This article adds to contemporary analyses of neoliberalism by shedding light on its psychic life. Writers in the Foucauldian tradition have explored how subjectivities are reconstituted under neoliberalism, showing that the neoliberal self is an entrepreneurial subject. Yet, there has been little empirical research that explores entrepreneurial subjectivity and, more specifically, its psychic life. By drawing on over 60 in-depth interviews with individuals who may be entrepreneurial subjects par excellence, this article adds to our understanding of how neoliberalism is lived (...) out. The article is divided into 10 sections, with each section exploring a distinct contour of entrepreneurial subjectivity. They show, for example, that competition is not only other-directed under neoliberalism, but also directed at the self, and that exclusionary processes lie at the heart of the constitution of entrepreneurial subjectivities. By providing a theoretically informed analysis of a wealth of empirical data, the article makes an original contribution to our understanding of the psychic life of neoliberalism. (shrink)

La sociedad del “nuevo espíritu del capitalismo” se caracteriza por la profusión del lenguaje terapéutico entre la población, un tipo de lenguaje que responde al desarrollo del malestar que la posmodernidad y el capitalismo feroz causan en los individuos. En dicho contexto, valores como la autonomía, el éxito, la creatividad y el empoderamiento pierden su poder de transformación social para convertirse en herramientas disciplinarias al servicio del sistema neoliberal. En el presente artículo abordaremos dos herramientas que consideramos, contribuyen a la (...) difusión de este tipo de lenguaje: la literatura gerencial dirigida a la clase directiva y la literatura de autoayuda dirigida al público general. Sostendremos que ambos tipos de literatura se caracterizan por un fuerte componente disciplinario y ponen en juego las mismas lógicas discursivas y valores, buscando la mercantilización de las capacidades de los individuos. Palabras clave: autoayuda, lenguaje terapéutico, régimen disciplinario, neoliberalismo. (shrink)

Several thinkers have expressed the view that the central nostrums of neoliberalism, including self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual risk, have become part of the “common sense” fabric of everyday life. My paper argues that Erich Fromm’s idea of social character offers a comprehensive and persuasive answer to this question. While some have sought the answer to this conundrum in Foucault’s notion of governmentality, I argue that, by itself, this answer is not sufficient. What is significant about the notion of social (...) character, I claim, is that it manages to unify “top-down” approaches like governmentality focused on ideas and policy, with “bottom-up” approaches focused on how the insights of day to day experience are mediated through culture. Adapting this theory to neoliberalism, I argue, means that the “common sense” nature of neoliberalism, and the lack of a reckoning for its massive economic failure, are explicable through the formation of a neoliberal social character, by means of which experiential processes align with cultural meanings and, subsequently, fuse with social expectations. (shrink)

V tem članku avtor poskusi predstaviti psihoanalitično branje razvoja duha kapitalizma. Opirajoč se na branje Lacana, članek pokaže, da je to mogoče doseči, če ločujemo med dvema ravnema užitka in sreče. Če je v kapitalizmu prvi ostal nespremenjen, je druga doživela velike zgodovinske spremembe. Opirajoč se na genealogijo neolibaralizma, kot jo srečamo pri Foucaultu poznih sedemdesetih let, in analizirajoč aktualno širjenje novih diskurzov o sreči, članek izpostavi tri momente duha kapitalizma: prvič, moment, ko obljubo sreče zamenja obljuba užitka; drugič, moment, (...) ko sam podjetnik odkrije srečo kot obljubo; tretjič, moment, ko sreča ni več obljuba, temveč kapital, ki ga mora neoliberalni subjekt krepiti. (shrink)