ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 aims to show that the framework for well-being developed in this book escapes being neoliberal. We argue this, first, by demonstrating how the conception of well-being developed can be employed to provide a principled and systematic critique of a so-called neoliberal society. We explain what we mean by ‘neoliberal’ and ‘critique’. We frame the critique in terms of the four structural features and instrumentalisation. The point is to show how a normatively robust and subjectively rich conception of well-being can provide a platform for critically evaluating the socio-economic institutions one lives in. The proposed framework navigates between two risks: on one side, views of well-being that mirror current economic paradigms; and on the other, the concern that the whole notion of well-being is ineluctably a damaged product of those paradigms. Second, we uncover the features that a neoliberal account of well-being would have and how our account avoids them. We conclude with proposals of how our account of well-being can provide an evaluative framework to inform social policies and serve as a basis for truly constructive alternatives.
