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I think that depends on what one is up to. If you are a historian and give a talk entitled “this is my big talk in which I will tell the audience what modernity is”, well, sure, you can’t say,

“it’s a shifter, let’s all go home.” People would be well within their rights to call you lazy.

On the other hand, if you are an anthropologist and give a talk entitled “Modern methods of oratory among traditional Oopdeedoo speakers”, then I think it’s totally okay to use the terms modern and traditional as place-holders, because really your main point is elsewhere. and if people respond by tuning out the substantive parts of what you have to say but nailing you down on the modern (or the traditional) thing, well, they are being a lazy audience.

I’m not gonna touch the Zizek/Hegel thing with a 10 foot pole… ;)

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Once we see that the post-Washington Consensus marks a revival of liberalism rather than a departure from it, we are also able to see that freedom and government are not opposites, though this is the common assumption in modern, liberal societies. This was a key tenet of Michel Foucault’s analysis of liberalism. The developments depicted in this paper confirm this general observation, strongly suggesting that the further economic freedom is extended, the more economic government is required. We need, however, to move beyond simplistic ideas about the relationship between freedom and government. We need to differentiate our notion of freedom as well as our notion of government, and research in more detail their actual and possible future configurations.

Thanks also for your perspective on economic history of the 70s and 80s. Reading your comment it occurred to me that perhaps neoliberalism is often conflated with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the supposed triumph of U.S.-dominated global economy.

And yes, I have read Anna Tsing’s new book Friction. I too enjoyed the book. The writing is characteristically exquisite and the way she weaves theory with ethnographic description is top-notch. I haven’t read Lisa Rofel’s Other Modernities but I have heard good things about it. Perhaps it might be worth a separate post.

Now onto the question of “neoliberalism” as an empty placeholder. I’m afraid I’m going on a bit of a tangent here, but when I proposed the title “Indexicality of Neoliberalism” in response to you, Ozma, I was actually thinking of Fredric Jameson’s A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present, in which the Marxist literary critic argues that the term “modernity” is not a historical period but a narrative category that has to do with time and with the break with its own future.

Right at the beginning of this short book he mentions that “modernity” may be understood as a linguistic shifter since it means “now” in the original latin modernus and the word to denote the present moment is a shifter prevalent in most languages. Yet he quickly dismisses this argument as reductionist because shifters, according to Hegel, uncritically (and probably undialectically) assumes the philosophical validity of “immediacy.” I lose him here, so let me I quote him in full before I further embarrass myself:

It can be argued that ‘modern’ demands to be ranged under the category of what Jesperson called ‘shifters’: namely those empty vehicles of ‘deixis’ or reference to the context of the enunciation, whose meaning and content vary from speaker to speaker throughout time. Such are the pronouns (I, Me and you), the words for place (here and there), and of course the time-words (now and them). In fact, well before modern linguistics, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit famously opens with a discussion of precisely such shifters, which as he points out might at first seem the most concrete words of all, until we grasp their portable variability. Yet shifters exist, however incoherent they may be philosophically; and the well-known case of yesterday’s ‘modern’ fashions suggest that the term ‘modern’ might well be included among them. In that case, however, the paradoxes of the modern are reduced to those of the merely new; and the existence of shigers in every known language tends to deprive our current object of inquiry of even that historicality that it was the merit of the preceding model to have underscored. (p.19)

And here is Jameson’s footnote to Hegel:

G.W.F. Hegel, Phaenomenologie des Geistes, A-1, on ‘Sense certainty’. The entire work is a polemic against ‘immediacy’; this opening section constitutes a refutation of the latter’s concreteness.

As a postscript here, I don’t think it is a coincidence that we begin with Zizek’s writing on the Real (as always that which is impossible) and arrive at Hegel’s critique of the immediacy of indexes.

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I cheerfully admit that I have not read Jodi Dean’s paper. But I still maintain that this kind of critique is among the easiest to make so should only sparingly be used. It’s a special favorite at talks — you can basically arrive at a 1 pm talk, go into a glazed-eye stupor, and at 1:40 when the speaker stops for questions launch into a “how do you define ‘globalization’” question, complete with supercilious glower, thereby appearing dashingly intellectual without having listened to anything else the speaker has said.

Asking anyone to be able to substantively defend every last one of their categories is a mug’s game. Anybody can do it. One can endlessly withhold approval: “oh, but I hardly think that covers all the relevant aspects of globalization, now does it?” and thus keep a death grip on the upper hand (pardon the mixed metaphor). I’m sorry, I honestly do believe it is the preferred intellectual gambit of intellectual scoundrels. That’s not necessarily a crack at you — maybe you don’t pull this move on a regular basis. But if you do, well, in the immortal words of shania twain, it don’t impress me much.

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And if “modern” *or any other term* is integral to the logic of someone’s argument they should be able to defend it. If a category is not essential drop it.

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“Neoliberalism” is a term that, as far as I can tell, comes out of Latin America in the 1980s. Here’s my earliest cite for the term: Foxley, Alejandro. 1982. “Experimentos neoliberales en América Latina”, Colección Estudios CIEPLAN, nº 7 (especial), Santiago, marzo. Has anyone got an earlier one?

There are various intellectual sources; I would give a lot of weight to Latin American and Indian economists who for various reasons turned against planning and protection in the late 1960s and 1970s. And there are more popular versions, like Hernando de Soto’s _Other Path_, (1986) and Vargas Llosa’s 1990 presidential campaign; Margaret Thatcher is also a critical immediate precursor because she figured out how to win elections on anti-state rhetoric.

In any case there *is* a set of dense connections between theory, policy argument, ideology, and political rhetoric that one can trace out around “neoliberalism”, but it’s a mainly 1980’s (and since) phenomenon with various intellectual precursors, not least of which is 19th century liberalism. One can also try to connect this discursive complex with actions by governments and other actors over the last couple of decades, but it’s not easy – you can’t read off policy or material reality from political rhetoric. One of the things I learned from work in Mexico a bit over a decade ago is that “neoliberalism” can stand for a lot of different things and is often a rather indeterminate sign.

So I resist blowing the term up and using it as an obvious description of a material reality, especially of an alleged unified global reality over some period of time. (My reference to a “world spirit” was *not* meant as praise!) I doubt that “global political economy” is like an insect going through distinct morphological stages.

I’m not sure what Jodi Dean meant by “neoliberalism,” on my reading the term seemed rather elastic. Re anthro etc., I suggest that the same logical problems that afflict the uses of “neoliberalism” afflict “late modernity,” “late capitalism,” “globalization,” “modernity,” “postmodernity,” and a number of other terms that are often, as Ozma acutely suggested, placeholders – often placeholders for history.

Yes, the governmentality literature contains useful work, in fact I ran across a great paper yesterday: Jakob Vestergaard: “The Asian crisis and the shaping of
‘proper’ economies” Cambridge Journal of Economics 2004, 28, 809–827 which draws on it. But there’s a ton of work still to be done to link those insights up to international economy, especially to a notion of a global economy with clear stages. Most of the existing governmentality lit tends to be about a rather small number of countries.

Have people been reading Anna Tsing’s excellent _Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection_? I’ve found it very helpful, and a useful antidote to a lot of the above-noted problems. It might be a useful basis for further discussion. I’m also just finishing Lisa Rofel’s _Other Modernities_, which strikes me as a good model for taking a powerful term (in this case, “modern,”) and paying close attention to what people are doing when they use it, but without assuming that it refers in an obvious or straightforward way to a state of the world.

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If it is obvious the speaker is really trying to get to another point, to which s/he will never arrive if importuned to resolve these kinds of bottomless Big Questions, I usually feel like strangling posers of queries along the lines of “but what do you mean by ‘the modern’?” But I’ll concede that that just could be my own cantankerousness in operation.

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“when really the inquiree is trying desperately to talk about something else and is using the term under fire as a placeholder, to make sure everyone is on the same page more or less, before they turn to their real point.”

I agree that’s what’s often going on. The problem is that the placeholder and “real point” are not logically independent — a lot of assumptions can be smuggled in via the placeholder. In other words there are problems with the “same page” that are avoided in this maneuver. “Neoliberalism” might indeed be indexical — it’s an interesting hypothesis — but that would be a far more severe criticism than the one I offered!

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Ozma: “The Indexicality of Neoliberalism” will probably make for a great journal article!

Kotaji: Thanks for your clear and concise report on Harvey’s lecture! Right I think why neoliberalist discourse is so attractive to so many people is a promise of equality for all. At least that is what the ideologues tell us, although as Harvey seemed to have noted that even the United States has never implemeneted a pure neoliberal policy.

BTW I sense that this discussion is related to Ozma’s post on Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. I think there is a silent nod to Social Darwinism in neoliberalist ideology. Just like the way Diamond relies on genetics to almost justify vast social inequalities along the line of race (according to Ozma), neoliberalism takes economic unevenness and justifies it by claiming the fairness of the market. Because the market treats everyone equally neoliberalism is just and all the devastating consequences too are sanctioned by the invisible hand of god.

Colin: I apologize for my misunderstanding your comment. My placing you in opposition to Marx was also a result of my misreading. Thanks for the correction!

On that note, I welcome your pursuit of trying to get a hold of what “neoliberalism” really means. I think we both agree that the term, as it is often used, is amorphous. And as you rightly point out, it denotes something different in different discursive contexts.

One way “neoliberalism” has been used is to denote some dramatic change in the global political economy from the late 70s, spurred by the fixing of the U.S. dollar to the gold standard at Bretton Woods right after World War II and the creation of institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, which were designed to regulate the world economy. (BTW I visited Bretton Woods in New Hampshire last winter…cool place).

Colin, do you think that Jodi Dean’s references to “neoliberalism” is related to this post World-War II configuration of the global political economy? And if so, which aspects? I think you’re earlier mention of a “world spirit” is right on — something like the Weberian spirit of neoliberal capitalism — but I’d love to hear more about that from you.

In anthropology, neoliberalism has taken on a specific set of meanings. First and foremost it has to do with the ideology (or the culture) of what is often referred to as late modernity or late capitalism: how certain apparati of the state and the market have produced neoliberal subjects (for example, the special issue of Public Culture edited by Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff titled Millenial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism). Anthropological studies of neoliberalism was spurred also in part by the book The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, and therefore focuses on the way state policies and markets impinge on individuals and their daily life.

But as always with anthropology certain theories are associated with certain regions, and in this case the studies of neoliberalism has clustered around post-socialist states and developing countries (these countries are often one and the same). The literature has emerged in part as a way to make sense of capitalism in the wake of the socialist state (see, for example, this seminar by Harry West at SOAS, and book such as ) and the failure of economic development plans in “Third Word” countries (see for example Crude Chronicles by Suzana Sawyer and The Anti-Politics Machine by James Ferguson). For example, I haven’t seen any mention of neoliberalism in the anthropological literature on Japan, my current regional focus.

[This page has some good links, including a paper by Wendy Larner titled "Neo-Liberalism: Policy, Ideology, Governmentality" (a pdf file). I welcome the citing of other sites and writings for reference]

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Just to be clear, I’m mainly trying to get a handle on how Dean’s paper uses the term.

I’d respectfully dissent from your gloss on my earlier post as a “suggestion of separating the “political” elements of neoliberalism from its “economic” components.”

Rather, I want to back up a step or two more, and ask what makes us think that there *is* a thing there, called neoliberalism, that has different “components.” I can point to various discursive contexts in which the term arises and in which it does different work (including in papers like Dean’s!) but it does not follow that there is a single underlying *thing* that we’re analyzing. Same problem with the term “globalization.”

Re:

“But doesn’t Marx suggest that unequal economic relationships both ground and are grounded by political power? I think that is one main reason why anthropologists are so drawn to Marx.”

Why your “But”? Why exactly is Marx’s suggestion in opposition to mine?

Best, Colin

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The thing about NYC was to do with the fact that the city went bankrupt in 1975 and a special management company was brought in to strip out the waste, free from democratic interference. He sees this (the primacy of financial institutions over democratic ones) and the creation of a ‘good business environment’ (eg corporate welfare) as the two main principles of neoliberalism. And they could already be found in 70s NYC, before the SAPs and all that.

Looking back over my notes there were many interesting points, but the part that is perhaps pertinent here is what he said about neoliberalism’s ideological hold. How, he asked, does neoliberalism maintain its legitimacy in the face of massive evidence of the impoverishment it causes around the world? The most obvious answer is the rightwing media apparatus dominated by big corporations, but at another level, Harvey points out the work done by rightwing thinktanks, who have been working on legitimising the ideas of neoliberalism since the 60s.

Beyond this though, Harvey sees something in the very structure of neoliberalism itself that aids its own legitimation. In other words, the structure of neoliberalism being highly competitive, volatile and unstable, legitimates its own ideology of the ‘need to be competitive’. And this permeates right through to the individual in society who increasingly feels the {real) need to be competitive in the marketplace. (I think this is similar to the point Kerim is making above).

Another point he made was that there is a big gap between the ideology of neoliberalism and its practise – in fact strict neoliberal theorists frequently criticise the US state and its role in the economy. I think this is quite a good point actually – it is clear that US administrations (including this one) are not neoliberal fundamentalists and can be protectionist when they see the need. They are pragmatists and for them neoliberalism is a tool (though admittedly they probably buy some of its ideology).

Final point: David Harvey made an interesting observation about the way that neoliberal-style discourse has entered other fields and even areas that might be considered the domain of the left. In this light human rights discourse can be seen as related to neoliberal ideology. That’s to say that much of the opposition to neoliberalism has now come to be expressed in semi-neoliberal terms.

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If you are a worker, you sign a contract with your employer. That contract is shaped by law and by the market. Both of those are based on the fiction that your contract is entered into “freely” and is equitable. We know that the contract is unequitable, and is sometimes even coercive. However, the actual experience of this disjunction between myth and reality will vary tremendously from person to person depending on their individual situation. Someone in mid-level management may feel that they are able to barter their skills for their true value on the marketplace, while an illegal migrant laborer may be working in very different conditions.

Our ability to imagine the market as real is therefore circumcribed by the constraints of our own experience. These constraints have sociological consequences. We can, for instance, find a correlation between attitudes towards globalization and free markets dependant and people’s class status (it is one factor among many).

Do you have a citation for Jodi Dean’s work? I’m not familiar with that.

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So I appreciated your suggestion of separating the “political” elements of neliberalism from its “economic” components. In terms of methodology, it might make better sense to compartmentalize so as to make the analysis easier.

But doesn’t Marx suggest that unequal economic relationships both ground and are grounded by political power? I think that is one main reason why anthropologists are so drawn to Marx.

Kerim: I’ve been trying to come up with ways to respond to your comments, but I’m not sure how to do it. Here it goes anyway.

It fascinates me that what you’re saying resembles Jodi Dean’s critique of Zizek (though you cut to the chase). She feels that Zizek does not account for the disciplinary powers that constrain people, and you warn of analyses that “stray too far from actual experience.”

But doesn’t your critique fetishize “actual experience”? Just as you point out that Marx saw the commodity as effecting an illusion of reality, wouldn’t it be possible to argue that the market also creates a semblance of “actual experience” which is in fact only appearance?

If we are to agree that it is this illusion that undergirds our sense of reality, and if this reality is one in which unequal social relations are cast as equal, then perhaps the very concept of equality is an effect of the market. And only things (or people) that are “actual” can be compared with other things so that relationships of equality and inequality can be imagined between them.

So all this comes to the question of what exactly is “actual experience”? What is the status of “the actual experience of the market” when the market too is robbed of its ontological certainty under the regime of exchange value? For me this is where a theorist like Zizek is, as they say, good for thought.

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