scholarly journals Neoliberal governmentality, knowledge work, and thumos

2021 ◽  
Vol Volume XIV Issue 1-2 (Articles) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benda Hofmeyr
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Knowledge Worker ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
The Self ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
Gary Becker ◽  
Smart Technologies

Research has shown that the knowledge worker, the decisive driver of the knowledge economy, works increasingly longer hours. In fact, it would appear that instead of working to live, they live to work. There appears to be three reasons for this living-to-work development. First, the knowledge worker ‘has to’ on account of the pressure to become ever more efficient. Such pressure translates into internalized coercion in the case of the self-responsible knowledge worker. Secondly, working is constant, because the Internet and smart technologies and mobile devices have made it ‘possible’. It gives the worker the capacity and management omnipotent control. In the final instance, the neoliberal knowledge worker works all the time because s/he paradoxically ‘wants to’. It is a curious phenomenon, because this compulsive working is concomitant with a rise of a host of physical, emotional, and psychological disorders as well as the erosion of social bonds. The paradox is exacerbated by the fact that the knowledge worker does not derive any of the usual utilities or satisfactions associated with hard work. Elsewhere I have ascribed this apparent contradiction at the heart of the living-to-work phenomenon to the invisible thumotic satisfaction generated by knowledge work. In the present article, I argue that neoliberal governmentality has found a way to tether thumos directly to the profit incentive. I draw on Foucault’s 1978-1979 Collége de France lecture course in which he analysed neoliberal governmentality with specific emphasis on the work of the neoliberal theorist of human capital, Gary Becker.

scholarly journals The Relation Between Work and Thumos. A Critical Interrogation of the Motivation Behind Knowledge Work Compulsion

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benda Hofmeyr
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Workers ◽  
Knowledge Worker ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
To Come

In this paper I attempt to come to a critical understanding of an intriguing phenomenon at the heart of a broader question, i.e. what are we today – as knowledge workers – in relation to our present understood as the globalising neoliberal governmentality in which life is reduced to constant work under conditions of comprehensive control? Previous attempts to interrogate the nature of knowledge work and the knowledge worker have led me to conclude that these workers do not work to live, but live to work. An important reason seems to be that the neoliberal knowledge worker works all the time because s/he paradoxically wants to. This presents a paradox since the overinvestment in knowledge work does not appear to generate proportionate gains for the working subject. In my attempt to arrive at some kind of explication for this phenomenon of compulsive work, I critically interrogate Fukuyama’s contention that work has a thumotic origin. To this end I briefly discuss Plato’s conceptualisation of thumos and Hegel’s understanding of the significance of labour.

The Ecosystem of Business Education in a Technology Environment

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-57
Author(s):  
Jane Hartman Frankel
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Knowledge Workers ◽  
Knowledge Worker ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Project Work ◽  
Positive Direction ◽  
Individual Knowledge ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Sustainable Organizations

: The Knowledge Economy is the environment within which we live and work today. It impacts all work, both within organizations and the emerging workforce. The Knowledge Economy relies on workers’ expertise (individual knowledge) and the informed integration of this knowledge to move an organization in a positive direction. This article describes a Knowledge Economy program (Project-based Internships) that enables organizations and new workforce members to experience and grasp the importance of knowledge work in sustaining and growing organizations. This is especially applicable to the technology domain as the founders in this area are focused on their individual knowledge of science and technology. They often need to build sustainable organizations with knowledge work to deliver and sustain their expert inventions and/or discoveries. : Knowledge work has two distinct attributes that define its orientation and operation. Knowledge workers are autonomous in their work and they are asset-thinkers, meaning that all work is focused on a result, which will create value for an organization. Within these two attributes, knowledge workers also must recognize the difference between quality and quantity, use project structures, and continuously evaluate for learning and innovation. : Our current education system does not recognize the individual knowledge perspective in shaping students’ experiences. Project-based work is structured to empower and enable students’ experiences to be knowledge work to foster this thinking and its best practices and to create the environment that supports knowledge work within the organizations that the knowledge worker serves. : Various current-day methodologies are built into the structured project work, such as The Lean Startup, the recognition of invisible capital and growth mindsets, building knowledge work capabilities, and, finally, building an organizational environment in which success will thrive.

CRITICAL NOTICE

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Guala
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
General Theme ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Contemporary Liberalism ◽  
Academic Year ◽  
Critical Notice

The title of this book is rather misleading. “Birth of neoliberal governmentality,” or something like that, would have been more faithful to its contents. In Foucault's vocabulary, “biopolitics” is the “rationalisation” of “governmentality” (p. 261): it's the theory, in other words, as opposed to the art (governmentality) of managing people. The mismatch between title and content is easily explained: the general theme of the courses at the Collège de France had to be announced at the beginning of each academic year. It is part of the mandate of every professor at the Collège, however, that his lectures should follow closely his current research. As a consequence it wasn't unusual for Foucault to take new directions while he was lecturing. In 1979, for the first and only time in his career, he took a diversion into contemporary political philosophy. His principal object of investigation became “neoliberal” political economy. More precisely, he got increasingly interested in those strands of contemporary liberalism that use economic science both as a principle of limitation and of inspiration for the management of people.

scholarly journals The Wider Impacts of Universities: Habermas on Learning Processes and Universities

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper Eckhardt Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
The Self ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Functionalist Theory ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

The discourse of reform in higher education tends to focus narrowly on employability and the relationship between higher education and the labor market. Universities as research institutions are now considered solely in the dominant discourse of innovation. This way of conceiving universities is inspired by functionalist theory that focuses on the imperatives of a knowledge economy. Taking a departure in the theory of society developed by Jürgen Habermas this paper seeks to provide a theoretical framework for an empirical comparative analysis on the wider societal impact of universities. It is the argument that the wider impacts of higher education and research at universities must be seen in a more complex vision of modern societies. The paper is thus primarily a re-reading of Habermas’ critique of functionalist views of the university and an application of Habermas’ critique on current issues in the debates on higher education. A special discussion will be taken on issues of the self in view of the current tendencies to regard all education from the standpoint of the economic outputs.

Feminist Perspectives on the Self

2021 ◽  
pp. 162-179
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
The Self ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Feminist Perspectives

This chapter discusses feminist critiques of the conventional conceptions of the self. They believe that these conceptions are incomplete and misleading as they ignore the multiple sources of social identity constituted by one's gender, sexual orientation, race, class, age, ethnicity, among others. They charge that Kantian and homo economicus views of the self are androcentric and masculinist. Feminist philosophical work on the self has taken three main tacks: critique of established views of the self, reclamation of women's selfhood, and reconceptualisation of the self to incorporate women's experience. Their reclamation strategies include revaluation of the 'feminine' activities of mothering and other modes for maintaining vital social bonds through the development of care ethics and eros ethics, exploration of separatist practices, rethinking autonomy to include women by moving beyond the Kantian and homo economicus models, and reclamation of sexual difference through a symbolic analysis of female identity.

The Call for Transformational Governance in the Knowledge Economy

2009 ◽  
pp. 271-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Yeo ◽  
Eileen Trauth
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Knowledge Economies ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Increasingly, regions are developing initiatives towards building a knowledge economy. This change is also bringing about a transition from more static forms of information technology (IT) work to more dynamic forms of knowledge work. It follows that knowledge industries will involve more multifaceted forms of collaboration among workers and organizations using IT. In view of the complexities in knowledge work, this chapter develops an argument for a transformational approach to governance, whereby policymakers create mechanisms to continuously evaluate local social contexts so as to continuously adapt policies to unique local conditions. This argument is based on the results of three markedly different case studies of knowledge economies: San Joaquin Valley, California; Ennis, Ireland; and Singapore. These data are used to show how local and unique social conditions influence the sustainability of a knowledge economy. Given the unique characteristics of local contexts, a transformational approach represents one useful approach to governance.

scholarly journals A espiritualidade ontem e hoje: Foucault e a hermenêutica de si

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-212
Author(s):  
Eduardo SUGIZAKI ◽  
Mário F. F. ROSA
Keyword(s):  
Long Range ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Xix Century

The purpose of this article presents the concept of hermeneutics of the self or spirituality that appears in the ’80s Foucault’s work in a course called A hermeneutic of the subject (L’herméneutique du sujet), given in 1982 at the College de France. In order to understand the presentation of this concept as rooted philosophically in his work, I have attempted to situate the way he perceived the birth and flourishing of the hermeneutic of the self during the period of Imperial Rome, its disappearance, in the Classics Age, and its resurrection in the XIX century. I attempted to explain the meaning of this historical perspective on a long range level, on a philosophical and historical horizon. I have henceforth attempted to articulate the ‘modus operandi’ called the ‘history of the modes of subjectiveness’, that characterizes his endeavour of the 1980s with the archaeology of knowing and the geneology of power that characterizes his research during the two previous decades. Thus I have attempted, properly speaking, to characterize spirituality as a form of the constitution of the self in itself as a parallel to the fabrication of the subject by the other in the formation of the subject as subjected.

scholarly journals An Analysis Of Perceptions Regarding Knowledge-Worker Instructional Needs In Graduate Management Programs

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Scully ◽  
John W. Russette ◽  
Robert Preziosi ◽  
Francisco De Cossio
Keyword(s):  
Literature Search ◽  
Knowledge Workers ◽  
Knowledge Worker ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Demographic Groups ◽  
Item Questionnaire ◽  
Global Commerce ◽  
Instructional Needs

Relevance in Management programs has become a major issue for colleges and universities. The literature posits that proactive educational institutions need to retool and refocus their programs to be consistent with business organizations which have been transformed by technology and global commerce. This study addresses the reliability of contemporary perceptions and postulates expressed in the literature related to effectively managing knowledge-work professionals. A literature search of knowledge-worker writings was collected and perceptions were extracted for further evaluation. These extracted attributes were set into a thirty-five item questionnaire and administered to three demographic groups including: (a) knowledge-workers, (b) knowledge-worker managers, and (c) knowledge worker educators. Results indicate that if such a validated perception-based program were offered it would raise fulfillment of needs for knowledge-workers, managers, and educators and offer a unique, identifiable program related to teaching and researching related to this new management paradigm.

scholarly journals Coloniality in the Scramble for African Knowledge: A Decolonial Political Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Jethro Mpofu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Global South ◽  
The Self ◽  
Global Information ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
The Universe

The scramble to describe Africa, and to name the African condition in the global information and knowledge economy is a colossal enterprise whose stampede is as suffocating as the Berlin Conference of 1884 that saw Africa being sliced up into convenient pieces of colonies, to be shared among the self-appointed masters of the universe. A bold assumption of this paper is that all powers, be they dominating or liberating, are accompanied by complementing knowledges. The resistance to Eurocentric knowledge of Africa by scholars and intellectuals in the African academy is as sweaty and as bloody as the nationalist and pan-Africanist battles that dethroned judicial colonialism in Africa and liquidated administrative apartheid in South Africa. Colonialism was accompanied by colonial knowledge of Africa, consequently Afrocentric activists and scholars are generating decolonial African knowledge in resistance and negation to coloniality, which is a power that is the oxygen of colonialism and which lives after colonialism has died. Combative Afrocentric schools of thought such as Afrikology, Afrocentricism, negritude, bolekaja criticism and decolonial thought have been generated by thinkers and philosophers in the global South to contest the Eurocentric domineering epistemologies on Africa. Decolonial thought and its view on ‘unthinking’ Eurocentric epistemologies on Africa is used to unpack the hidden elements of coloniality in the scramble for African knowledge.

The Concept of Interest

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert O. Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Self ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
Économie Politique ◽  
Personal Welfare ◽  
Analytical Power

This chapter showcases one of Hirschman's keynote lectures at the Collège de France. Hirschman had chosen the theme of an enlarged political economy (une économie politique élargie) to show that the idea—the concept—of “interest” had a history and had been the battleground for economists since the seventeenth century. It is linked, however, not just to the concept of the self, but to the idea of political power itself. Through this lecture, Hirschman attempts to show that personal welfare and statecraft were intertwined from the start. The effort to narrow the definition had threatened to separate behaviors and activities from one domain of life from that of another, and distinguish selfish or “interested” motivations from altruistic or “ethical” actions. This trend had drained the concept itself of its great analytical power.

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