Homo neoliberalus : From personality to forms of subjectivity

Contexts for the neoliberal form of subjectivity

In recent decades, particularly in North American and European locations, which were economically more “developed” than many other regions of the world, a new form of life and subjectivity has emerged, namely, the neoliberal form of subjectivity (NLFS). This NLFS did not appear out of nowhere; rather, it has been emergent from the earliest development of a capitalist mode of economy. Both continuity and discontinuity can be observed in its development. Continuity can be found, for instance, in terms of Spranger’s (1921/1928) description of the economic form of life that applies the intellect to commercial purposes and utilitarian goals, and where technical knowledge and pragmatics are combined with an egoistic attitude. Horkheimer and Adorno’s (1947/1982) description of Juliette, for instance, as planning, scheming, self-interested, and utilitarian, is not outdated, but relevant when it comes to understanding precursors of the NLFS.

Discontinuity can be observed when it concerns the relationship among existing and possible forms of life. The NLFS colonizes all other forms of subjectivity, including Spranger’s (1921/1928) theoretic form of life that focuses on intellectual or scientific pursuits (with the goal of pure knowledge and truth for itself), the aesthetic form of life, which is embodied in the artist or the person who has a rhythm for works of art and an imagination to transform the powers of emotion, the social form of life that lives in and through others, the political form of life with the will to power, and the religious form of life, for which value arises through salvation, conversion, or revelation.

In neoliberalism, for instance, the intellectual form of life becomes subsumed under neoliberal principles (as universities can attest; see Ergül & Coşar, 2017). An artistic conduct of life is dependent on the market, even more so than a theoretic form of life, and political forms of life are dominated by a donor class. Although Spranger was correct in suggesting that power becomes more important than facts in the political form of life, he did not grasp how the economic form of life may colonize the political form. Community organization and public initiatives and services have reached a point in a neoliberal environment where they cannot avoid neoliberal principles. Even religion, especially in the American context, embraces neoliberal thinking; evangelical Christians are often strong supporters of neoliberalism (see, for instance, Hoksbergen & Madrid, 1997).

The idea of the colonization of all forms of life and the emergence of a single dominant one has been described by Marcuse (1964), who aptly coined the term one-dimensional man emerging from Western society (although his analyses remained more philosophical). Following Marcuse, one can suggest that the dominance of one form of life has led to the reduction of individuality and that subjectivity has become one-dimensional. This appears to be paradoxical, as from a historical point of view, with the increasing complexities of societies, more forms of life should be possible in theory, when in practice many of these minute forms of life are dominated by an overarching NLFS. Thus, peak individuality may have been reached some time ago. The oppressors, the oppressed, and even the marginalized (to use a traditional terminology) are now all embodying a NLFS, which makes other forms of subjectivity increasingly impossible. For example, the idea of a community-based sharing economy (for instance, transportation and housing) is thoroughly subsumed under a neoliberal logic, as are its participants.

How is it possible that one form of life began to dominate other forms of life? Sève (1972/1978) did not anticipate this colonization of all spheres of life. The assumption that a class-divided society produces capitalist-bourgeois and working-class forms of subjectivity has been overcome by the historical reality of a NLFS that targets all classes. With the erosion of manufacturing and the dominance of the service sector, the emergence of precarious work in all domains, the decline of the welfare state, the outsourcing of public services to the private sector, and continuous global dispossessions, the business owner and its embodiments in an entrepreneurial self have become central to the NLFS as the standard for all human beings. Spranger (1921/1928) did not understand how a form of life could become dominant because he did not analyze the relationship between society and the individual in terms of power.

Habermas (1981/1987) provided a social-philosophical answer for the emergence of one dominant form of life with his analysis of the intrusion of the system in domains of the lifeworld. He pointed to the pathologies and problems that occur when all spheres of human life become dominated by the reification of communicative action, monetarization, and bureaucratization. Instrumental thinking, cost–benefit analyses, and utilitarian arguments dominate in areas that are better addressed through equalitarian communication. Harvey (2005) provides a more concrete analysis of neoliberalism by identifying political individuals in the West (e.g., Reagan and Thatcher), who were responsible for this new economic configuration. Accordingly, neoliberal agents emphasize the entrepreneurial individual within the institution of free markets, free trade, and private property rights, and within a state willing and able to support these ideas without interfering. Indeed, neoliberalism colonizes and privatizes all areas of life from business to government, education to hospitals, and the military to the prison system. Most importantly, it colonizes the self.

Foucault (1997) understood that the relationship between power and subjectivity cannot be understood as one-directional, which would produce only oppressed subjectivities. Neoliberalism understood that as well. The process of subjectification requires active and agentic subjects that derive meaning and identity from this process. Developing a NLFS is not only a process of reinforcement, learning, adaptation, appropriation, or internalization, but also a process of suture through which subjects stitch themselves into a larger system, while experiencing a kind of agency (see Teo, 2017a; at least as much as they are stitched into the system). This suture allows subjects to embody a NLFS and to have access to the fruits of neoliberalism.

The term homo neoliberalus is a neologism that would be nonsensical within Latin. The term homo refers to a tradition of thinking about what it means to be human, and neoliberalus connotes semantics and pragmatics within contemporary critical as well as mainstream discourses. This neologism cannot escape its sexist bias, similar to traditional theories of human nature that have often been exclusionary. Indeed, the term emerges from the idea that the archetypical neoliberal subject is male (despite Juliette, who existed in a man’s fantasy). Still, this form of life and subjectivity is now assumed by all genders. The term expresses a new but emerging constellation in human personality, corresponding to this social reality. The following description of the mindset and conduct of life of the homo neoliberalus is idealtypic and hermeneutic-empirical as the term form of subjectivity expresses. As such, the NLFS cannot be reduced to thinking or to an ethical core and needs to begin with what has become central: the self, from which other dimensions such as thinking, feeling, and agency are developed.

Self

The self is fundamental to the neoliberal form of subjectivity. Although the self has become more important throughout the course of civilization (Elias, 1978), it has never been a predominant focus of political economy until neoliberal capitalism. The self has undergone significant changes in the context of neoliberalism, an outcome of psychologized processes of globalization (De Vos, 2012). While James (1890/1981) was still able to distinguish a Self and a pure Ego, with the former addressing material, social, and spiritual dimensions, the distinction between the two has been disappearing in neoliberal contexts (a similar argument could be made for Mead’s I and me, 1934). In a unique reduction of the self, the NLFS has given up on the idea of a transcendental ego, and instead concentrates on “myself” (self and ego) as a source for being in a neoliberal world. More precisely, the pinnacle self is achieved, when “I” not only have an instrumental, entrepreneurial relationship to the “self,” but “myself” is an entrepreneurial entity. A good example, as reported by Heller and McElhinny (2017) in their analysis of brave new selves, is the statement by the American artist Jay-Z: “I am not a businessman, I am a business, man” (p. 242). It is also an example of how Spranger’s aesthetic form of life has given way to a neoliberal form of life, which has become life itself.

Myself as an entrepreneurial entity entails an identity between “Me” and the “Business Me” in the conduct of everyday life. Consequently, as Sugarman (2015) points out, branding in neoliberal realities is not limited to corporate or business entities, but applies to oneself, where one becomes the CFO, CEO, or COO of a brand called “self” that needs to be built, marketed, distributed, and sold, as are any other goods or services. Business terminology infiltrates self-discourses (“market yourself!”), while psychologized terms move back into business (e.g., identity management, group think). The changing selves are not only an outcome of shifts in language but in material practices. In neoliberalism’s fluctuating needs, on the background of precarious work realities, and in markets where demands shift quickly, a flexible self is required, one that rapidly adapts its skills, in order to not be left behind (Urciuoli, 2008; see also Lifton, 1993). The flexible, skilled, mobile, and fast self is more important than any stable self, and continuity and coherence are now achieved not through an “I” but through the market.

The NLFS is told and actively endorses the need to develop a small business relationship to the self, similar to the way in which instrumental, functional, and cost–benefit relationships are established with products, services, and other people. To gain legitimacy, the NLFS is not only the object but also the subject of managing the self. Because of establishing subjects (which are still subjected), neoliberalism relies heavily on the psydisciplines that play a significant role in articulating the NLFS (Papadopoulos, 2008). Yet, working on the self is not confined to the psydisciplines: the NLFS can equally draw on religious discourses, particularly on Protestant or evangelical ones (Weber, 1904–1905/1958, already identified the relationship between capitalism and Protestantism), which put the self-focused individual at the center, or even on New Age discourses and practices, combined with expressions of pop-psychology. Positive psychology is the latest to adapt to and embody the values and goals that human beings should achieve in a neoliberal world (e.g., Brown, Lomas, & Eiroa-Orosa, 2018; Power, 2016).

The NLFS is thoroughly individualized or psychologized, as reflected in the use of psychological/business terms to refer to addressing, understanding, and working on the self: self-regulation, self-management, self-promotion, self-mastery, self-reliance, self-control, or the resilient self, are all examples of such terms. Thus, the popularized and empirically supported idea of self-regulated learning reproduces inequality and neoliberalism (Vassallo, 2015), while the concept of resilience aligns with the idea of governmentality and individual responsibility (Joseph, 2013). Psychological self-control scales can be read as measures of the degree to which an individual has submitted/embraced neoliberal values and behaviors. Items such as “I never allow myself to lose control,” “I am reliable,” “People would say that I have iron self-discipline,” “I engage in healthy practices,” “I am able to work effectively toward long-term goals,” or “I am always on time,” or reverse items such as “I wish I had more self-discipline,” “Pleasure and fun sometimes keep me from getting work done,” or “ I often act without thinking through all the alternatives” (Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004), are self-skills that are important to maintaining a neoliberal economy. It is not surprising that individuals who score high on self-control measures are “successful.” It is tautological to state (see also Smedslund, 1988) that being more neoliberal in a neoliberal world is more advantageous.

From a Foucauldian (e.g., 1997) perspective, the NLFS has thoroughly internalized responsibilization, governmentality, and subjectification. The NLFS accepts being responsible for tasks that were solved in a welfare state by a collective consensus, such as health care or education (see also Yen, 2016). Yet, the NLFS realizes that in disaster capitalism (Klein, 2007) it may be more beneficial to find solutions that serve “me” and “my family” (not literally me, as this term is used in this article from a generalized first-person perspective). If there is a water crisis in “my” town, then “I” cannot rely on public institutions or environmental justice movements to address and solve this crisis; rather, “I” need to move “myself” or “my” family away from this town, or purchase water or filters until “I” am ready to move (see Cooper, 2017, for the importance of family in neoliberalism). The public water problem is “my” responsibility, in that “I” solve it for “me.” It is clear that neoliberal institutions profit from this form of subjectivity, because friction is removed when subjects pre-emptively submit “themselves” to the demands of a neoliberal state, institution, corporation or government, or when they pre-emptively comply/embrace any possible requirement that could arise. The neoliberal world thrives on subjects that have internalized neoliberal mechanisms and even derive an identity from it (“I am always on time”).

The subjectified person submits and identifies with demands, and paradoxically appears to have control and self-control (“I” can always work on “myself” to fit better into the mold). Self-control has become more significant than self-esteem in neoliberalism. However, control and self-control extend only to the borders of the form, but not beyond. Sugarman (2015), following a Foucauldian stream of thought, has argued that neoliberalism connotes a shift from external control to self-imposed self-control. Psychology has participated in both types of control, from Miller’s (1969) vision to sell psychological control, to give psychology away as a form of human welfare, to the ideas of positive and pop-psychology on the self (see also Brinkmann, 2017). Neoliberal societies operate through (self)discipline and (self)control to hold the individual accountable for success or lack thereof (interiorized by the subject) and to provide “knowledge” on how to achieve success. Because the neoliberal society is presented as quasi-natural, as an entity to which the successful self must pro-actively and inevitably submit, and because successful individuals suture themselves into a given, resistance cannot be part of NLFS. Indeed, such resistance would constitute an anathema, or perhaps even a pathology, within such a “logic.”

Classical critical theories have been wrong to assume that experiences of alienation would necessarily result from submission. Instead, the active process of suture makes processes of alienation go away, once contradictions are internalized and addressed internally, meaning that the requirements of adapting the self are embraced. The idea that one is living in the best possible world or country, typical in US-American discourses, for instance, removes radical change from the external: the neoliberal self is internalized, adapts and sutures to economic realities, and is separate from a world that could ever be changed. Change belongs to the self, occasionally to the family, whereby the rhetoric of personal change is borrowed from those academic, professional, and public discourses that are useful to adapting to the status quo.

One could even argue that the postmodern self (Gergen, 1991) that lacks coherence, continuity, and stability is the outcome of neoliberal demands. The critical self, especially the one that transcends traditional critical thinking—which itself has become an element of neoliberalism because of its adaptability to varying demands—understands critical thinking as dangerous thinking (Giroux, 2015). Dangerous thinking about the pathologies of capitalism, for example, are not useful within a NLFS, which becomes the cheerleader for neoliberalism, and is self-confident when it comes to defending the status quo of a neoliberal world. Although the community has no primacy in the NLFS, the social-media based community can be used as support for those cheerleading activities. The NLFS is not reluctant, but rather is fully committed to neoliberalism, in its embodiment of neoliberal rhetoric and practices.

Thinking

Although thinking is secondary to feeling in a NLFS, it is still important to understand the characteristics and limitations of thought. Traditional philosophy makes the distinction between theoretical and practical reason, the former referring to epistemic and the latter to moral issues. As the distinction between Self and Ego disappears, so does the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. Utilitarian thinking takes on the main role when it comes to issues of knowledge and values. Spranger (1921/1928) already proposed that the economic type has no time for knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which consequently means the end of knowledge. If all is subsumed under applicability and practicality, and cost–benefit analyses, then large parts of the humanities, the social sciences, and critical approaches have no legitimacy (which then engenders crisis discourses).

A type of thinking that is reduced to rational choice, under the guidance of utilitarian thinking, has already been described by Horkheimer and Adorno (1947/1982), who characterized Juliette’s thinking as fully rational, calculating, and based on self-interest. The spread of neoliberal, utilitarian thinking has had its professional impact in the discipline of psychology through the defense of torture, and is reflected in psychiatrists’ lack of moral concern with financial conflicts of interest (Aalbers & Teo, 2017; Pope, 2016; Teo, 2015; Whitaker & Cosgrove, 2015). The NLFS is based on practical-utilitarian reasoning, while moral thinking that applies the principle of generalizability (Kant, 1788/1968), based on the notion of a collective obligation, is counter-intuitive, or is not considered meaningful in the conduct of an entrepreneurial life.

Holzkamp (1973) identified perceptual-intuitive thinking as being typical within capitalist societies, thinking which is based on immediate observation and on what appears as concrete, as on the surface, and which can be observed and intuited in the world. Such thinking solves problems within a utilitarian framework, orients itself within an existing order, but does not go beyond the status quo. Perhaps perceptual-intuitive thinking can be best described in opposition to conceptual thinking, which is able to abstract from immediate experiences and comprehend the nexus of individual life. Conceptual thinking is able to move from a utilitarian practice to a critical praxis. Because of the utilitarian self, conceptual thinking has become alien to a NLFS, which prefers perceptual-intuitive thinking that is concrete and useful. Concepts such as society remain inexplicable to the NLFS, because they cannot be observed immediately and require abstraction from a variety of institutions, practices, and embodied behaviors. The NLFS sticks with individuals and families when considering social reality.

In the NLFS, truth (external) and truthfulness (internal) have disappeared or are subsumed under one’s personal, sexual, or economic interests. Truth no longer has relevance outside the self, as thinking is only relevant insofar as it serves the entrepreneurial self and its processes. As a consequence, thinking has become not only a-critical or a-social, but also anti-critical and anti-social. Thinking in neoliberal practice must destroy challenges to one’s own subjectification and must allow one to maintain illusions about control and self-control. Intellectual education is seen as relevant only as long as it is beneficial to one’s career or economic success, and education as training is analyzed in terms of cost–benefit calculations. In this process, the concept-driven liberal arts, humanities, and fine arts are discarded as useless, as long as they cannot be translated into financial benefits. Ignorance is professed with pride, and bullshitting (Frankfurt, 1986/2005) has equal or even more value than in-depth analyses or reflection, in a market of opinions. Public relations are more important than knowledge.

Economic dispossessions based on the “privatization of land,” the “expulsion of peasant populations,” “private property rights,” “slave trade,” “national debt,” the “credit system,” “stock promotions,” “ponzi schemes,” “asset destruction through inflation,” “corporate fraud,” or the “raiding of pension funds” (Harvey, 2004, pp. 74–75), core to a neoliberal economy, can only be thought of as personal dispossession because large-scale processes that must be conceptualized are incomprehensible in perceptual-intuitive thinking. Dispossession is individualized, personalized, and psychologized as a lack of initiative or motivation. The volatility of the NLFS and the risk of losing one’s own possessions in a volatile market, is not thought in terms of a collective work to be shared and acted upon, but as an individual task, where physical and psychological possessions are defended by clinging to individual and individualized solutions.

In terms of political values, thinking about liberty dominates thinking about equality or solidarity, a trend that a neoliberal form of life clearly encourages. When solutions can be found only within oneself, liberty must gain primacy over projects such as solidarity, which may not be successful, or equality, especially when one profits from the Other’s dispossession, low wages, and marginalization in society. Competitive thinking and acting work better when it comes to liberty than collective projects such as solidarity or social justice. Such thinking and acting reduces liberty to economic liberty and orients one’s focus towards lower taxes, even towards fighting for them. The idea of unjust privilege is dismissed in a NLFS because one cannot observe structures and systems, but one can observe that one does not feel privileged (which supports the idea of a shift towards feelings). Perceptual-intuitive thinking corresponds to the idea that one is color-blind (see Neville, Gallardo, & Sue, 2016), in the meaning that structural racial injustice is not considered, nor the possibility that, as a privileged person, one can endorse racist ideas. Such thinking serves to maintain the status quo.

If one were to make a distinction between radical critical thinking and traditional critical thinking, it is only the latter that is supported by a NLFS, where thinking about the possibilities of resistance to existing norms, values, and practices does not appear as a thought or action option. Marcuse (1964) called it positive thinking, which accepts the facticity of the status quo and no longer considers the possibility or necessity of alternatives. Yet, a critical thinking that is dangerous must go beyond positive thinking, opinion and rhetoric, instrumentality and technology, success and benefit, and beyond utilitarian pragmatics to conceptual knowledge and careful analyses of the status quo and its alternatives. It is exactly this status quo transcending thinking for which the NLFS has contempt.

Feeling

Neoliberalism means a return to feelings, and also engenders what has been called the affective turn in the social sciences and humanities (Clough & Halley, 2007) as well as in psychology (Pettit, 2017). There are external and internal reasons for the return to feelings (a term used here to include affects, emotions, moods, passions, and sentiments—without discussing the semantics and pragmatics of these terms; see Cromby, 2015). External sources include the cultural and intellectual move away from a reason- and enlightenment-driven modernism, a move supported by some progressives as well as conservatives, as well as the fact that the expansion of capitalism relies primarily on emotions in Western countries (Han, 2015). While the usage value of things has decreased, the emotional need to purchase goods and services has increased. Many “things” that are bought and consumed are often not needed and are acquired more because of a feeling or an aesthetic emotion, most often because these “things” make people feel good, happy, productive, proud, or distinct (at least temporarily). Indeed, feelings are booming, as is research on affects.

Although a variety of social sciences currently deal with affect (which includes not only individual but also collective emotions; e.g., Anderson, 2016), psychologists typically do not ask why there has been a turn to emotions or how individual affects relate to the larger dynamics of an era. In this argument, individual and collective emotions are connected, assuming that society expresses and provides forms of feelings that subjects occupy, more or less, and inhabit significant aspects of neoliberal feelings. This argument is not to dismiss internal reasons for the affective turn in psychology. For instance, the nexus of psychological functions, faculties, or experiences is unbalanced, in a context where all attention has been devoted to cognition in academic psychology. From a critical perspective, the turn to feelings corresponds to subjective experiences on the background of the development of advanced societies. Thus, the increasing complexity and differentiation of knowledge makes it difficult to establish competence, expertise, or trust in thinking. It is much easier to trust “our” own feelings, on which “we” see ourselves as experts, and which are much more difficult to challenge (“that is what ‘I’ feel”). Further, “we” are more open to learning from psy-experts about emotional regulation, our own or that of others, than to being “lectured” by experts on epistemology.

Powerful subjects have learned both to work with feelings and that subjects need to work on feelings. Emotions are understood as a resource or tool for manipulating and controlling other people, most explicitly since Machiavelli (1532/1985) promoted negative emotions (fear) as an important tool for managing the conduct of other people. But in neoliberalism, emotion is not only a means for “guiding” other people, but also for managing one’s own feelings that become instrumental in achieving one’s goals, or which need to be worked on, if not already leading to success. Although increasing inequality (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015) and neoliberalism makes us (feel) sick (Schrecker & Bambra, 2015), the return to feelings means a turn towards a need to work on oneself, on autonomous solutions for “myself” and “my” family, and not on collective, generalizable solutions (e.g., a national health care system in which all members can benefit). The NLFS’s approach to problem solving is to work on one’s own feelings as individualized, psychologized, and privatized products.

Stress is probably at the core of the emotional NLFS (see also Becker, 2013). Whether the term is a metaphor or of a natural, social, or psychological kind, or whether stress is constructed or representing something objective or external to the subject, is not discussed here, because stress is taken for granted in the experiences and pragmatics of the NLFS. Fully internalized as a psychologized term, stress is more important than anxiety (or may include anxiety; see also Berg, Huijbens, & Larsen, 2016). Forgotten are the origins of the term’s meaning in engineering, where wear and tear (stress in a mechanical system) may lead to a breaking point. Yet, stress in neoliberalism cannot go to the breaking point (except in extraordinary circumstances such as PTSD), because to do so would risk losses in compliant subjectivity. Neoliberalism requires a state of constant stress, a feeling of being stressed all the time as a form of existence, which is then balanced with the search for happiness. While Holzkamp (1983) identified anxiety as a constant companion of emotions under capitalist conditions, one could argue that stress has taken over this function. Stress is not an existential entity, but the result of living under conditions of precarity of work, competition, loss of trust, instrumentality of relations, and loneliness and isolation. Compulsion as an important aspect of emotions in capitalist societies (Holzkamp, 1983) is perhaps the outcome of permanent stress, which becomes an internalized feeling.

Stress is dialectally integrated with the search for happiness or harmony (the latter being the Chinese version; see also Yang, 2018) in a neoliberal society (see Davies, 2015; Power, 2016). “I” work hard at “my” job, “my” relationships, and “myself,” a stressful experience, which needs to be accompanied by “my” search for happiness. A central feature of the NLFS is the need to be happy and to put happiness at the core of self-activities, from which a whole happiness industry and psychologists have benefitted. Not only are shopping, consuming, and leisure activities considered in terms of how well they produce happiness, but all self-activities (including entrepreneurial ones) in neoliberalism are considered for their happiness-producing potential. Happiness is one-dimensionally quantifiable, autonomous, individualized, and often connected with monetary value. The old saying that “money does not buy happiness” has become obsolete and is dialectally turned into its opposite (money should make you happy). Feeling happy is more aspirational than anything else, and is considered something one should be agentic about, but it also seems that the distinction between the aspirational and actual dimensions of happiness have collapsed.

Working on oneself as a tool for achieving happiness includes both the mind and the body. Indeed, physical activities, sports, or sex appear to be a last resort for having an authentic inner feeling, while societal isolation takes place. Feelings have made a comeback in culture through the body, which is experienced as an irreducible first-person perspective, especially since feelings constitute experiences and are the source for psychological life (Cromby, 2015). Of course, it is forgotten how much the (gendered) body (for instance) is subject to societal control, interventions (Butler, 1990), and politics (Foucault, 1997). Yet, in neoliberalism, gone is the phenomenological body, the body of pain (Scarry, 1985), or the critical body of distinction (Bourdieu, 1979/1984), which is substituted with a normative, healthy, fit, and hedonistic body. The “disabled” body and mind, which is the reality according to the human sciences, supports a whole industry of (gendered) betterment, with fitness studios and plastic surgery being the most obvious examples. Although collectivity is embodied in social norms and standards, when consuming, working, playing, or eating in everyday practices, such norms are never felt this way in a NLFS. From a critical perspective, embodied feelings are equally based on molds available in this culture.

Religious or moral hurdles to the hedonistic body are gone, as is guilt, while feeling deficient in other respects remains. Guilt is not a primary feeling under neoliberalism. On the contrary, guilt may be the least prevalent feeling in the NLFS when it is emphasized in a culture that one does not need to feel guilty if one is rich, wealthy, greedy, more educated, healthier, and prettier through privileged institutional access, otherwise economically or socially privileged, or if one is destroying the environment by consuming excessive carbon-based resources. The NLFS tells you that you deserve all of it because you earned (or inherited) them. Guilt takes on a monetary form, which is expressed more effectively in certain languages (for instance, in German the word Schuld refers to debt and to guilt), indicating their close relationship (see also Graeber, 2011). The cycle of spending and debt is encouraged in neoliberalism in times of crises as well as at all other times, because it maintains a neoliberal economy, and because it produces loyalty and submission, externalized and internalized, in the NLFS. Having debt is not experienced as an existential anxiety (even death is commodified), but rather is translated into feelings of stress to pay off one’s debt. This can mean paying such debt directly, or it can refer to strategies and choices that change taxation policies to the benefit of the NLFS (“write off” certain debts, or to claim tax deductions, etc.).

The NLFS attempts to work on toxic emotions in other individuals and in oneself. Anger, impatience, dissatisfaction, and moodiness are not understood as sources for social action, based on the notion that large underlying sources of stress can be found in a political economy. Rather, the move from feelings to actions of solidarity is disappearing with a neoliberal form of life. The idea of collective emotions as a source of collective engagement is no longer conceived. Society and groups simply remain an assembly of individuals and their families. The saying that “we are all in this together” is a rational, but not an emotional, process, if one does not feel that one’s fate is connected to the collective’s fate, and certainly the NLFS does not contain that sentiment. The NLFS does not re-evaluate situations, processes, and contexts, as this would require the inclusion of critical reflexivity in feeling. Rather, the NLFS prefers the immediacy of situation and the primacy of feelings that are always understood as individual. Feelings of solidarity are diminishing because solidarity is diminishing in a neoliberal society.

Agency

To a certain degree, the overarching psychological dimension that includes thinking and feeling is agency. Agency can take on different shapes and is highly significant in neoliberalism, as choice is an important feature when moving from control to self-control, and a NLFS requires that it be chosen willingly, so that it can be experienced as free. Of course, the “logic” of neoliberalism demands that one chooses a neoliberal form of life, with severe consequences if one does not desire it. Agency is also tied to practical reason where utilitarian and pragmatic (not in a philosophical meaning, but in an ordinary language sense) choices dominate. The utilitarian choice begins with the domain of work, but is extended to relationships and interactions, as well as to one’s relationship to oneself. Cost–benefit analyses in all these domains (working, interacting, selfing) dominate, with the goal of maximizing one’s own financial, pleasure-based, or advantage-based profit.

Combined with the colonization and corruption of the lifeworld, one finds a cultural phenomenon that can be called the new nihilism (see also Teo, 2018). This case requires and is sustained by a NLFS that no longer entertains the idea that one can change one’s collective life conditions in order to change individual ones. Because change is only perceived to be possible on the personal level (“you can only change yourself!” in the logic of psychology) or on the family level (sometimes the community level is included), agency is focused on individual self-change, a form of personal change that reflects a cultural-collectivist individualism. The historical fact of collective movements or revolutions, including the recent history of collective actions in Eastern Europe, is not conceived in the NLFS, despite the evidence demonstrating that changes to the basic structure of society are possible. The NLFS implicitly assumes the end of history, with the neoliberal form of life being the best possible world, where significant change is unnecessary and impossible. That there exists nothing good outside, and nothing beyond, a neoliberal form of life, engenders a self-imposed, limiting agency.

Holzkamp (1983) coined the term restrictive agency as being characteristic of choices in capitalist societies, connoting the idea that one gives up long-term goals of changing or improving one’s societal life conditions for short-term personal gain, and in doing so, reinforces the increasing reduction of agency. Holzkamp argued that in choosing restrictive agency one becomes one’s own enemy. Although not disagreeing on a philosophical level, the NLFS, on a psychological level, does not experience agency in that way, and that is what is important to neoliberalism. Although it is philosophically correct that we can justify why maintaining a healthy environment is good, and why solutions to environmental destruction need to be proposed on the collective and not individual level (because of the extent of the problem), neoliberalism and a NLFS propose individual solutions, including moving away from environmental disaster areas and buying luxury units in bunkers that supposedly can sustain any catastrophe. Money then becomes the resource for making this happen, which in turn provides legitimacy for a neoliberal competitive economy.

In the work sphere, the NLFS chooses activities that benefit the self, including selling one’s curriculum vitae, achievements, or competencies, whereby the limits of accuracy can be stretched or abandoned, as long as it serves one’s goals. Modesty is counter-productive in neoliberalism, as is introversion or shyness (see also Sugarman, 2015). Agency should focus on overcoming both, through working on oneself and one’s skills. The NLFS aims for extraversion because in the market place the loud and daring voice is heard, which entails the ability to sell more. The neoliberal form of life has no time for the person who looks inside, if this internal reflection does not result in skill management, regulation, or achievement, and it has no time for ideas or feelings that cannot be sold. This example of a one-dimensional reduction means also that forms and contents of education that maximize financial benefits must be chosen, based on cost–benefit analyses (how much will “I” pay versus how much money will “I” make given this specific choice of training?).

Agency in work and personal relationships is instrumental, and even the choice of partner can be reduced to utilitarian principles. The neoliberal form of life equally colonizes the seemingly last sacred place of daily life, the family. In fact, the family has become the primary location where neoliberal transformation occurs. Choosing to send one’s children to private schools in order to have an educational advantage over other children, or to expand on social and cultural capital, is one example. The instrumental approach taken in such a choice contradicts the need for a family to remain the refuge away from current conditions. While single-parent families struggle even more, both partners in two-parent families need to work to maintain a neoliberal lifestyle (except in the case of the financial elites), which grinds on the conventional role of the family as a possible psychological support system.

Coupled with the erosion of public institutions, government agencies, and communities, enormous pressure is put on families (that need to become small businesses in neoliberalism), which often cannot cope with the traditional promise of healing and salvation. Not only individuals, but also families, need to compete with each other for recognition and, more importantly, for remuneration. Every member of the family needs to participate in a NLFS, from childhood to adulthood. A colleague once mentioned in an honest account that she only pretends to care about what is happening to other people’s children, when in fact she only cares about what is happening to her own children. The pretence is required in a lifeworld where good relationships between parents and teachers and among parents is needed for maintaining a communication-based institution. Yet, the logic of the lifeworld is abandoned for giving one’s own children an advantage in a neoliberal world. The point of being a father or a mother is to remove obstacles, to train self-controlled children, and to increase opportunities for one’s own children (e.g., a second language is not a value in itself but offers more opportunities in the market place). The pretence of care for the other is no longer required in an anonymous labor market (yet, pretence might be required for certain service jobs).

Agency is focused on liberty and for that reason the entrepreneurial self is not occupied with social justice issues. Concepts such as gender, race, or class, are reduced to the assumption that one has a color-blind, gender-blind, class-blind approach to other human beings. In reality, agency is not about being neutral in one’s thoughts and actions, but about being blind to the realities of injustice. Within the “logic” of neoliberal agency, “black lives matter” can only be countered by “white lives matter.” On the other side, social characteristics including marginalized ones can be co-opted by a NLFS when they are used as instruments to get ahead of other people, not because of the value of social justice. Relationships and friendships have no intrinsic value but are maintained as long as they are useful. Or, friends and family may be defended against government interventions, but not against the interventions that stem from corporations or a neoliberal market.

Agency focuses on communication skills that become increasingly important in the intersubjective sphere. The spoken word and the spoken-written word (as in social media) are more important than the carefully composed-written text. The self presents itself in the spoken or the spoken-written word, which are based on brevity and speed. Speed means to react or move quickly when it comes to work, interactions, the self, or food, travel, leisure, and even research, as if all were a race or competition. Agency is focused on acquiring those communication skills that increase profit, sell goods and services, increase one’s value, or dispossess other people. Communication itself becomes instrumental to the degree that “we” already know that “we” cannot trust what the salesperson is trying to sell. Being fast also means reinforcing a limiting agency, and ultimately the status quo, because many problems cannot be solved in a short time, and participating in social justice organizations operates with long horizons.

Agency aims for success, whereby success is not confined to work or relations, but also applies to the self. Success can be measured in terms of money and material possessions, but is also applied to self-related and psychological activities, such as successful ageing (as if ageing is always under “our” control). Success is not operationalized in terms of making long-term contributions to societal change, or in terms of participating in political action outside of the existing political system, or in terms of contributing to a generalizable idea about the common or collective good or wealth. Success and the agency for success also target the body that needs to be perceived and self-perceived as useful. The NLFS develops an instrumental bond not only in relation to the psychological self but also in relation to the physical body. But instead of directing agency towards challenging society, or questioning gendered body norms, the class-based performativities of the body, or the ableist and ageist constructions of the “normal” body, the NLFS appropriates and sutures itself actively into such norms. Agency may target neuroplasticity in order to mold oneself into existing ideas and in order to enhance the self for the neoliberal order (see Pitts-Taylor, 2010).

Conclusion

Spranger (1921/1928) characterized the economic attitude as focused on the useful, self-interest, self-preservation, and practical interests in the affairs of the business world, fulfilling the concept of the average American businessman. This economic type believes that education should be practical and that pure knowledge is a waste of time, and is more interested in surpassing others in wealth than in dominating or in serving them. The NLFS goes beyond that classic form of subjectivity in that it has become all-encompassing and colonizing of all spheres of life, including interactions and the self. But, following Spranger, it is conceptually helpful to suggest that there is no pure NLFS, but only tendencies and amalgamated forms, and that descriptions refer to idealized phenomena.

The proposed NLFS does not address social characteristics nor their possible intersectionality. The NLFS may also take on different shapes in culturally different locations, and generalizations are historically embedded. The description of the NLFS is a collective project and should not end with an individual attempt that itself appears located within the logic of neoliberalism (as reflected, for instance, in practices of neoliberal publishing). Clear articulations of the NLFS allow one to identify tendencies such as its colonizing function, from which resistances can be envisioned (see also Richardson, Bishop, & Garcia-Joslin, 2018). One can conceive of alternative forms of subjectivity against the trend in capitalist and advanced-capitalist countries to reduce subjectivity one-dimensionally. The rhetoric of individualism can be understood as a form of cultural irony. In addition, being aware of historical predecessors and of change as part of the conditions for the possibility of human agency, subjectivity has the tendency to act once the reduction of individuality reaches a tipping point.

In the meantime, it is possible to embrace resistances, such as the refusal to be happy or to be resilient in the “prescriptive logic” of the psydisciplines. Such a project would be about resisting forms of subjectivity that are based on consumerism and would focus on what Fromm (1976) once described as being, rather than having. Thus, a starting point for resisting the NLFS includes working on conceptual thinking; expanding the limitations of common sense but also of status-quo-supporting critical thinking; targeting thinking, feeling, and agency in their nexus; experimenting with emotions as well as with cognitions; and in doing so engaging the whole body. Yet, this project cannot be achieved idealistically or psychologically, if one understands that the NLFS cannot be transcended without a transformation of the neoliberal form of life that includes the neoliberal economy. The concept of a form of subjectivity entails understanding that individual subjectivity is connected with society, and that subjectivity, in and for itself, does not exist.