ABSTRACT
Neoliberalism is a certain type of political intervention, a certain mode of governmental action, a certain strategy of social transformation, and a certain form of subjectivity. In a word, it is a global normative logic. In the 1930s, neoliberalism as a doctrinal project revolved around two important issues: refounding liberalism against pure laissez-faire by relegitimizing in a certain way the role of the state and the law and reinventing a market doctrine centered on competition. In this perspective, the competitive market appears not as a purely natural given, but as depending on certain institutions, and as such, it must be constructed or maintained by regular and sustained interventions. For neoliberalism, every activity as well as every existence, from human feelings to the activity of nature, is thus captured, enfolded, and reshaped according to the logic of valorization and the logic of “more.” Through struggle and experimentation, neoliberalism has spawned its opposite principle.
