Neoliberalism and Language

I just finished up my seminar on neoliberalism, and what amazes me is its impact through language. Neoliberalism is a system of economic and political theory where the market is seen as the only site of truth and is left unchecked. This system often employs the language of democracy in order to appear as democratic, when in reality it is anything but that.

Language is critical to the human experience, its how we form our world and make sense of it. This is related to the idea of a speech act. A speech act is any utterance that performs an act, which connects the verbal and physical. This is how people express themselves to each other.

This is related to performative theories about politics. Essentially we are always performing an act that is rehearsed throughout our lives as we are told how to act. This can easily be seen in how politics parallels the theatre. There is the sense that people are playing roles, such as the role of senator or a theatrical role. This continued to the point where early Shakespearians called themselves Macchiavells.

Language is then used in a certain way by economic theories such as neoliberalism. Neoliberalism centers around the free market and leaving the economy unregulated. However, that is not the only purpose of neoliberalism out there. Margeret Thatcher once said “economics are the method, but the object is to change the soul” with regards to neoliberalism. The movement has loftier aims with regards to changing the citizens of the countries that it is implemented in, beyond changing the policies. Since the focus on the market is paramount, what starts to happen is that the people are removed from the political scene.

An example of this is the crisis or representation. It is usually assumed that from representation follows democracy in politics. However, there is no guarantee of this. Instead what happens is the people participate in a kind of a sham election as representatives are put into power and then either stick to their promises or turn their back on them. This isn’t democratic, this is oligarchic, there is now a small subset of the population exclusively in control.

Government is defined by the philosopher Jacques Ranciere to be dispute between people and their discourse as it creates an egalitarian act. It consists of discussion between different groups of people, especially between those heard in government and those not heard. Centering government around the economy removes this discourse, fundamentally altering what it is.

However language can also be used to rebel against the state. This can be done through constituent power, which is akin to protests. Constituent power is the power of the people to stand before the government and demand their rights, which is what we see everywhere today. However, what inevitably happens is a similar government is put into place, and we are all back where we started.

What needs to be utilized instead is destituent power, which is where the people voluntarily remove themselves from politics and go elsewhere. They give up their own legitimacy since the system is so broken beyond repair. I don’t know how this would work in practical terms, but I think that is where our society is headed. We need to start looking for alternative spaces to be political in order to escape this cycle.