The Ungovernable Society

A Genealogy of Authoritarian Liberalism

Grégoire Chamayou, Andrew Brown

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English

Polity Press
19 March 2021

Politics & government; Economic systems & structures

Rebellion was in the air. Workers were on strike, students were demonstrating on campuses, discipline was breaking down. No relation of domination was left untouched – the relation between the sexes, the racial order, the hierarchies of class, relationships in families, workplaces and colleges. The upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s quickly spread through all sectors of social and economic life, threatening to make society ungovernable. This crisis was also the birthplace of the authoritarian liberalism which continues to cast its shadow across the world in which we now live.

To ward off the threat, new arts of government were devised by elites in business-related circles, which included a war against the trade unions, the primacy of shareholder value and a dethroning of politics. The neoliberalism that thus began its triumphal march was not, however, determined by a simple ‘state phobia’ and a desire to free up the economy from government interference. On the contrary, the strategy for overcoming the crisis of governability consisted in an authoritarian liberalism in which the liberalization of society went hand-in-hand with new forms of power imposed from above: a ‘strong state’ for a ‘free economy’ became the new magic formula of our capitalist societies.

The new arts of government devised by ruling elites are still with us today and we can understand their nature and lasting influence only by re-examining the history of the conflicts that brought them into being.

By: Grégoire Chamayou
Translated by: Andrew Brown
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 224mm, Width: 150mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781509542017
ISBN 10: 1509542019
Pages: 350
Publication Date: 19 March 2021
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Table of contents:Introduction Part I. Indocile workers Chapter One. Indiscipline on the shop floor Chapter Two. Human resources Chapter Three. Social insecurity Chapter Four. War on the unions Part Two. Managerial revolution Chapter Five. A theological crisis Chapter Six. Ethical managerialism Chapter Seven. Disciplining the managers Chapter Eight. Catallarchy Part Three. Attack on free enterprise Chapter Nine. Private government under siege Chapter Ten. The battle of ideas Chapter Eleven. How to react? Chapter Twelve. The corporation does not exist Chapter Thirteen. Police theories of the firm Part Four. A world of protesters Chapter Fourteen. Corporate counter-activism Chapter Fifteen. The production of the dominant dialogy Chapter Sixteen. Issue management Chapter Seventeen. Stakeholders Part Five. New regulations Chapter Eighteen. Soft law Chapter Nineteen. Costs/benefits Chapter Twenty. A critique of political ecology Chapter Twenty-One. Making people responsible Part Six. The ungovernable state Chapter Twenty-Two. The crisis of governability of the democracies Chapter Twenty-Three. Hayek in Chile Chapter Twenty-Four. The sources of authoritarian liberalism Chapter Twenty-Five. Dethroning politics Chapter Twenty-Six. The micropolitics of privatization Conclusion Notes Index

Grégoire Chamayou is a researcher at the CNRS, Paris

Reviews for The Ungovernable Society: A Genealogy of Authoritarian Liberalism

'A comprehensive account, both historical and systematic, of how and why in the 1970s business began to perceive democratic capitalism as ungovernable, and what it tried to do about this: from corporate reform to strengthening the state while weakening democracy. The book adds importantly to our understanding of the neoliberal revolution, its origins and objectives, successes and failures.' Wolfgang Streeck, Emeritus Director and Senior Research Associate, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany 'Gregoire Chamayou provides a dazzling and wide-ranging genealogy of the intellectual ideas and political strategies which were used to undermine democracy and roll back the economic security and greater equality of the post-war years. An original and rewarding read.' Andrew Gamble, SPERI, University of Sheffield