Race, the Condition of Neo-Liberalism

Vikash Singh
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Vikash Singh: Department of Sociology, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA

Social Sciences, 2017, vol. 6, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: This article addresses the social and historical relation between Chicago School neo-liberalism and contemporary racism, and its connections with the formations of racism in classical liberalism and its colonial character. I show the pragmatic and discursive operations of neo-racism in the context of this shift to a neo-liberal discourse, drawing particularly on Michel Foucault’s seminars, Society Must be Defended , and Birth of Bio-politics . Insofar as “race” cannot be understood as a discrete category outside its social, economic, moral, and political embeddedness in liberalism, I argue that methodological individualism and expectations of high-specialization constrain the theorization of race in U.S. scholarship. Racial lines will continue to be (re)excavated, borrowed, or inscribed afresh to channel, reinforce, and institutionalize the social violence that neo-liberalism must unleash.

Keywords: neoliberalism; race; Foucault; liberalism; internal racism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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