Neoliberalism as culture: neo-subject, enterprise and pro-inequality State

Abstract

The critical approach of neoliberalism is usually made from two different interpretations: as reconstituting the power of the capitalist class in the post-Keynesian phase of capitalism, or from the emphasis on forming a competitive rationality devoted to govern subjectivities. This article contains a review of some representative contributions of both approaches, also in the Spanish-speaking world, but is especially a proposal to go one step further: we suggest to value the critical power of conceiving neoliberalism as culture, as a cultural change program, but from a conflictual, dynamic and focused perspective. To this end, we propose a questioning treatment of neoliberal culture inspired by the vigorous criticism of the managerialist handling of the Enterprise Culture that Critical Management Studies have been conducted over the past fifteen years. If the company is the organization that inspires the spirit of competitive market that neoliberalism tries to use for reconfiguring both subjectivity and state services, is almost a sweet duty to look in that same place a source of social criticism inspiration.