Abstract
This article sets up a dialogue between Lefort’s view on the relationship between state and modern society and Foucault’s thesis of a governmental turn in the modern power regime. Whereas Lefort’s political ontology leaves room for divergent agencies from which the symbolic institution of the social may unfold, his preoccupation with democracy leads him to link the symbolic institution of modern society inseparably with the functioning of the modern state. By contrast, Foucault’s history of governmentality documents a shift in the regime of the symbolic institution of modern society. Where that institution hitherto relied on the state, today, a symbiosis of state and neoliberal governmentality seems to take over. Foucault’s highlighting of the neoliberal conception of a generalized market may thus undermine the ontological role Lefort formerly ascribed to the state. In conclusion it is suggested that this shift in power regime is by and large responsible for the readjustment of the instituting representations of contemporary society, the de-politicization of political and social relations, and the erosion of democracy.
Dans la pensée et l’analyse politique,
on n’a toujours pas coupé la tête du roi.
Introduction
Claude Lefort (1924–2010) occupies a special place in contemporary political philosophy in that he developed a theory of democracy rooted in a political ontology. In this political ontology the state plays a pivotal role. Due to its differentiation from society, the state, on the one hand, constitutes a stage upon which societal conflicts are politically re-enacted. As such, the state provides society with an image of itself, thereby enabling society to get a grip on itself, i.e. to grasp itself as a unity-in-division. On the other hand, the state’s political re-enactment or representation of society always also refers to a symbolic dimension beyond itself, i.e. to an aggregate of supreme values, such as the nation, liberty, or equality, that inform the state’s representation of society and in the name of which state power is exerted. This symbolic dimension, according to Lefort, constitutes the ‘place of power’ in society, i.e. the ‘place’ from which society is symbolically instituted. Yet to the extent that the state thus actually constitutes the formative factor, moulding and addressing society’s dividedness according to its supreme values, it is clear that the Lefortian state plays a central role in the symbolic institution of society.
In this article, I intend to highlight the vulnerability and question the tenability of Lefort’s views on the role of the state in his political ontology in the light of Foucault’s analytics of neoliberalism. For in the latter it is suggested that not only has the differentiation between state and society gradually evaporated, but that the very nature of the state has so radically changed, due to the rise of neoliberal governmentality, that its essential role in the symbolic institution of society, as stated by Lefort, becomes more and more questionable. Of course, Lefort was perfectly aware of possible historical transformations of the state. His renowned analysis of totalitarianism is a case in point. Totalitarianism, in his view, is a pathology of the state in that the latter usurps its ontological position to fill society as a whole, leaving no room whatsoever for a position outside the state, i.e. for a relatively autonomous civil society. The alleged transformation induced by neoliberalism, however, is not so much another pathology of the state, but its gradual evacuation from its ontological position, which eventually results in the dissolution of the state’s symbolic power to institute society. Foucault’s highlighting of the neoliberal conception of a generalized market may indeed undermine the ontological role Lefort formerly ascribed to the state. Hence the question whether the shift towards a neoliberal power regime has not been accompanied by a more fundamental shift in the regime of the symbolic institution of society, and whether the neoliberal conception of a generalized market, more than the state, has become the place of power from which the symbolic institution of society originates?
Today, or so it is argued, we are witnessing a major transformation of the state: not its disappearance, but the dissolution of its symbolic dimension, i.e. a fundamental loss of its meaning, and especially of the state’s signifying power. This is what I want to show by pitting Foucault’s analysis of neoliberalism against Lefort’s conception of the state and its symbolic dimension. More specifically, I will contend that Foucault’s understanding of neoliberalism indeed challenges Lefort’s view of the state, as it eventually points to its de-symbolization. Furthermore, I will examine its consequences and show that these consequences, which are often attributed to the so-called ‘end of the state’ in the wake of the globalization process (see, for example, Beck, 1997), 1 should actually be reinterpreted as effected by the state’s loss of symbolic value.
In the first part (I) I will spell out Lefort’s political ontology in order to flesh out the state’s role in modern society’s symbolic institution. In the second part (II), I will venture upon Foucault’s concept of governmentality as an exquisite embodiment of the biopolitical shift in modern society’s power regime. The aim here is to gauge the significance of this power shift for the development of modern society. Finally, in the third part (III), I link Foucault’s analysis of neoliberal governmentality to Lefort’s political ontology, in order to examine whether and to what extent the neoliberal governmentality regime may provide a functional equivalent for the state as the place of power from which modern society is symbolically instituted, and, if so, what its consequences may be.
I The state in Lefort’s political ontology of modern society
Claude Lefort is well known for his philosophical analysis of democracy. However, we should keep in mind that this analysis is based on a more broadly conceived political ontology that Lefort developed in the course of his intellectual career and that received a more or less definite articulation in his essay on Machiavelli (Lefort, 2012). In this political ontology, he wants to investigate not only society’s basic structure, but also and above all the moment and mechanism of its institution. 2 His political ontology, therefore, is an ontology of ‘the political’ in the Lefortian sense of the word: an ‘ontology’ of the institution of the social.
I.1 Lefort’s political ontology
According to Lefort, every society is a political society. Every society is in fact instituted from a place from which that society is signified and that Lefort identifies as the place of power (Lefort, 2000: 215). This formulation contains the core of Lefort’s political ontology: (1) every society is established or instituted (2) because it is signified in a definite way, i.e. represented as a particular society (3) from a position that differs from society and (4) that Lefort identifies as the place of power or – with reference to psychoanalysis – as the Law. 3 Remarkable in this connection is that the institution of the social as a unity, i.e. as this or that particular society, is possible only on the basis of an ‘original dichotomy’ [une division originale] with the place of power from which the community is signified or represented. Put more pointedly, the actual social division can be instituted as a unity – as a society – only due to a representation that is generated from a place distinct from that society. The unity of society thus inevitably relies on a dichotomy. Conversely, it is power, i.e. the agency from which society derives the representation of its unity, that actually unifies society. Hence, its unity is always a represented unity, and the same holds for its principle: power. For power does not differ from the very representation that institutes society as a unity. Power, therefore, is always represented power (Lefort, 1986: 188; Lefort, 2000: 215).
The fact that society owes its institution to a self-representation provided by an outside, i.e. by an externality or otherness (Lefort, 1988: 225), has as a consequence that there is always a gap between society’s self-representation and the concrete processes, relationships and conflicts within society. Therefore Lefort speaks of a symbolic institution of society. What institutes society is not some (natural) property typical of the members of society, but it is something of the order of the symbolic. It is an image, an idea, a narrative that sets the valid basic significations for this society, and by the same token constitutes it as this or that specific society. 4 For this reason society never coincides with its self-representation. For this self-representation never covers the real complexity and heterogeneity of society. However, exactly this non-identity of society with (the representation of) itself generates an indeterminacy, an unstable identity, and consequently also an openness to change and historicity, and therefore again to conflict and struggle. Even though Lefort certainly would add that in the course of history there have been various regimes – including totalitarian regimes – that wanted to close the gap between society and its symbolic representation at any cost, in order to have that indeterminacy and the connected instability and discord removed.
I.2 The state and the institution of modern society
The symbolic institution of society generated from the place of power is what Lefort calls ‘the political’ [le politique] (Lefort, 1988: 11). To that symbolic institution society owes its basic design and its supportive significations. It stages society. 5
Although every society is instituted in this way and therefore is marked by its own political symbolic order, the dimension of the political within society is not always as visible. Paradoxically enough, it is even most visible in pre-modern societies (Lefort, 1988: 228). There, the institution of society is typically explicitly linked to a mythical or religious origin: to the foundation by a supernatural order, whether it concerns the ancestors’ deeds or the will of a transcendent deity.
In modern societies, however, this instituting dimension is largely hidden from view. The decisive characteristic of modern society is that it situates its instituting principle within itself. Modernity is the moment in history when one realizes that societies are the work of human beings: that they are instituted and that this institution is basically contingent. In this sense it is understood that the mise-en-scène, mise-en-forme and mise-en-sens of society are otherwise possible, changeable and therefore open to contestation. This awareness crystallizes in the emergence of the modern state and the related principle of modern sovereignty: the idea that the sovereign – however it is defined – is at the origin and foundation of the social order. In this way the place of power, i.e. the place from which the society’s symbolic institution originates, shifts from a supernatural exteriority to an inner-worldly alterity: from a place outside society to a place within society which nevertheless differs from society. Because the dimension of the political thus falls within society and is linked to the sovereign state and its institutions, modern society’s dimension of the political is hidden from view by the actions of the state and its institutions, i.e. it is made invisible by the concrete political processes – by politics.
Yet the disappearance of the political behind or within politics should be qualified. The osmosis of the political with the sovereign state’s political institutions historically gave rise to the formation of the modern nation-state, in which a reference to the dimension of its symbolic institution was preserved. The nation is in fact a symbolic reality that constitutes the place of power from which society is instituted (Lefort, 1988: 230; see also Lefort, 2007: 960, 967). As such the nation is situated both within and outside society. It obviously does not differ from the society of which it expresses the unity and identity, but as a symbolic expression it never coincides with its actual form. So, in the concept of the nation-state something of the immanent exteriority of the political is still visible (Breckman, 2012: 31–2).
The criticism that I would raise here, though, precisely concerns the adoption of Lefort’s political ontology in the modern context and in particular the role he allots to the state. More specifically, I believe that in this regard Lefort sticks too much to the contingent, historical link between the modern sovereign state and modern society’s symbolic institution, and pays too little attention to possible shifts in or alternative configurations of the political. Lefort’s view on modern society thus seems to rely on the premise that its symbolic institution not only de facto but also de jure necessitated the modern state. His position suggests that without a state modern society is not possible (Lefort, 2007: 966–7). 6
However, this does not follow from Lefort’s political ontology. Indeed, there are or have been societies – and Lefort refers to it on several occasions – where the symbolic institution of society is not mediated by the state (see among others Lefort, 1978: 46–77) either because there is no state or a similar type of ‘secular’ government, as, for example, in the case of the primitive societies Pierre Clastres investigated (Clastres, 1974), or because the secular administration is only an intra-worldly mandatory of a transcendent sacred order, and is therefore lacking the independent, sovereign status of a modern state, as was the case in the pre-modern principalities. Thus, for their symbolic institution societies do not necessarily depend on the state or an equivalent political structure. In this sense, it is in principle conceivable that in modern society the state and the symbolic institution of society are disconnected from or unrelated to one another. This would be the case, for example, if the nation-state became absorbed in a multipolar, cosmopolitan society where the equivalent of a state as we know it today would no longer exist, or if the state would drop its political character, and become a purely administrative management on behalf of an instituting power of an economic nature, for example, external to this management. In both cases, the symbolic institution of society would still originate from the place of power. But that place of power would no longer have an exclusive relationship with the state and its institutions. The question, therefore, is whether the place of power in modern society is necessarily bound to the historical figure of the state, or whether alternatives are possible?
It seems to me that Lefort in his work never established or even theoretically substantiated this necessary connection between the state and modern society’s symbolic institution. This is not surprising, since it is essentially inconsistent with his political ontology. However, in his view of modern society this connection reappears time and again as a quasi-constitutive presupposition; for several reasons, or so it seems. The first one is that Lefort fine-tuned his political ontology through the study of Machiavelli. Through his reading of Il Principe and the Discorsi he comes to realize that the unity of society is the result of a representation offered to society from a position that is distinct from it. At any rate, that is the way Machiavelli understands the role of the ruler. Society is always already divided by the irreconcilable conflict between ‘those who desire to dominate’ – the grandi – and ‘those who desire not to be dominated’ – the popolo (Machiavelli, 2003: ch. 9). 7 In order to prevail, the ruler must stabilize this conflict, which is only possible by creating a representation of the underlying unity or – what comes down to the same thing – of the common interest of grandi and popolo. However, this presupposes a position that differs from both groups. In other words, his reading of Machiavelli made Lefort connect the symbolic institution of modern society with the position of the ruler and thus with the state. For in the early-modern context in which Machiavelli lived there could be no doubt that the position of the ruler or the state coincided with the position of power, and vice versa. The question is, though, did that coincidence afterwards in the very same way continue to apply as Lefort seems to assume? Or are there reasons to believe that the relationship between the modern state and the place of power subsequently became less stable, less stringent than Lefort’s political ontology suggests?
A second reason why Lefort continued to privilege the relationship between the modern state and modern society’s symbolic institution is his preoccupation with democracy. Although his political ontology claims to be more than just a political ontology of democracy, it is hard to deny that Lefort has predominantly put it to work in his investigation of the principles of democracy. As a result, the question of the symbolic institution of (modern) society has become inextricably entwined with the question of the symbolic institution of democratic society. Yet that is an entirely different question, of which Machiavelli’s work, of all things, offers solid evidence. For Machiavelli outlines the contours of a modern, but not of a democratic, political ontology. Indeed, the institution of a democratic society implies a series of additional features. Without going into detail, according to Lefort, a democratic society is a political community (1) where the ‘place of power is empty’, and where that place of power at regular intervals is also visibly emptied through elections; (2) where power, law and knowledge no longer coincide, because it is recognized that they have a different origin (as is exemplified in the recognition of human rights); (3) where the intrinsic indeterminacy that characterizes every society and that results from the unbridgeable gap between the instituting symbolic representation of society’s unity and its concrete empirical division (Lefort, 1988: 9–20, 213–36; Lefort, 2007: 611–24) is dealt with in a conscious and lucid way. Precisely the latter presupposes in Lefort’s view the existence of a separate scene where social conflicts may be visibly represented and by the same token also institutionally recognized, and which he links to the existence of an autonomous political sphere. From that perspective, the question whether a symbolic institution of a democratic society is possible without the state, is completely different from the question whether a symbolic institution of modern society is possible without the state (ibid.: 394–5). Where I believe that a positive answer to the latter cannot be excluded, things are a lot harder for the first question. For in Lefort’s analysis of democracy the autonomous political sphere of the modern sovereign state is crucial within the democratic power economy. It operates, as indicated above, as the necessary scene and thus as the precondition for the visibility of that power economy, which in turn is the prerequisite for the democratic participation of the citizen. Undoubtedly, this must have been the reason why Lefort continued to hold on to the state as an essential component in his analysis of democracy. However, as he insufficiently distinguished between his general political ontology and its elaboration towards a political ontology of democracy, it appears as if there exists as such, for Lefort, an inseparable link between the state and the institution of modern society. Again, my question is whether both are indeed so strongly connected as Lefort suggests, or whether one can conceive of any other power configuration in which the state does not fulfil that instituting role for modern society?
In what follows I will accentuate this question by verifying, with the help of Foucault, whether the neoliberal governmentality regime today does not as well qualify as a fulcrum or foothold for modern society’s symbolic institution. For according to Foucault, the neoliberal governmentality regime provides society with a representation of itself as a generalized market, and tries to (re)organize and (re)shape it correspondingly. 8 The representation of society as a generalized market thus seems related to Lefort’s idea of instituting representation. Moreover, Lefort himself repeatedly warned against the danger that the modern democratic state would be seized and dominated by economic powers; however, without thoroughly exploring or concretely determining what this would imply for his own political theory (see among others Lefort, 1988: 232; Lefort, 2007: 623–4, 750–1, 949, 967). In his analysis of neoliberal governmentality, Foucault substantiates this hypothesis with a detailed historical record, while pointing to its far-reaching implications for the modern state and its role in modern society.
II Shifts in the modern power regime: Foucault on governmentality and neoliberalism
II.1 Biopolitics and governmentality
In ‘Il faut défendre la société’ Foucault tracks down a shift in the power regime of the modern state (Foucault, 2003: 35–6, 240–3). It concerns the shift of the legal and political concept of power that is linked up with the idea of sovereignty of the early-modern state, to a biopolitical concept of power which, from the 17th century onwards and especially in the course of the 18th century, unfolds from a concern about the administration of the population. Indeed, as the wealth of the population, rather than the magnitude of the territory, begins to determine the size of power, the relation of power to its object changes as well. Was Machiavelli’s ruler still in an external, transcendent relationship to his principality and as a sovereign primarily concerned with ensuring his precarious relation of domination (Foucault, 2007: 91–3) with the growing economic importance of the population, a goal from outside itself rises to power: the promotion of the life of the population. But even more importantly, with its purpose, power’s modus operandi changes as well. Alongside and vis-à-vis promulgating laws and enforcing obedience, a new power arrangement develops consisting of techniques and tactics by which the government tries to steer in detail the conduct of the population in the direction that the government sets out for itself. Foucault labels this new way of governing as gouvernementalité [governmentality], which consists essentially in conducting the conduct [conduire les conduits] of the population (Foucault, 2007: 108–9; see also Foucault, 2008: 186). 9
According to Foucault, the current power regime is largely the heir of the governmentality as it originated at the end of the 18th century. On top of that, he is convinced that the modern state as a power device has been able to maintain itself over the years only thanks to its advancing governmentality character. Only recently an important turning point has arisen and for the first time we are confronted with a significant ‘withdrawal’ of the state in the wake of a constantly more emphatically self-manifesting neoliberal governmentality regime (Foucault, 2007: 109–10; Foucault, 2008: 191–2). 10 Of this complex intertwining of state and governmentality, as of the growing impact of governmentality arrangements, Foucault was tempted to write the history.
Foucault points out that governmentality as a power arrangement breaks through only when the population enters into history as the real source of wealth. At that point it becomes clear that the population largely escapes the will of the sovereign. To remedy this problem, the sovereign will both employ government techniques derived from the sphere of the ‘family household’ and use statistics. For it was shown that the population is subject to all kinds of regularities and laws that are not traceable to the individual households, but that nevertheless had important economic effects (Foucault, 2007: 104–5). Seventeenth-century mercantilism is the most important rationalization of these insights. Within the framework of the reason of state, mercantilism develops a governmental-administrative apparatus [la police] 11 that on the basis of statistical data, and through rules and regulations, seeks to govern the conduct of the population in an economically favourable direction in view of the maintaining and, if possible, the expansion of state power.
This changes at the beginning of the 18th century. The disciplinary measures of the ‘police’ appear to regularly have counterproductive effects, which will elicit the physiocrats to counter this development. Their remedy is to rely on the natural course of things. A liberalized market, free from regulations, therefore, is the best way to cope with economic problems. The physiocrats thus create an image of society as a complex entity that is subject to natural laws, and that in principle eludes direction from above (Foucault, 2007: 69–70). At most, one can detect these laws in order to manage the processes they control accordingly. 12 The physiocrats thus discover society as a domain with a specific ‘naturalness’, peculiar to human coexistence, which in contrast to the state they will call ‘civil society’ (ibid.: 349). From their perspective, the state or politics is simply superfluous; required is only a ‘despot’ who watches over the preservation of the natural order from which the social processes take their ‘spontaneous’ patterns (Rosanvallon, 1979: 54). 13
II.2 Utopian capitalism
Eighteenth-century liberalism is a refinement and radicalization of the physiocratic vision. Liberalism advocates not the end of the state, but a minimal state. More specifically, the state itself should limit its governmental action on the basis of ‘objective’ data either handled by political economy or resulting from utility calculation. Indeed, political economy shows that the market obeys natural mechanisms. In such processes, the government should not intervene. State intervention is only permissible when it is useful, i.e. when it is required to obtain the optimal balance between individual and collective interests, or between social utility and economic benefit (Foucault, 2008: 31–2, 44–5). Crucial, though, is that the weighed interests are no longer the interests of a state seeking expansion and wealth, as at the time of the mercantilist and physiocratic governmentality regimes that were based on the reason of state. On the contrary, liberal governmentality is more than ever thought to serve civil society as a relatively autonomous free (market) space which is created within society by the self-containment of the state. Moreover, in contrast to the physiocrats, this social space for economic transaction can no longer be made transparent through a tableau économique. Liberalism rejects any perspective from which the economic process could be totalized. Although there is a ‘hand’ by which all individual threads within that process are tied together into a general interest, that hand is ‘invisible’. The economic process as a whole is opaque. This implies the impossibility and therefore the redundancy of a sovereign viewpoint (ibid.: 280–2).
That is why Adam Smith’s liberalism, according to Rosanvallon, constitutes a significant shift in the representation of modern society. So far, politics had been the answer to the question of society’s institution, without, however, offering a clear view on the issue of its internal order and regulation. With the concept of the market, political economy now formulates one single answer to both questions. In order to understand the coherence of society Smith replaces the political concept of the nation by the economic concept of the market. In Smith’s view, the economic link between human beings constitutes the true cement of society. While the market thus appears as what in the strict sense constitutes society, the mechanism of its functioning also provides an explanation for its internal social order and regulation (Rosanvallon, 1979: 28, 32–3, 40–1, 60, 69–70). This economic representation of society in which the market and its mechanism are key to the understanding of society, breaks, moreover, the former unity of state, nation, territory and the market. Thus, the economic space, for the first time, is explicitly distinguished from the political space. In line with it, Smith expects the emergence of a world economy in which the nation-state is bound to remain a transitory figure (ibid.: 91–4, 98, 111). These utopian aspects of a self-instituting and self-regulating market society in which politics eventually disappears, will be picked up by radical liberals such as William Godwin and Thomas Paine, and, in his very own way, also by Marx (ibid.: 144–9).
II.3 Neoliberalism
Can the market economy provide a model for society? Without any doubt, as Foucault claims: neoliberalism, both in the postwar German variant of ordo liberalism, as in the American version of anarcho liberalism, furnishes conclusive evidence (Foucault, 2008: 117–18). 14 Both currents precisely aim at redesigning society according to the principles of the market economy. In this sense, neoliberalism is not simply a revival of 18th-century liberalism, but rather a mutation thereof which builds on its utopian dimensions.
The ordo liberals turn upside down the prevailing idea that the state has to correct the harmful effects caused by the market. In their view, the state itself is the cause of so-called market failure. At least, this was the lesson they drew from the Second World War: in Germany the excess of state intervention in the economy, inspired by Keynes, had led to the infernal Nazi regime. Conversely, no evidence had been provided yet that the market itself would be deficient. Hence, they argued, there is more need to put the state under the supervision of the economy than the other way round. Thus they launch the idea that the market economy in essence provides the model which the state, and by extension society, should emulate (Foucault, 2008: 115–16, 131). Moreover, the ordo liberals also introduce a new vision of the market itself. Whereas the market in classical liberalism was the place of free exchange, the ordo liberals now consider competition as the essence of the free market. Unlike exchange, competition is not a natural given, though. It is a mechanism with a specific logic that produces beneficial effects only in the case of optimal operation. Therefore, the organization of the market based on the principle of competition can result only from sustained efforts. Here lies the task for the government, which should not govern because of the market (failure), but in view of the market. To this end, the government should not intervene in the market but in its social preconditions. It should organize the social context so that economic competition can perform optimally (ibid.: 119–21, 132, 138–9, 146). In other words, politics becomes competition management.
To this view corresponds also a new ideal of the homo oeconomicus. He is no longer the trading or consuming man, but the entrepreneurial, producing man. Society should become a society of enterprises, in which each individual is his own entrepreneur. This multiplication of the enterprise model within the social body actually constitutes the stake of neoliberal politics (Foucault, 2008: 146–7, 148–9). Simultaneously, this politics exhibits an ambiguity. Despite the fact that the ordo liberals want the enterprise to become the model for all social relations, they realize that the underlying principle of competition is not appropriate to constitute the foundation for society as a whole. For competition divides rather than unites. Therefore, the ordo liberals cling to a state that would stand above the competing enterprises and would provide them with a political and moral framework. In this way, they hope to prevent society from disintegrating as a result of an unrestrained competitive dynamics (ibid.: 241–3).
Such a socially integrative role of the state is completely absent in American neoliberalism. 15 At the same time, the US neoliberals modify the ideas of ordo liberalism. They deepen the idea of the homo oeconomicus as his own entrepreneur and connect it with the redefinition of economics as rational choice theory: as an investigation into the rationality of human conduct, in which rationality is understood as the optimal efficiency ratio between the choices made and the ever scarce resources at hand (Foucault, 2008: 222–3). The homo oeconomicus consequently becomes a rationally calculating economic actor. He has a human capital of congenital or acquired skills that he may invest in view of a rationally calculated return on investment. It is crucial that this model of the calculating homo oeconomicus is useful not only to analyse economic conduct, but also to redescribe non-economic conduct such as parenting, studying, loving, migrating, or committing a crime. Each time it is possible to interpret the conduct concerned as an investment on the part of the calculating entrepreneur who then, depending on the degree of rationality of the investment, can enjoy its benefits. Hence the intuition is that the model of the calculating homo oeconomicus is basically useful for the analysis of any rational conduct. In practice this means that the US neoliberals will implement this model of rationality and formative principle of the market economy in all areas of society. This is also perfectly possible, since the homo oeconomicus is completely controllable. He does indeed interact in a non-random, rational manner with the environment, so that modifying that environment by definition leads to another, possibly better or more desirable conduct (ibid.: 226–7, 229–31, 244–53). 16
The role of the state in all this, which is also to become a kind of enterprise, is to ensure the generalization of the economic model, especially by universalizing the competition and by creating market-based transaction contexts for individuals, groups and institutions.
III Neoliberal governmentality and the symbolic institution of modern society
Foucault’s history of governmentality shows well how the shift from the political and legal, to the biopolitical power regime is accompanied by a reversal in the relationship between state and civil society. Where governmentality initially had its origin in the (reason of) state and focused from that perspective on the economy, in neoliberalism it has its starting point in the economy and turns from there to the whole of society, including politics. The shift in the modern power regime in this way results in thoroughly redesigning the role of the state. Whereas the state initially constitutes both the origin and purpose of governmentality, its administrative power is gradually colonized by the economy, in order to eventually become a mere leverage in the service of a generalized market in the neoliberal governmentality regime.
Returning to the above discussion of Lefort’s political ontology, the question now is whether this shift in the modern power regime has not been accompanied by a more fundamental shift in the regime of the symbolic institution of modern society and whether the neoliberal conception of a generalized market, more than the state, has become the place of power from which the symbolic institution originates?
To answer that question we must first consider whether such an instituting role of the neoliberal conception of a generalized market is in any way compatible with Lefort’s scheme of political ontology.
According to Lefort, every society is instituted by being in a particular way represented from a position that is different from society and which he identifies as the place of power. Whereas Lefort unilaterally related this instituting representation of modern society to the state, the neoliberal governmentality regime now seems to take over the role of instituting agency. The neoliberal discourse of a generalized, competitive-based market provides society with a self-representation that (re)institutes society in a market-based way. 17 As with any symbolic representation this is effected from a position distinct from society. For society is not that generalized market. The latter is a very specific, selective and therefore always arbitrary and contingent representation of society that does not cover its real complexity and heterogeneity. At the same time, though, the external position from which society derives its self-representation as a generalized market constitutes the place of power. Nowadays, the neoliberal governmentality regime directs the (re)organization of society in all its parts by accentuating the competition principle and the universal entrepreneurship where these principles already exist and by implementing them where they do not exist. In this way, the neoliberal governmentality regime as no other power in society determines people’s present-day conduct and the way they relate to each other and to themselves. It is, so to speak, the Law that dictates life within society.
Apparently, the instituting role that Lefort in his political ontology of modern society reserves for the modern state is replaced by the neoliberal governmentality regime and its focus on the (re)organization of society as a generalized market. Assuming that nowadays indeed such a shift is taking place in ‘the political’, how should we assess its effects?
We can both adduce further evidence for this shift and trace down its effects by bringing the ambivalent relationship between state and neoliberal governmentality to the forefront. As Foucault shows, neoliberal governmentality on the one hand aims at reducing the role of the state as much as possible, but on the other hand it installs itself within the state’s administrative apparatus in order to realize the generalized market. Conversely, the state welcomes the entrepreneurial logic of the neoliberal governance technology in order to perform its own tasks as ‘efficiently’ as possible. That symbiosis of the state apparatus with the neoliberal governance technology not only leads to the blurring of the distinction between state, market and civil society, 18 but transforms the state in a more fundamental sense as well. The neoliberal focus on a generalized market society implies that prerogatives proper to the modern state retreat to the background and become less important, while aspects that epitomize the market economy are introduced or even become focal points in government policy. So, for instance, the interest of national sovereignty, territoriality, identity and solidarity fades away within a generalized market society, whereas meritocratic principles and pro-competitive measures become part of regular government policies. These are only some examples of the underlying symbolic mutation which the state is subject to in the wake of the neoliberal governmentality regime.
By and large, this symbolic mutation comes down to the gradual decrease in the state’s symbolic or signifying power. To the extent that the state increasingly becomes an institutional means in the service of the entrepreneurial individual and an administrative support for implementing a generalized market society, it forfeits its capacity to symbolically represent the political community. The state becomes a disenchanted, business-like apparatus that gradually loses its capacity to credibly point beyond itself to the political community as the place of power in whose name it would operate and exert power. As a result, the political community as the former stake of the state’s operations retreats to the background and is eventually obliterated. On the rebound, and due to this forfeited reference to the value of the political community as its constitutive beyond, the state’s actual capacity to symbolically institute society is eroded. 19 In particular, its steering capacity, i.e. the state’s capability to create a social order and to meaningfully attune its inner relations, has by and large diminished, especially, since essential social dynamics are increasingly determined by non-state actors, leaving the state often in a position of making at best comments in the margin.
Numerous recent social and political evolutions, which thus far were unilaterally linked to vague globalization processes, or so goes the argument, find their origin above all in the aforementioned symbolic mutation or symbolic dissolution of the state. We get a good idea of this mutation if we look at it through the lens of Lefort’s political ontology. The intertwining of state and neoliberal governmentality induces decisive modifications in the political ontology of the modern (democratic) state. More specifically, the neoliberal focus on a generalized market society produces radical shifts in its symbolic, instituting representations, which in turn are responsible for far-reaching social effects.
The citizen, for example, in whose name the state hitherto governed, increasingly adopts the characteristics of the stakeholder. From the rebound his or her nationality loses relevance: one can be a citizen but not a stakeholder of a nation. 20 The equality in whose name the social welfare state was developed is now reinterpreted in terms of ‘equal opportunities’ and thereby acquires an explicit meritocratic character. Equality becomes equality to merit, and that merit determines the degree to which one is entitled to solidarity (Rosanvallon, 2011: 333–57; see also Donzelot, 2008: 124). The representation of freedom undergoes a similar symbolic mutation. It is no longer primarily associated with the ideal of emancipation but with the freedom of entrepreneurship: with the enhancement of the individual’s capabilities to put his or her talents and skills to work (employability) and to make them pay within a generalized market society. 21 According to Loïc Wacquant this explains why certain states, in which the neoliberal reorganization of the ideal of freedom is implemented the most, exhibit a Janus face. Upwards, i.e. towards the classes that most easily adapt to the new ideal of free entrepreneurship, the state is extremely liberal, while downwards, i.e. towards the classes that do not connect to this ideal or fail in achieving it, it is simply paternalistic, if not repressive (Wacquant, 2009: 8). In combination with the meritocratic interpretation of solidarity, such a market-related and thus competitive view of the ideal of freedom inevitably leads to severe social inequality.
The intertwinement of state and neoliberal governmentality has also a devastating impact on the place and significance of the political subject within society. The neoliberal representation of society as a generalized market is a representation of a self-regulating system and not of a society in which a political subject – the state – makes sovereign, but contingent and therefore contestable, choices against which other political subjects – the citizens – may oppose themselves. A generalized market society comes down to the domination of the market mechanism, of which only the market determines the standards. As this representation gains influence, the idea of a political subject that makes political choices and decisions becomes less and less plausible, if not outright inappropriate. Such choices either must go against or ignore the spontaneous functioning of the market, which at most can yield suboptimal results. Hence, in such a generalized market regime the state and its institutions gradually lose their specific political significance. The only viable possibility they have is to submit to the self-referential logic of the market, and place themselves at the service of the homo oeconomicus (Rosanvallon, 1992: 98, 104). A symptom of this gradual de-politicization of politics is the running dry of the great ideological conflicts in the political debate and this, paradoxically, against the background of a growing social inequality and a crumbling Welfare State.
Referring to the immutable self-regulating market rationality, the neoliberal governmentality regime furthermore makes its own contingency invisible: the fact that it is itself an exponent of the contingent symbolic institution of society as a generalized market society. Moreover, this instituting representation of a generalized market society is accompanied by a homogenization of social space and a levelling of social divisions. From the perspective of the neoliberal governmentality regime the market society is the effect of the self-regulatory and market-based interaction of private entrepreneurs whose mutual conflicts in essence should be reinterpreted in terms of competition. This negation of social cleavages and conflicts and the denial of itself as being instituted, makes the neoliberal project of a generalized market society disturbingly akin to totalitarianism (Lefort, 1986: 286, 189). Where totalitarianism abolishes the distinction between state and civil society by completely politicizing society (Lefort, 1988: 13), neoliberal governmentality tends to neutralize the same distinction by a complete economization of society. 22
Therefore, it is not surprising that the neoliberal governmentality regime is democratically unsatisfactory. Especially the excessive economization of the social and the related de-politicization of social relations, linked to the discrediting of the political subject, are more than serious threats to the democratic development of market society. The eroding of the proper role and autonomy of the state means, moreover, that society becomes completely unreadable. In a democratic system, and that is one of Lefort’s important insights, politics constitutes a separate scene within society where the conflicts and cleavages are represented that pervade the social relations. In this manner the political scene displays an image of society by which it grasps itself as a unity-in-division and as a result, also gets a grip on itself. Such political scene, therefore, is a prerequisite for democratic self-government. The instrumentalization and the resulting de-politicization of the state within a generalized market economy erode this symbolic scene and are therefore a threat to democracy.
The de-politicizing redefinition of the state as an instrument in the service of the distribution and optimization of the market model in all sectors of society furthermore seems to explain the authority crisis that not only the state but also numerous associated institutions face. If the state serves only to support the market and the homo oeconomicus, it becomes an integral part of that market, and its legitimacy, therefore, becomes entirely dependent on the prevailing market rationality. In such a context, no longer the state but the market is the actual authoritative body. As a result of the recent economic and financial crises, it has painfully become clear to what extent ‘the international markets’ and the related international institutions like the IMF and the World Bank minutely control the policy in innumerable states. That market economic tutelage of the state undermines its position as a sovereign representative and embodiment of the nation, which results in a loss of authority and legitimacy.
All this finally also throws light on what in this context is even the most fundamental problem: the phenomenon of individualization and the associated threat to social cohesion. The subversion of the state as a representative and embodiment of the nation affects its ability to create a credible representation of society by which it grasps itself as unity-in-division and relates to itself accordingly. In this manner the state is robbed of its symbolic, socially integrative power. Moreover the neoliberal governmentality regime reorganizes all spheres of social action according to the competition principle. As entrepreneurs of themselves, individuals become individualized and in a relentless competition opposed to one another – as partes extra partes. If we link both developments: the loss of symbolic, socially integrative power at the level of the state and the reconfiguration of society according to the principle of competition, it is hardly surprising that the basic conditions for social cohesion, such as a basic trust and solidarity between the members of the community, are thoroughly affected, if not irrevocably damaged.
Conclusion
It goes without saying that the above tentative explorations in gauging the effects and significance of the assumed symbolic institution of modern society as a generalized market society should be more thoroughly elaborated. In that respect they are no more than a prelude for further research. At the same time, as symptoms they offer a concrete indication of what is at stake with the advent of the neoliberal governmentality regime: the symbolic dissolution of the modern state. This does not imply the destruction of the state apparatus, which can be perfectly adapted to the logic of the neoliberal governmentality regime, but it concerns the evaporation of its instituting role and significance for modern society: that is the effect of the generalized economization of social relations. As a result, not only political authority is affected, but also the nature and significance of all social relations, and this to the smallest detail of social life. Such a revolution, therefore, only arises – to speak with Lefort – ‘when the transcendence of power vanishes, and when its symbolic efficacy is destroyed’ (Lefort, 1988: 92).