Contemporary life is largely structured by shared practices of self-government. When we make decisions as consumers, as employees, as citizens, we decide what is best for ourselves and act in ways that businesses and other social institutions can coordinate. But what are the terms by which contemporary self-government occurs? In this course, we examine the modern history of reasoning about self-government in order to trace the emergence of contemporary neoliberal practices of self-government out of earlier liberal practices. We will read texts by Adam Smith, Michel Foucault, Frederick Douglass, Mary Wollstonecraft, Wendy Brown, Friedrich Hayek, Gary Becker, and others in order to grasp the development of techniques of self-government over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.
- Teacher: Daniel Wack