Philippe's Reviews > Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power

With the intensification of capitalism into neoliberalism - a process initiated barely a few decades ago - a new and subtle regime of coercion, or more precisely auto-coercion, started to manifest itself. We have now internalised the imperative of performance and self-actualisation to such a degree that we have become slaves to our own dear ambitions. Today we pride ourselves on being 'projects' and 'entrepreneurs'. But the energy invested in these ambitions merely responds to the dictate of Capital and is entangled in the competitive logic of the market.

The resilience of this new regime of control resides in three main features. First, distinctive for this new form of coercion is that it presents itself as freedom. It operates seductively, not repressively. There are no disciplinary constraints and prohibitions. Instead, neoliberalism beams forth in positivity. Hence, we welcome it and embrace it. It is us who subordinate ourselves, willingly, to this new context of domination. "The self-as-a-work-of-art amounts to a beautiful but deceptive illusion that the neoliberal regime maintains in order to exhaust its resources entirely."

Second, this kind of 'emotional capitalism' is supremely disempowering in the way that it erodes our confidence in ourselves and in our communities:
_Success as an entrepreneur pivots on the ability to offer a unique selling proposition, to hold a distinctive position, and we instrumentalise our social relationships to make that happen.
_"People who fail in the neoliberal achievement-society see themselves as responsible for their lot and feel shame instead of questioning society or the system." Class struggle has given way to an inner struggle against ourselves. As a result, disenchantment or disenfranchisement doesn't spark revolution but engenders depression.
_Finally, neoliberalism has turned citizens into consumers who are indifferent to politics and disengage from actively shaping their communities. "Participation now amounts to grievance and complaint."

Third, information technology (the author doesn't talk about life sciences) is a critical factor that reinforces the stranglehold of neoliberalism because it creates a panoptic regime of surveillance. Our daily life creates 'digital exhaust fumes' that someone, somewhere is tracing, labelling, packaging and selling to the highest bidder (*). Those who do not play by the rules or are found to be economically unattractive find themselves curtailed to an ever-shrinking opportunity space. Further, aggregating data from our daily choices and distilling patterns from these Big Data exposes us to ever more powerful mechanisms of influence and control. Han conjectures that Big Data may soon yield the psychogram of the unconscious itself.

What can we do? Given that Capital represents a new kind of transcendence, it is extremely tough to subvert its logic. Han, like other authors who have theorised in this vein, seems to advocate some sort of quietism, a retreat into an asceticism that allows us to decouple as much as is possible from the world of work and consumption. Practically, we can choose to stay out of debt. Debt destroys freedom. "Free from debt - that is, wholly free - we would truly have to act." The author relies on Nietzsche, late Foucault and Deleuze to articulate various modes of resistance to the regime of psychopolitics. Taken to its extremity, this leads to a life that is an embodiment of pure immanence; it exists only in itself. (Patrick White, in his 'Riders in the Chariot', which I happen to be reading, paints a moving picture of four misfits who convincingly embody this ideal).

I have provided here an outline of Han's argument. But this slim booklet includes more captivating ideas. It's written in a compact and forceful idiom that (except for one or two chapters) will also appeal to less philosophically savvy readers. I think Han's analysis is compelling and alerts us to a grave challenge to our freedom and the health of our society. But I keep believing that there are also forms of resistance that rely on a reinforcement of the polis rather than a move away from it. Or maybe subversive 'idiotism' and responsible citizenship are not as opposed as Han leads us to believe ...

(*) The irony is that, while I am penning this review, my 'private browser' alerts me to dozens of trackers that Goodreads is unleashing on its unsuspecting users.