Abstract

How do individuals become emotionally invested in neoliberal ideology? Why do people passionately attach themselves to formations that are ultimately domineering and destructive? This paper brings together Foucauldian governmentality critique with autonomist Marxist writings on post-Fordist capitalism to contribute to the on-going conversation on the social reproduction of neoliberal capital. While, both bodies of theory grant subjectivity a constitutive role, neither takes seriously enough the power of neoliberal ideology to put forth credible affective structures and the ability of individuals to derive genuine pleasure from them. While Foucauldian approaches exaggerate the role of economic rationality in capitalism thus inviting an easy retreat into individualist and consumerist resistance tactics, autonomist thinkers are overly confident that the communicative and cooperative dispositions demanded from the post Fordist workforce already contain the potential to "become common." Seeing how neither of these promises has yet materialized, I propose a more humble and subtle critical practice that borrows from Foucault's "critical ontology of ourselves."

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