ABSTRACT
This chapter is a discussion of neoliberalism as a form of political discourse – ‘the political arithmetic of Homo Oeconomicus’. In the first half, the chapter begins with a genealogy of political discourse with an etymology from late Middle English and medieval Latin to denote a process of reasoning and a means to order our thoughts on a topic. Although the term can be traced to the early Greeks concerned with the problem of truth and rhetoric in democracy, it gains foothold in the seventeenth century with Böckel (1677) and a determinate reading in the twentieth century with Foucault (1970). In the second half, the chapter traces the emergence of the figure of homo oeconomicus and the rise of rational choice theory by focusing on its application to education as a commodity. In this context, the chapter discusses the twin discourses of Individualism and Community with associated concepts of Freedom and Equality. Finally, the chapter turns to a discussion of Foucault’s understanding of neoliberalism.
