I was recently involved in a conversation where there was a debate on whether neoliberalism is currently where nihilism currently resides. Now I am familiar with both these concepts however I do not really see how they relate. Neoliberalism and economic thinking are arguable our highest values but is this all it encompasses?
Can anyone help shed some light on this?
Thanks,
Posted May 10, 2013, 10:01 AM UTC
It doesn't. It is just an ideological cludge. Some people think if the government does not spend as large amounts of money on projects the intelligentsia considers to be important then the values themselves disappear from the world. For example, many countries currently try to reduce government finances for humanities / liberal arts education, due to the severe unemployment problem such grads face. These people think it means "these do not matter anymore, just STEM" but this is of course false thinking, it does not follow, it simply means fewer people should do them and preferably independently wealthy people should, and more people of poorer classes should choose better employable studies. It does not mean humanities and the values they represent suddenly disappear from the world.
I don't think the comparison is actually valid. Neoliberalism is an economic doctrine free from philosophy unlike nihilism. It may be connected to libertarianism however and libertarianism does have some philosophical underpinnings and values like individualism, but you would need to transition your discussion to that sort of thing then.
Neoliberalism is an economic doctrine free from philosophy
this isn't true.
Source please?
Even a cursory familiarity with neoliberalism.
As a socialist, I'm pretty familiar with neoliberalism from debating it with others so many times. Neoliberals generally hold that deregulation and minimal or no government interference in private capitalist economics is preferable economic activity. This doesn't appeal to philosophy as things only become philosophical when neoliberals appeal to classical liberalism or libertarianism, which are philosophically drenched systems, to examine what values they plug in to their economic system.
neoliberalism is just an assertion of the values of liberalism re-articulated into actual policies. Early liberalism is very much a philosophy, rooted in English (and French) philosophical tradition. I've only read English philosophers; typically from Hobbes and Locke to John S. Mill, and Jeremy Bentham is what encompasses English liberalism.
To me all economic meta narratives are constructions, because economy is a thing that only exists due to human action. Neoliberaism in some of its variants ascribes tautological or rather absolute value in the goodness of markets (typically). The neoliberal reading of markets (ala: Something like F. Fukuyama's "End of History") describes markets as imminent and innate to humanity. I'm not too familiar (but very interested) in nihilism so the connection I might make here is maybe a stretch. Neoliberalsim as a narrative (which often fails to see it's own constructed nature) is nihilistic because it is created meaning?
Neoliberalism posits (personal or economic) freedom as its central value - so it cannot be nihilistic.
But by applying an economic method of thinking to all aspects of our life, particularly via the idea of human capital does it not instead trap us?
Economic simply means rational and efficient. Please elaborate further. Why do you feel it entraps us?
This isn’t my own opinion but rather the argument explored. We evaluate more and more parts of our lives economically, decisions such as hosting the Olympic becomes a debate on what we will gain on our investment, what are the economic effects likely to be. Rather than on what it will do for culture. Human capital states that we have moved away from traditional labour where we sell a portion of our time for a wage rather now we are given a return on our capital. We are forced to enhance this capital both in and out of work by studying, researching and generally investing our time valuably. This capital is the sum of us, no longer is our work and personal life separate we are now just our human capital.
I think it was always like this. Except that now it's more exact, numerical, mathematical. This is the effect of the widespread adoption of statistics by social sciences. If you ask yourself: "What will holding the Olympics do for our culture?" - you're asking yourself about increasing the culture of your own state. Isn't this (cloaked, perhaps) economic thinking?
We are forced
We are not forced, at least not in the West. I freely went to Japan for some time and lived in a Zen monastery. I slept on the floor, worked 10 unpaid hours a day, and meditated 4 hours a day from 4 to 8 AM.
I am still free to not pursue the "social game" - in fact, we are freer to pursue whatever we want than ever. There was nowhere a time in history you were freer to be whatever you want, including a Buddhist monk.
What you're speaking of is, I think, a rationalization and quantification of human lives which is an effect of our more scientifically oriented society, of scientific progress, and so on - but it was always essentially the same. Economic thinking is present in all practical considerations.
"Neoliberalism"(and why NEO-) and "Nihilism" may be current labels popularly tossed about in conversations, but they hardly qualify for the term concept; but what do they really MEAN? And why would "economic VALUES" be our highest?
I think there meaning is certainly a big part of the debate, both are contested. The value aspect came when discussing whether neoliberalism overcomes nihilism or whether it is just the new value. No longer is God top but rather economics.