NEOLİBERALİZMİN POLİTİK TAHAYYÜLÜ: SERBEST PİYASANIN “BÜYÜSÜ”

Year 2021, Issue: 31, 225 - 240, 12.05.2021

Ali Rıza Taşkale

Abstract

Neoliberal tahayyül nedir ve onu oluşturan temel özellikler nelerdir? Neoliberal tahayyül alternatif gelecek tasarımlarının önünü nasıl kapatır? Bu makale, neoliberalizmin politik tahayyülünü kavramsallaştırmayı amaçlamaktadır. Neoliberalizmin politik tahayyülü, kendimizi ve içinde yaşadığımız toplumsal gerçekliği şekillendiren, yapılandıran, fakat aynı zamanda da sınırlayan bir politik tahayyüldür. Bu anlamda, neoliberalizm sadece ekonomik bir rasyonelliğe indirgenemez; aynı zamanda imgeler, ön varsayımlar ve kültürel aygıtlardan da oluşan bir tahayyüle sahiptir. Neoliberalizmin politik tahayyülü, kimin kamusal tartışmalara müdahale edeceğini, kimin bilgisinin otorite olarak kabul edileceğini, hangi tür argümanların onaylanacağını ve dolayısıyla kimin bakış açısının siyasete dahil edilip dışlanacağını belirler. Yazının temel iddiası şudur: neoliberalizmin politik bir tahayyülü vardır ve bu tahayyül, bireyin ve nüfusların verili düzen lehine davranması için, özellikle serbest piyasa tarafından belirlenen bir tahayyüldür. Neoliberalizm, yaşamı esasen serbest piyasa üzerinden algılar.

Keywords

neoliberalizm, politik tahayyül, serbest piyasa, biyopolitika

THE POLITICAL IMAGINARY OF NEOLIBERALISM: “MAGIC” OF FREE MARKET

Abstract

What is a neoliberal imaginary and how is it constituted? How does it foreclose alternative future imaginaries? This article explores a better conceptualisation of what I call ‘the political imaginary of neoliberalism’, that is the images, presuppositions, cultural apparatuses, and other modes of control and representation through which neoliberalism has established and maintains a hegemonic position. It seeks to demonstrate that neoliberalism should not be understood only as an economic doctrine but as a comprehensive framework, a truly political imaginary, that shapes, structures but also restrains how we see and understand ourselves, the social reality we live in and what we imagine as possible. The political imaginary of neoliberalism delineates who can credibly intervene in public debates, whose knowledge is accepted as authoritative, what type of arguments are accepted, and hence, whose perspectives are included and excluded in politics. The main contention of the article is that neoliberalism has a political imaginary, which is specifically shaped by free market policies. This is a process in which politics operates according to a single economic logic, a violent process in which free market appeared to become an unquestionable, naturalised background.

Keywords

neoliberalism, political imaginary, free-market, security, biopolitics, techno-optimism

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