The Iron Cage of Enterprise or the Restoration of Class Power? Approaches to Understanding Neoliberalism
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Author | Simon Choat |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929918819195 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929918819195
Political Studies Review
2019, Vol. 17(4) 416 –427
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929918819195
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The Iron Cage of Enterprise
or the Restoration of Class
Power? Approaches to
Understanding Neoliberalism
Simon Choat
Abstract
Recent Foucauldian critiques of neoliberalism – especially those by Wendy Brown, Béatrice
Hibou, and Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval – have argued that the Marxist interpretation of
neoliberalism as a class project is reductive and economistic, and have instead conceptualised
neoliberalism as a form of governmental rationality. This article compares these two influential
approaches to understanding neoliberalism. It will outline the central features of the Foucauldian
and Marxist approaches, assess the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, and argue
that a synthesis of the two approaches is both possible and desirable. While the Foucauldian
approach enables a microphysics of everyday neoliberalism and its modes of subjectivity, it is
argued that such an analysis must be placed within the broader, macrostructural approach of
Marxism. The article thus defends Marxism against its Foucauldian critique, while nonetheless
encouraging Marxists to engage with Foucauldian accounts of neoliberalism which they have so
far tended to ignore.
Keywords
neoliberalism, Foucauldian, Marxism, market, governmentality
Accepted: 17 October 2018
Introduction
If the concept of neoliberalism can seem elusive, it is not only because it has been applied
to an enormous range of political, social and economic phenomena, but also because it
has been employed within a bewildering array of theoretical frameworks and conse-
quently subjected to a variety of competing and sometimes incompatible definitions. As
a result, many commentators and academics are suspicious of the term; some have even
advocated its abandonment, on the basis that such an imprecise and promiscuous concept
is too unwieldy and ambiguous to be of much use (e.g. Barnett, 2005; Clarke, 2008;
Ferguson, 2010; Venugopal, 2015).
Department of Politics, International Relations and Human Rights, Faculty of Business and Social Sciences,
Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, UK
Corresponding author:
Simon Choat, Department of Politics, International Relations and Human Rights, Faculty of Business and
Social Sciences, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE, UK.
Email: s.choat@kingston.ac.uk
819195PSW0010.1177/1478929918819195Political Studies ReviewChoat
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