Home / Summaries / There is an alternative: Homines cadans and the limits of neoliberalism / market-capacity-self-mastery

Conceptual inadequacies of neoliberal care

4 important questions on Conceptual inadequacies of neoliberal care

What is the weakness of NL educated subject?

Lynne Layton has observed that NL subjectivity is 'marked by a repudiation of vulnerability that has arisen from the social, economic, and political milieu of the past 30 years. It causes a decline in empathic capacities and in the capacity to experience ourselves as responsible and accountable for the suffering of others.

Why does the logical underpinning of neoliberalism falter?

From their perspective, the assumption is that actors are rational and achieve self-mastery. But without these capacities, the market is a place where people take advantage of others. Humans are not only rational, but also emotional and enter the world without capacity to control themselves. Adequate education is important feature of every society. NL's approach for development is to move from production of goods to production of educated subjects.

What is the problem about being capable to a self-mastering habit?

Not all people can be self-mastering. The idea that everyone is free in a free market society ignores the realities of dependency and domination. Free market excludes some people, those who are deemed incapable of choosing and are reduced to the status of learning; Children, women, disabled people, servants, denizens noncivilised etc.
Reifying choice and self-mastery has the effect of masking the hidden assumptions in society about who is not ready to exercise choice.

What about profit in the market? Do they meet all needs as NL will claim?

While there are surely fulfilled needs, there are still needs unmet; The claim that the market will generate solutions to all needs fails to add that markets operate to make a profit. The perversity of care markets is that they are becoming globalized to meet the needs of those located in richer global locations while those in poorer locations scramble to meet their care needs.
Ironically, then, as more care responsibilities are being thrown back on families, their capacity to cope with problems increasingly rests upon their prior market succes.