Neuroliberalism

Behavioural Government in the Twenty-First Century

Mark Whitehead, Rhys Jones, Rachel Lilley, Jessica Pykett, Rachel Howell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317410164
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Many governments in the developed world can now best be described as 'neuroliberal': having a combination of neoliberal principles with policy initiatives derived from insights in the behavioural sciences.

Neuroliberalism presents the results of the first critical global study of the impacts of the behavioural sciences on public policy and government actions, including behavioural economics, behavioural psychology and neuroeconomics. Drawing on interviews with leading behaviour change experts, organizations and policy-makers, and discussed in alignment with a series of international case studies, this volume provides a critical analysis of the ethical, economic, political and constitutional implications of behaviourally oriented government. It explores the impacts of the behavioural sciences on everyday life through a series of themes, including: understandings of the human subject; interpretations of freedom; the changing form and function of the state; the changing role of the corporation in society; and the design of everyday environments and technologies.

The research presented in this volume reveals a diverse set of neuroliberal approaches to government that offer policy-makers and behaviour change professionals a real choice in relation to the systems of behavioural government they can implement. This book also argues that the behavioural sciences have the potential to support much more effective systems of government, but also generate new ethical concerns that policy-makers should be aware of.

1
NEUROLIBERALISM

Introduction

It is normally advised that when choosing the title of a book you should adopt one of two strategies. Your first is to select something that is immediately arresting: Discipline and Punish perhaps, or even better, The End of History and the Last Man. These are titles that seem to compel a potential reader to pick up a book and find out what it is all about. The other option is to lace your book title with well-known terms and concepts: in the 1990s that may have been globalization or social capital, in the 2000s climate change, resilience and security. What you absolutely should not do is burden your book with a title that very few people have ever heard of, and that many may even have trouble pronouncing. So, neuroliberalism …

Government and the behavioural sciences

The idea of neuroliberalism is the central focus of this volume and as with all neologisms it requires some provisional explanation. Most simply, we use neuroliberalism to refer to the use of behavioural, psychological and neurological insights to deliberately shape and govern human conduct within free societies. There are three aspects of neuroliberalism that we want to highlight at this point. First, neuroliberalism is, in part, based upon emerging insights into the role of the central nervous system (and in particular the brain) within the constitution of human decision making and social life (Damasio, 1996). Recent advances in the neurosciences now afford us opportunities to see the brain and its role in social and biological life in ways that were previously unimaginable (Rose and Abi-Rached, 2013). But, in keeping with much contemporary work within the behavioural sciences, we use the prefix neuro to refer to more than the brain, neuron, spinal cord and nervous system. For us the zone of the neuro spans the science of neurology and the psychology of neurosis: it is in effect the meeting place of brain, mind and behaviour. This volume is framed by recent developments within the neurological, psychological and broader behavioural sciences, which have demonstrated that actually existing human behaviour is conducted in ways that are very different from the popular assumptions we hold. While as humans we like to cling to the myth that our behaviour is the product of well informed, deliberative and well-balanced decision making (or rationality), the sciences of behaviour are telling us something quite different.

Neuroliberalism denotes the arrival of a more complex (and certainly more complicating) vision of the human within various schemes of government- and conduct-shaping activities. These schemes of human government can be seen everywhere: the voting booth and the supermarket, in the tax office and on Facebook, in job centres and the driving seat of your car. The vision of the human condition on which these schemes are based comprehends behaviour as more than individual acts of calculated self-interest and strategy, and recognizes the vital role of emotional responses (including joy, suspicion, love, anger, relief, anxiety) habits, intuition, social norms, behavioural heuristics, group mimicry inter alia, within human life. Furthermore, neuroliberalism is characterized by an appreciation of the role of the automatic, unconscious and involuntary within human action, and an ability to be able to predict, respond, regulate, enhance and exploit these behavioural vectors. On these terms, neuroliberalism seeks to govern in and through aspects of human behaviour that have previously been seen as either insignificant or unknowable aspects of social life.

Neuroliberalism and freedom

The second aspect of neuroliberalism that we wish to highlight in this brief introduction is its connections to liberal society and associated ideas of liberalism. The principles of liberalism find their origins in the European Enlightenment and stress the moral principles of autonomy and equity. In stressing the equality of each citizen and their right to a life of self-determination, liberalism was, in large part, a reaction against the hereditary power, political despotism and religious dogmas that had characterized the medieval world order (Foucault, 2007 [2004]). While liberalism has much in common with democracy, they are actually distinct categories. Alexis de Tocqueville emphasized this distinction in his classic book Democracy in America when he described the ‘despotism of the majority’ (2002 [1835]). De Tocqueville used the notion of collective forms of despotism to argue that even within democracies, the opinion of the majority does not provide a mandate for that majority to interfere in the details of liberal citizens’ everyday life. Liberalism is thus characterized not only by equity and autonomy, but also by tolerance of views and behaviours that run against popular orthodoxy (Furedi, 2011). Despite its deployment of behavioural forms of power, which often operate at unconscious levels, neuroliberalism is firmly grounded in the principles of liberalism (see Sunstein, 2014).¹ As we will see later in this volume, in order to continue to wed the moral norms of liberal society with new insights into the human condition, neuroliberalism is characterized by a rethinking of the notions of autonomy, equity and tolerance and the broader role of the government in society.

John Stuart Mill famously outlined the limits of governmental power within liberal societies on the following terms:

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over a member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant (sic).

(1985 [1859]: 68)

The ‘harm to others principle’ has been something of leitmotif of liberalism and a test bed for those societies who claim to be liberal. We mention it here because it has become a touchstone of debate for neuroliberalism (see Sunstein, 2014, 2016). Through revised interpretations of human autonomy and equity, and the application of new styles of behavioural governance, neuroliberalism has sought to enable governmental influence within the personal affairs of individual citizens (particularly in relation to their health and financial practices). While these forms of intervention have not necessarily been ‘against the will’ of citizens, they have often been based on a circumscribed vision of human will. We will say more about the particular styles of behavioural government employed within neuroliberalism, and its implications for classical understandings of human autonomy later in this volume, but at this point it is important to assert that neuroliberalism seeks to combine new forms of behavioural power with liberal social norms.

From neo to neuroliberalism

The third of aspect of neuroliberalism to emphasize is that it is a direct play on the word neoliberalism. While providing a convenient linguistic echo of neoliberalism, it is our contention that neuroliberal forms of government are deeply interconnected with (if still distinct from) neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is a significant concept that is now used widely across the social sciences. Described by John Clarke as simultaneously omnipresent, omnipotent and promiscuous, the notion of neoliberalism is the subject of much debate and controversy (Clarke, 2008). Put simply, neoliberalism is a system of government that promotes the use of market-oriented styles of social and economic organization (Peck, 2010). According to Friedrich Von Hayek – one of the founding fathers of the neoliberal thought collective – neoliberalism finds its origins in the terminal decline of liberal Victorian values that began around 1870 (Hayek, 1944; Mirowski and Plehwe, 2009). In response to the associated rise of big government, state regulation, bureaucracy and coercion, a group of scholars, led by prominent thinkers such as Von Hayek, explored the ways in which market-based societies could provide bulwarks against the rise of socialism and fascism (ibid.; David, 2014; Mirowski and Plehwe, 2009). At its epistemological core, neoliberalism seeks to address the fundamental problem that faces liberal societies: how is it possible to harmonize the desire for freedom with the needs for socio-economic stability (Friedman, 2002 [1982]). According to neoliberal thinking, markets provide contexts within which freedom can thrive because they encourage the entrepreneurial spirit of individuals (which itself requires freedom), and produce inherently unpredictable outcomes (which are difficult to coercively shape to favour one social group above another) (Davies, 2014). At one and the same time, neoliberalism is seen to afford stability to a community through the profit motivation and rules of voluntary market exchange. While often equated with the reincarnation of Victorian laissez-faire capitalism, neoliberalism is a ‘new’ form of liberalism to the extent that it generally acknowledges the need for a broader role for the state within society than classical liberalism, albeit largely as an arbiter of market-based transactions (Davies, 2014; Hayek, 1944).

While the neoliberal thought collective first emerged in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s, it was not until the late 1970s that these ideas started to have a significant impact on public policy and governance. David Harvey identifies the years between 1978 and 1980 as a ‘revolutionary turning point in the world’s social and economic history’ and the birth point of neoliberal government (2005: 1). This three-year period was witness to Deng Xiaoping’s first moves towards economic liberalization in China, the election of Margaret Thatcher as British Prime Minister, and the coming to power of Ronald Reagan in the US (ibid.). These leaders were the first to attempt the systematic application of neoliberal ideas at a national level. Subsequently, neoliberal practices have spread around the world to the point at which only a very small number of states could now be considered not to be neoliberal to some extent. Over time, the connection between neoliberalism and personal freedom has become somewhat obscured. Where neoliberal economic policies have been adopted by politically repressive regimes such as China, Chile and Argentina in the 1970s, the link between economic and political freedom has become totally lost (Klein, 2004). Even in more liberal political states, neoliberalism has tended to become associated with supporting the freedoms of the corporate sector more than the general populace (Davies, 2014). Notwithstanding this, we claim that in societies with liberal political traditions, neoliberal governance continues to be founded upon an enduring belief in the ability of markets to maintain equity (particularly in relation to opportunities to participate in the marketplace) and liberty (in relation to the freedom to choose what you produce and consume).

The relation between neuro- and neo-liberalism can be understood in two general ways. First, neuroliberalism is a reaction to neoliberalism. In one context, neuroliberalism reacts to the neoliberal depiction of humans as rational market actors: instead claiming that human behaviour is composed of a much more varied set of rational and ‘irrational’ drivers. In another context, neuroliberalism reflects a response to some of the socio-economic problems that neoliberalism appears to have produced: particularly in relation to rising levels of personal and collective debt, climate change, unhealthy lifestyles and political disengagement. Neuroliberalism is in part predicated on the assertion that many of the problems of modern liberal societies derive from false assumptions about the ways in which people act in the free market, and the failure of free markets to consistently facilitate personal autonomy. Second, we claim that in many of its iterations, neuroliberalism continues to support the market-based orthodoxies of neoliberal government. To these ends, while neuroliberalism reveals flaws in the logics of neoliberalism – relating to both the nature of human behaviour within markets and the connections between markets and human autonomy – it utilizes these insights to provide governmental correctives that simultaneously recognize the limits of markets, and continue to support market-based values and modes of operation.

Neuroliberal developments

So far our discussion of neuroliberalism has been relatively abstract. However, within this volume we claim that neuroliberalism can be seen in a series of actually existing systems of, and experiments in, behavioural government. As a technique of government, neuroliberalism is most commonly associated with the rise of behavioural insights teams and so-called nudge units within a series of states including France, Germany, the Netherlands, New South Wales (Australia), the UK and the USA (Whitehead et al., 2014) (see Chapter 6 in this volume). Neuroliberalism is also evident in the programmes and policies of a series of international organizations such the World Bank, OECD, the World Economic Forum and USAID. And neuroliberal techniques are also providing the basis for a new sector of economic development, as a bewildering array of new start-ups (including The Behavioural Edge, MindLab, Behavioural Architects, Change Lab and Ogilvy Change) seek to commercialize the emerging insights of the behavioural sciences (see Chapter 7 in this volume). Neuroliberal insights are also evident in the operation of more established corporations such as Volkswagen, Nike, Facebook and Unilever. These companies are increasingly exhibiting the characteristics of neuroliberalism in the way that they seek to sell goods and in the development of novel corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Neuroliberalism is also evident within a series of emerging and experimental partnerships between academia, governments and corporations. There are now a series of academic centres including the Behavioural Insights Group at Harvard, The Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London, The Centre for Understanding Behaviour Change at Bristol University, iNudgeyou in Denmark and the Self-Regulation Lab in Utrecht, which are exploring how the behavioural, psychological and social sciences can inform new systems of behavioural government. Finally, the principles of neuroliberalism are shaping the work of third sector organizations such as Corporate Culture, Global Action Plan and Action for Happiness, as well as inspiring the development of a new breed of non-governmental organizations such as GreeNudge (Norway).

Having gained some degree of cross-sector acceptance the actual impact of neuroliberalism is being seen in a range of different contexts. These contexts include, but are not limited to: organ donation programmes, pension policies, low-carbon living strategies, corporate social responsibility schemes, urban planning and design initiatives, international aid policies, taxation systems, charitable giving and volunteering initiatives, fitness schemes, healthy eating initiatives, safe driving campaigns, patient care in hospitals and pro-voting schemes. Throughout these varied forms and iterations neuroliberalism has had a decidedly mixed response. While some laud neuroliberal systems of government as a new era of smart, cost-effective, ‘what works’ government, others claim that it raises significant ethical and constitutional issues (compare John et al., 2011 and Jones et al., 2013). In the UK, for example, the House of Lords has already held a full-scale inquiry into the forms of government policy that are associated with neuroliberalism (House of Lords, 2011). Within this volume we critically scrutinize different aspects of neuroliberalism, while trying to consistently avoid seeing it axiomatically in either celebratory or dystopian terms.

It is, perhaps, important at this point to recognize that the emergence of neuroliberalism is not the first, or necessarily most significant, coming together of government and the behavioural sciences. There is a long, complex and often controversial history of interaction between the behavioural sciences and government. This is a history that incorporates the impact of the psychological sciences on statehood in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (see Rose 1998), the Iowa experiments in social climates and democracy (Lezaun and Calvillo, 2013) and the emergence of therapeutic state forms (Nolan, 1998). In this volume we claim that there is something about the extent and novelty of neuroliberalism that invites a renewed critical scrutiny of this broad field. In the remainder of this chapter we begin this process of critique by looking more closely at different examples of neuroliberalism in the world around us. The chapter then moves on to outline the particular set of interpretative perspectives that we hope to bring to this field of enquiry.

Neuroliberalism in the world around us

From invisible hands to animal spirits: (re)interpreting the credit crunch at Deutsche Bank

Any words that contain fifteen letters and end with an ism will inevitably have a somewhat abstract feel. It is therefore important to provisionally outline some of the varied, real-world situations where neuroliberalism is being discussed, implemented and contested. In this way, although we use the word neuroliberalism as a short-hand to signal the influence of behavioual and neurological sciences on the shaping of human conduct in free societies, our approach in this book is to analyse, in historically and geographically specific contexts, varied incarnations of neuroliberal practice. To these ends, we begin our journey at the offices of Deutsche Bank Research in the summer of 2010. Deutsche Bank Research provides independent advice and consultancy to Deutsche Bank on macroeconomic trends. In particular, Deutsche Bank Research applies the insights from social, behavioural and economic science to emerging issues confronting the banking group. In 2010, Deutsche Bank Research, as with many other financial consultancies, was trying to work out what had caused the credit crunch and financial crisis of 2008. In their report Homo Economicus – or more like Homer Simpson (2010), the consultancy drew attention to the underlying psychological assumptions of our economic system. The report observed:

It clearly emerges that in real life people do not always make rational decisions based on established preferences and complete information. In many ways their behaviour thus contradicts the homo economicus model. Much of the behaviour observed is caused through people trying to cope with the complexity of the world around them by approximating, because collating and evaluating all the factors of relevance to a decision overtaxes their mental processing capacity. As a rule these approximation methods deliver serviceable results, but they often also lead to distorted perceptions and systematic flaws.

(Deutsche Bank Research, 2010: 1)

We will reflect in greater detail on the figure of homo economicus (and, indeed, Homer Simpson) later in this volume (see Chapter 3). At this point, however, we want to draw attention to a key feature of neuroliberalism that is being expressed in the work of Deutsche Bank Research. In drawing attention to the relationship between macroeconomic crisis and the ‘psychologically driven inadequacies’ of individuals, Deutsche Bank Research echoes a key principle of certain strands of neuroliberal thought: that failures in neoliberal society can be traced back to the psychological shortcomings of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Neuroliberalism
• 2 An historical geography of neuroliberalism I: applying behavioural insights
• 3 An historical geography of neuroliberalism II: on new behavioural ideas
• 4 The neuroliberal subject: rethinking human nature and reinventing the self
• 5 Redefining freedom: neuroliberal autonomy and citizenship
• 6 The neuroliberal state
• 7 The neuroliberal corporation
• 8 Neuroliberal environments: design, context and materiality
• 9 Practical interventions in neuroliberalism: mindfulness and behaviour change
• Bibliography
• Methodological appendix
• Index