Insecurity, Damaged Life and Psychic Exploitation: The Stabilization of Neoliberalism

Abstract

This chapter begins with the observation of the paradoxical coexistence and simultaneity of insecurity and stability in the contemporary interregnum of the neoliberal social order. Taking its lead from Adorno, it seeks to critically conceptualize and diagnostically disclose the structural conditions and contradictions from which this situation emerges, from the perspective of the separation of society and the individual and the perception of such. The analysis reveals the continuing stabilization of neoliberalism today to rest on the positive feedback of damaged life in which the pathological effects of its social order engender a corresponding individual psychology that contributes to maintaining the central goal and core principle of the social order and, in doing so, deepen its pathological effects. This feedback emerges from the structural conditions of an ecological and metabolic dominance of capital accumulation. Correspondingly, the analysis unveils a new form of exploitation within this constellation as psychic exploitation; that is, a theft of cognitive capacities, time and wealth as consciousness and living beings are cannibalized for capital accumulation. That psychic exploitation furthers self-exploitation, closes the loop and stabilizes the neoliberal social order in its present interregnum. This chapter begins with an exposition of Luhmann’s social theory as a foundation in the first part. This is followed by a critical historical and structural analysis in the second part. Both are combined to unfold the feedback of damaged life and psychic exploitation in the third part.