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commensurate's review against another edition
5.0
This book honestly terrified me but was a great, comprehensible read on neoliberalism today.
natlib91's review against another edition
3.0
somewhat rote left-liberal account of neoliberalism, nothing new here for anyone that's read an article over the past decade or so. too much foucault
ilchinealach's review against another edition
3.0
somewhat rote left-liberal account of neoliberalism, nothing new here for anyone that's read an article over the past decade or so. too much foucault
davidkelly0324's review against another edition
3.0
This is largely a treatise of political philosophy. Brown extends the arguments of Michel Foucault regarding neoliberalism’s role in the demise of politics as values at the hands of politics as economic calculation.
garberdog's review against another edition
2.0
Smart discussion of Foucault and some helpful explications of neoliberal rationality. Underwhelming political analysis that ignores race, colonialism, and gender. Strange valorization of liberalism (and especially the Euro-American liberal arts university) throughout.
This feels very presentist. I am not sure that particularities of Brown's analysis (e.g. the role of "sacrifice" in neoliberal logics) has or will hold up in the long term. Useful for Brown's theoretical explications of neoliberalism, but otherwise very limited.
This feels very presentist. I am not sure that particularities of Brown's analysis (e.g. the role of "sacrifice" in neoliberal logics) has or will hold up in the long term. Useful for Brown's theoretical explications of neoliberalism, but otherwise very limited.
mburnamfink's review against another edition
5.0
There is a specter haunting contemporary politics; a specter called 'neoliberalism.'
In Undoing the Demos, Brown goes full bore for the origins and nature of the current crisis of faith, an ideology which consumes labor, democracy, law, education, and life itself in the quest for every higher profits for a small group of elites. Brown offers a strong definition of neoliberalism, capable adapting to it's protean forms, as the "economizing of spheres and activities" in policy, practice, and rhetoric, and everything which casts life as a matter of competition rather than community or exchange, and takes as it's best model the building of a diverse and exponentially expanding investment portfolio. The ultimate form of neoliberalism is the transformation of human beings, political entities with defined rights who form self-governing communities and live and die, into human capitals, value-increasing portfolios of skills, assets, and social networks, who are combined into ever greater portfolios for the purposes of wealth expansion.
Brown tackles this neoliberalism mostly with a dissection of theory, looking at rights and democracy across time, and ably interlocating Foucault's lecture on biopolitics. Case studies include the rise of 'governance' as a mode of regulation and power, the Citizens United decision and speech as capital, and the erosion of the liberal arts in higher education. Academic readers will appreciate it for its (relative) clarity and definiteness on a variety of subjects. More causal readers may enjoy it for the truly epic amounts of shade that Brown throws on the present. Witness discussing Obama's 2013 State of the Union, which called for job creation as the North Star of American policy.
"Attracting investors and developing an adequately remunerated skilled workforce--these are the goals of the world's oldest democracy led by a justice-minded president in the twenty-first century... Striking in it's own right, this formulation means that democratic state commitments to equality, liberty, inclusion, and constitutionalism are now subordinate to the project of economic growth, capital positioning, and capital enhancement. These political commitments can no longer stand on their own legs, and the speech implies, would be jettisoned if found to abate, rather than abet, economic growth."
Damn, girl. Damn.
In Undoing the Demos, Brown goes full bore for the origins and nature of the current crisis of faith, an ideology which consumes labor, democracy, law, education, and life itself in the quest for every higher profits for a small group of elites. Brown offers a strong definition of neoliberalism, capable adapting to it's protean forms, as the "economizing of spheres and activities" in policy, practice, and rhetoric, and everything which casts life as a matter of competition rather than community or exchange, and takes as it's best model the building of a diverse and exponentially expanding investment portfolio. The ultimate form of neoliberalism is the transformation of human beings, political entities with defined rights who form self-governing communities and live and die, into human capitals, value-increasing portfolios of skills, assets, and social networks, who are combined into ever greater portfolios for the purposes of wealth expansion.
Brown tackles this neoliberalism mostly with a dissection of theory, looking at rights and democracy across time, and ably interlocating Foucault's lecture on biopolitics. Case studies include the rise of 'governance' as a mode of regulation and power, the Citizens United decision and speech as capital, and the erosion of the liberal arts in higher education. Academic readers will appreciate it for its (relative) clarity and definiteness on a variety of subjects. More causal readers may enjoy it for the truly epic amounts of shade that Brown throws on the present. Witness discussing Obama's 2013 State of the Union, which called for job creation as the North Star of American policy.
"Attracting investors and developing an adequately remunerated skilled workforce--these are the goals of the world's oldest democracy led by a justice-minded president in the twenty-first century... Striking in it's own right, this formulation means that democratic state commitments to equality, liberty, inclusion, and constitutionalism are now subordinate to the project of economic growth, capital positioning, and capital enhancement. These political commitments can no longer stand on their own legs, and the speech implies, would be jettisoned if found to abate, rather than abet, economic growth."
Damn, girl. Damn.
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