Property and capital in the person: Lockean and neoliberal self‐ownership

Abstract

Understanding neoliberalism remains a crucial task for critical theories of the present. While Marxist approaches such as David Harvey’s tend to underestimate its novelty and struggle to explain its pervasiveness, Foucauldian perspectives are better equipped to understand neoliberalism in its singularity. These perspectives culminate in the diagnosis of the emergence of a specifically neoliberal subject, the entrepreneurial self. One implication of this diagnosis that has not received nearly enough attention is neoliberal’s implicit subscription to the doctrine of self-ownership: The entrepreneurial self is necessarily self-owning, even if that often remains implicit in neoliberal theory. Starting with a discussion of liberal self-ownership (Levellers, Locke), the article shows that neoliberal rationality is premised on self-ownership, discussing human capital theory and Income Share Agreements. The focus on neoliberal self-ownership and its consequences, it is argued, can be used for an immanent critique of neoliberal rationality.