with the rights commitment to 'responsibility' (as now is the case with the celebration of the 'active citizen', for instance). These have merged in terms of the further over-determined conceptual apparatus of 'performance'. We are all constantly subject to the strictures of performance; calculated about, energised by, monitored, quality assessed, rewarded, audited, etc. in the name of performance. And what is true of individuals is also true of institutions and even national economies (as in the case of comparative national economic performance operating under the umbrella term of 'competitiveness').
We can see an obvious connection to this governmental programme aspect of neo-liberalism in the movement associated with 'corporate social responsibility' (CSR) This movement responsibilizes autonomous agents (companies), who increasingly organize their own self governance, setting themselves targets and standards that they police themselves. So in as much that companies, NGOs, various governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, individuals, religious organizations, academics, etc., 'advocate' CSR they are, in effect, enacting and performing such a neo-liberal programme on themselves. They could now be considered part of this programmatic agenda. Whilst, then, one might think that the CSR movement -- which includes ethical investment and ethical consumption -- is a progressive one, it could, in fact be viewed as an integral aspect of the neo-liberal programme. Perhaps, then, as a consequence of this assessment, we should become more sanguine about the assumed general 'perniciousness' of neo-liberalism? It may be all pervasive but can every manifestation of it now simply be condemned? Perhaps we have all now become so much a part of this programme; it is something from which we can no longer fully escape, stand aside from or simply criticise.
But I would then ask whether there still remains a space for the authentic left to, not so much stand aside from neo-liberalism and simple criticise it, but to partly embrace it so as to manoeuvre for additional 'progressive' positions within it. So the left would need to adopt a completely different attitude towards neo-liberalism if all of this were to prove the case. In respect to CSR just mentioned above, this might take the form of using the new found fondness for responsibilization against companies on their own ground. One of the main problems in respect to big corporations is that they can very effectively hide behind limited liability to evade their responsibilities, even towards their own shareholders let alone the wider society. Corporate scandals abound while CEOs, managers and directors seem often to escape their just deserts. Whilst the corporate sector has forcefully argued for less state intervention, more arms length freedom, the removal of legalistic barriers to its activities, and so on, it has singly failed to criticise the major bastion of that which allows it to escape its responsibilities, namely limited liability. Here is an opportunity for the left to use the neo-liberal programme - or part of it - against the least responsible sections of the business community, so as to reform the legal status of limited liability. And this could be but one of a number of similar moves that a less partisan left could embark upon if it were to take a more nuanced attitude towards its traditional enemy of neo-liberalism.
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