Entrepreneur of Self

Definition

The entrepreneur of self names the subjectivity that neoliberal governmentality produces, in which each individual is understood and managed as a "human capital" that must be administered, invested in, and competitively positioned. Following Foucault's Birth of Biopolitics and Gary Becker's human-capital theory, the worker becomes "an active economic subject" — "entrepreneurs of the self, capitalists who administer their own capital." Neoliberalism extends economic analysis "into a previously unexplored domain," making every sphere (family, marriage, crime, education) a matter of competitive self-investment, with all responsibility for success or failure individualized.

Key Thinkers

• Mari Galdas — Foucault's account of governmentality and the entrepreneurial subject (this wiki's exposition).
• (Related: Michel Foucault. Not yet paged: Gary Becker, Pierre Dardot & Christian Laval — see log.)

Related Concepts

• Neoliberal Metropolis — the financialized city that houses the entrepreneurial self.
• Indebted Man — the complementary neoliberal subject: passive subjection through debt vs. active self-investment.
• Noopolitics — the governance of the mind/affect that the entrepreneurial self internalizes.
• Ideology — the subject-forming dimension of neoliberal reason.
• Capitalist Realism — the "business ontology" that naturalizes the entrepreneur-of-self.
• Critical Architecture — the possibility of resistant subjectivities ("counter-conducts").

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Foucault and Neoliberal Society: The Worker as "Entrepreneur of Self"
• Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and Ethics (Hamann)
• Parametricism Is the Architecture 'of Neoliberalism Itself'
• Parametricism as Style — Parametricist Manifesto
• After Ford
• The Architecture of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and Compliance
• What is 'Everyday Life'? An Exploration of its Political Connections
• Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology (Virilio 1977) — Bratton's introduction explicitly links dromocracy to governmentality; the control of circulation speeds as a parallel to the entrepreneurial subject's self-optimization.

Open Questions

• Does parametricism/neoliberal architecture presuppose and produce the entrepreneur-of-self, and can "counter-conducts" contest it from within the built environment?