File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1998/foucault.9809, message 21


Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1998 23:46:21 +1200
From: "na.devine" <na.devine-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: Foucauldian examinations of The Market


Sorry, Wynship.

To Campbell's list I would add Barry Hindess, but nonetheless, there is 
a big gap: it seems to me that neo-liberalism could be added to 
Foucault's list of significant changes in the conceptualization of govt 
in 'Governmentality'.

'Homo economicus' is challenged outside this literature: it is only 
seen, even within economics as a 'model' which is useful for modelling 
purposes, and is not supposed to represent an accurate picture of human 
beings ( this according to Buchanan and Tullock 1962) and by some 
others, e.g. Hayek, is rejected as being too deterministic: the 
distinguishing feature of the Austrian school is supposed to be the 
'subjective' theory of value, i.e. human beings cannot be reduced to the 
kind of mechanistic animal portrayed by homo economicus. Hayek  rejects 
Mises' critique of socialism, because he has used such a rationalistic 
model: he argues that if human beings really are so rationalistic, i.e. 
predictable, then centralized planning which he equates with socialism 
is a logical outcome. 

The Foucauldian  argument though would surely have to be that people are 
infinitely malleable, and that homo economicus is no more than a 
cultural artefact???? To see human beings otherwise would be to argue 
for some kind of essentialism which I would have thought theoretically 
unacceptable within the Foucauldian view, if such a categorization can 
be allowed.

Nesta

   

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