Ideology, Dualisms and their CritiqueĤ This paper is about the ideology of neoliberalism as it affects perceptions of what is right and proper behavior in our society. Indeed, we conclude that neoliberalism doesn’t just run counter to the instinct of care: neoliberalism as an ethical system is so relentlessly and evangelically individualist that the ideology leaves little room in the public sphere for care of others. Moreover, we contend that autonomy and the ethic of self-interest become hegemonic within neoliberalism. We contrast this instinct and ethic of care against the state of autonomy.ģ We next demonstrate that neoliberalism as an ideology presupposes that autonomy and the instinct of self-preservation dominates human nature, and actively encourages and congratulates individuals for exercising self-interested behavior. Next, from the foundation of an instinct of care, we explore how care evolves from that instinctual base into an ethic of care, which further informs and sustains interactions, relations, and cultural and social systems writ large. We then proceed by introducing Veblen’s alternative theory of behavior through his alternative theory of human nature. Our argument is a simple extension of that logic: the instinct and ethic of care stands counter to and is utterly antithetical-pathological-to neoliberalism.Ģ After a brief discussion of methodology we begin with an examination of the culturally specific theories of human behavior assumed by the economics discipline, starting with Veblen’s critique of the mainstream neoclassical characterization of human nature. ![]() Capitalism as a system of social provisioning is justified by the insistence on autonomy as the natural state of humans. That individuals within any given context exhibit behavior, which appears to tip in one direction as primarily either selfish or other-regarding, speaks to the institutional configuration of that context-which social institutions were dominant during the period and the underlying assumptions about human nature of those institutions. (Harari, 2014, 403-404)ġ All humans possess the capacity for selfishness or at least, self-interested behavior, as well as the capacity for communal care, the drive for survival of self and the drive for survival of family and community. ![]() Nothing testifies better to the awesome power of culture. Within a mere two centuries we have become alienated individuals. Millions of years of evolution have designed us to live and think as community members.
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