May & McWhorter, "A Genealogy of Neoliberalism"

Our Final Questions for McWhorter and May

1. What, in your views, establishes methodological coherence amongst the two essays? We found difficulty finding a single underlying methodology exhibited by both pieces. May argues for a multi-causal approach. McWhorter seems more interested in describing underlying structural (or historically apriori?) resonances or patterns. This sounds potentially problematic for the authors, however a possible explanation can be put in terms of Foucault’s own methodology.

We hold (as argued by Koopman in J Phil Hist and in Chap. 1 of forthcoming ms.) that archaeology and genealogy are entirely compatible—archaeology is a methodology that explores deep structural similarities (along a single-vector [e.g., knowledge], Koopman argues) whereas genealogy is a methodological analytic for describing transformations or transitions across time in these stable structural ensembles (across multiple vectors [e.g., power-knowledge], Koopman argues). On this account, genealogy is compatible with archaeology, and can be deployed as a broad analytic of which a given archaeology would be just one part. A genealogy, on this account, is a story about the contingent intersection of a (seemingly) heterogeneous set of archaeologies. So, on this account, McWhorter’s contribution would be best seen one archaeological element that would be part of a broader genealogy that May is outlining.

2. At the end of two very interesting Mondays of discussion we find ourselves very unclear about the status of causality in genealogy and archaeology. McWhorter concludes: “I have not argued that there is any causal connection between the eugenics movement and neoliberalism” (19). But May argues for a move from “a single-explainer model to a multi-causal approach” (9). May embraces causality but McWhorter seems to avoid it.

Is this problematic? It seems so, but perhaps not. For if, as we have suggested above, McWhorter’s piece constitutes an archaeological contribution of one element to a multitude of elements that May’s broader genealogy suggests, then it might follow that the work of causal explication (along multi-causal lines) needs be addressed in May’s genealogy but need not be addressed in McWhorter’s piece.

Further Discussion Notes (Rough) on Todd May, “Approaching Neoliberalism Genealogically”

A. What is the method?

“Neoliberalism is best understood as a dispositif.”

May arguing against a single-explainer approach. He argues on behalf of a multi-causal approach. This is summarized in the final paragraph as “the enduring methodological contribution Foucault leaves us with”: “The key point to bear in mind here is that… we must resist the temptation to reduce it to a single explanation…. We must take the phenomenon, whatever it turns out to be, in its full complexity” (16). The point is that “scattered practices in diverse fields” function as explainers. This raises for us a few questions (for which we do not take ourselves to have answers):

o Why should we take genealogy to be a causal analysis rather than, say, a conditions-of-possibility approach?

§ What is the advantage of an explanation couched in terms of causation rather than in terms of conditions-of-possibility? Are these two consistent with one another? Is there coherence in the idea of a congeries of causes forming conditions of possibility?

§ Might it be useful to distinguish the idea of causing conditions of possibility rather than causing actualities (or causing conditions of actuality)? In this way we can distinguish how a multiplicity of causes makes something possible without suggesting that these causes make the thing actual. So the question might be what makes it possible for someone to be, to act like, to think like an entrepreneur or a consumer. An answer to this question, an investigation of this question, would be different from what makes it actual that somebody in particular is a consumer or an entrepreneur.

o How do we square the idea of a multi-causal analysis with the idea of analysis in terms of contingencies? Is a causal analysis inconsistent with the idea of genealogy as focused on contingencies?

B. May discusses two figures: the entrepreneur and the consumer. How do we single out these figures? In virtue of what do we delineate a figure, and the edges and borders of a figure where it begins to shade into a different ‘kind of person’?

What are the criteria for constructing or composing a domain, e.g., the domain of neoliberalism, or the domain of abnormality?

A methodology of figures in Foucault would be an interesting project. Hacking’s work on “kinds of persons” could be useful. Deleuze & Guattari’s conception of “personae” could be useful here. Figures are immanent to their dispositif. Figures and dispositifs emerge in tandem – there is a “looping effect” (Hacking) between them in virtue of which they are able to come into being together.

C. May recounts four elements necessary in accounting for the rise of neoliberalism (11).

· Intellectualist line (11ff.): a history of neoliberal thought (cf. Foucault’s 1979 CdF lectures).

· Class line (13ff.): a disparity between economic elites and those subject to economic policy – we had a number of questions about how this sort of analytic category is meant to fit into a broader genealogical analysis.

· Economic-Biological Interactions (14ff.): financial thinking intersecting with biosciences.

· Contexts and events (15ff): as that which is part of what constitutes, following Foucault, “responding to an urgent need”.

Further Discussion Notes (Rough) on Ladelle McWhorter, “Toward a Genealogy of Neoliberalism II”

Some of our questions in approaching this piece, based on our reading of May, include: A) questions about method and issues concerning the degree to which McWhorter’s piece is methodologically consistent with May’s piece; B) issues surrounding the interaction between the economic and the biological and how the genealogist is able to demonstrate connections between two disparate fields in terms of borrowing techniques and strategies and practices.

A. A question of method—is your methodology here more genealogical or archaeological?

Are you looking to establish continuity (or coherence) amongst neoliberalism and eugenics at the level of discourse (archaeology) or practice (genealogy)? Toward the end, it is asserted that, “there are strong connections… which are to be found not at the level of overt verbal reference but rather at the level of technical solution and practice” (18). This sounds more genealogical, in that the focus is practices and techniques rather than on discourse and what is said. However, is there attention to historical emergence here, or is the focus on deep structural similarity? Many of us thought the focus was more on the latter than the former, and our understanding is that genealogy treats of practices in their temporal emergence and formation, whereas archaeology treats of discourse and practice in terms of something like structural stability. A demonstration that neoliberalism and eugenics exhibit similar patterns at the level of practice sounds much more like Foucault in The Order of Things where we see, for example, structural similarities at the level of the analysis of wealth and natural history.

B. How is McWhorter’s piece building on the agenda laid out in May’s piece?

Clearly, McWhorter’s piece picks up on one thread of the broader genealogy that May outlines, particularly the third thread or element concerning what May calls “interaction between economic institutions and practices on the one hand and biological ones on the other” (14).

C. What is the point of establishing the similarity amongst eugenics and neoliberalism? What is the point of pointing out the similarity? Is the effort normative, or descriptive, or both?

Is the effort more descriptive in nature? If it is more of a descriptive effort, then we might want to hear more about the kinds of interactions that are posited amongst biological theory and economic theory. Is the interaction causal? Or is there a correlation in patterns here? If a mere correlation in patterns, what is that meant to expose, or explain? There is a correlation here in that both analyze phenomenon on the basis of a logic of competition. Eugenics involves “completion that would result in selection for superior rather than average traits” (13). Neoliberalism, similarly, “judge competition fair (or ‘free’ in their terms) when the most efficient enterprises actually do win” (14). There is also a valuation of innovation that can often act as a trump, even to competition (16-7). This leads to an analogy between the neoliberal euphemism of “free” as in “free markets” and the eugenicist conception of “fair” in the management of populations. This descriptive overlap is interesting and also certainly valuable from the point of view of a descriptive history of neoliberalism.

Or is there a normative intention here? Is it that the association with eugenics is supposed to somehow taint neoliberalism? “The logical problem with this is the same as the logical problem with eugenics” (17). This seems to be the payoff paragraph, but we did not follow the argument (although we wanted to). Is it not the case, however, that “bad” disciplines can sometimes give rise to “good” techniques? Cannot “evil capitalist corporate practice” give rise to organizational practices that “good lefty NGOs” can appropriate for their own purposes (cf. James Ferguson)? We accept (of course) that eugenics is just bad biology. But we are not sure that neoliberal economics is just bad economics for the simple reason that it shares an underlying logic of competition with eugenics. This (of course) does not show that neoliberal economics is not bad economics, it just suggests that we have not yet shown that. In sum, there is a lingering worry that the argument commits a form of the genetic fallacy—it is difficult to show that genesis is determinative of justificatory status.