276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Futilitarianism: On Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness (Goldsmiths Press / PERC Papers)

£13£26.00Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

This urgent and provocative book chimes with the mood of the time by at once mapping the historical relationship between utilitarianism and capitalism, developing an original framework for understanding neoliberalism, and recounting the lived experience of uselessness in the early twenty-first century. At a time of epoch-defining disasters, from climate emergencies to deadly pandemics, countering the futility of neoliberal existence is essential to building an egalitarian, sustainable, and hopeful future. But utility is not something that naturally exists; it is not a neutral or objective concept. Utility is always an effect of social relationships, constructed politically, and deeply enmeshed in the power structures of a society. The question, then, is not so much “what is useful?” Rather, it is “how does something become defined as useful and who gets to judge it as such?” Money and Utility

This leads to the sense of futility and emptiness Vallelly powerfully diagnoses as emblematic of neoliberal capitalism. Communities and political movements are disaggregated into atomized individuals. They are paradoxically made to feel that relentless but narrow self-improvement, the pursuit of wealth, power, and status within the system is all that matters, and that they are powerless to change that same system. Utilitarianism and its implications, however, were not, in Bentham’s view, strictly limited to moral philosophy or conceptual analysis in a more abstract sense. Rather, Bentham wanted governments to adopt utilitarianism as a guiding principle of governance that might motivate politicians to strive toward the pursuit of collective wellbeing for the wider public. Though Bentham’s intended scope for the actualisation of his theory did not fully transpire in his own life, utilitarianism would go on to indirectly influence politics in complex, profound and material ways, not least in its outsized influence as a foundational cornerstone of neoclassical economics. As a result, utilitarianism has penetrated deep into the shape of our capitalist world we live in today, with the logic of utility and, specifically, its salient normativity, infusing aspects of work practices and shaping the dynamics of social interactions. The book examines and theorizes futilitarianism as an ever-deepening process of individual entrapment, which occurs both despite and because of individuals' efforts to improve their own conditions. We inhabit a system that simultaneously prescribes and prevents individual "well-being." As we pursue our individual (and often even collective) goals, we paradoxically become less happy, more anxious, more indebted, more exploitable. Since then, for all his insistence on its rationalistic simplicity, many have complained about deep tensions in Bentham’s position. Was he making a psychological claim about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain simply being fundamental human motivations, a moral claim about how they should be the fundamental human motivations, or both? But Bentham was convinced of the power of his argument, and claimed that the best moral and political system would be one dedicated to achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, as determined through a kind of felicific calculus.Patreon will charge your card monthly for the amount you pledged. You can cancel this pledge anytime.

Wendy Brown, author of In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the WestReview of Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness by Neil Vallelly (Goldsmiths Press, 2021) To develop the theory of futilitarianism, and its relationship to neoliberalism, I use the first part of the book to situate neoliberalism within the intellectual history of utilitarianism. I examine Jeremy Bentham’s writings on political economy, and, in particular, his association of money with the principle of utility. In an essay from the 1770s, “The Philosophy of Economic Science,” Bentham wrote that “the thermometer is the instrument for measuring the heat of weather, the Barometer the instrument for measuring the pressure of the Air… Money is the instrument for measuring the quantity of pleasure and pain.” This association of money with utility runs throughout Benthamite utilitarianism, leading Will Davies to conclude in his book The Happiness Industry (2015), that “by putting out there the idea that money might have some privileged relationship to our inner experience, Bentham set the stage for the entangling of psychological research and capitalism that would shape the business practices of the twentieth century.” Despite the appeal of this synthesis of utilitarianism and capitalism, it was never uncontroversial. In the twentieth century, Vallelly observes, there was a climatic struggle between socially minded utilitarians, mostly inspired by J. M. Keynes, and the increasingly strident neoliberal economists. For a while, the socially minded utilitarians were successful, and largely justified the creation of extensive welfare states on the grounds that a more even distribution of goods and services would make people happier and prevent needless suffering. Neil Vallelly’s superb new book Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness is a polemic against the emptiness of the neoliberal era. It examines both its ideological roots, history, and political culture. This is an excerpt of Neil Vallely’s “ Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness.” Out now from Goldsmiths Press.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment