Neoliberal governmentality, knowledge work, and thumos

dc.contributor.authorHofmeyr, Augusta Benda
dc.contributor.emailbenda.hofmeyr@up.ac.zaen_US
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-01T12:43:49Z
dc.date.available2022-09-01T12:43:49Z
dc.date.issued2021-11-20
dc.description.abstractResearch has shown that the knowledge worker, the decisive driver of the knowledge economy, works increasingly longer hours. In fact, it would appear that instead of working to live, they live to work. There appears to be three reasons for this living-to-work development. First, the knowledge worker ‘has to’ on account of the pressure to become ever more efficient. Such pressure translates into internalized coercion in the case of the self-responsible knowledge worker. Secondly, working is constant, because the Internet and smart technologies and mobile devices have made it ‘possible’. It gives the worker the capacity and management omnipotent control. In the final instance, the neoliberal knowledge worker works all the time because s/he paradoxically ‘wants to’. It is a curious phenomenon, because this compulsive working is concomitant with a rise of a host of physical, emotional, and psychological disorders as well as the erosion of social bonds. The paradox is exacerbated by the fact that the knowledge worker does not derive any of the usual utilities or satisfactions associated with hard work. Elsewhere I have ascribed this apparent contradiction at the heart of the living-to-work phenomenon to the invisible thumotic satisfaction generated by knowledge work. In the present article, I argue that neoliberal governmentality has found a way to tether thumos directly to the profit incentive. I draw on Foucault’s 1978-1979 Collége de France lecture course in which he analysed neoliberal governmentality with specific emphasis on the work of the neoliberal theorist of human capital, Gary Becker.en_US
dc.description.departmentPhilosophyen_US
dc.description.librarianam2022en_US
dc.description.urihttps://jpe.episciences.orgen_US
dc.identifier.citationHofmeyr, A.B. 2021, 'Neoliberal governmentality, knowledge work, and thumos', Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 14, no. 1-2, pp. 33-62, doi : 10.46298/JPE.8662.en_US
dc.identifier.issn1843-2298 (print)
dc.identifier.issn1844-8208(online)
dc.identifier.other10.46298/JPE.8662
dc.identifier.urihttps://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/87025
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherEditura ASEen_US
dc.rightsCreative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA.en_US
dc.subjectNeoliberalismen_US
dc.subjectGovernmentalityen_US
dc.subjectHuman capitalen_US
dc.subjectBiopoliticsen_US
dc.subjectControlen_US
dc.subjectFoucaulten_US
dc.subjectBeckeren_US
dc.subjectThumosen_US
dc.subjectLabouren_US
dc.subjectKnowledge workeren_US
dc.titleNeoliberal governmentality, knowledge work, and thumosen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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