WILHELM RÖPKE AND THE SPIRITUALITY OF NEOLIBERALISM

Abstract

What do we mean by “neoliberalism”? There are many ways to answer this question, but the most frequent response is to associate to neoliberalism with the implementation of measures strictly economic; in fact, it is said that the neoliberals, almost by congenital defect, cannot think the reality beyond the numbers and the abstract prescriptions. Following the archaeological-genealogical method of Michel Foucault and of some of its contemporary interpreters, this article reviews and widen that critical conception. Our hypothesis is that neoliberalism cannot be reduced to a mere “economicism” because it has a “spiritual” dimension –that is to say, a field of practices and discourses that conforms in response to the excessive rationalism of modern societies. The purpose is to transform men from within, making them more capable to access to a set of values and to assimilate certain forms of behaviour. According to this article, in the writings of Wilhelm Röpke, a German economist and sociologist of the mid-20th century, is perfectly seen the spiritual dimension of neoliberalism. Röpke proposed a “diagnosis” and a “therapeutic”. The diagnosis argues that men have a spiritual disease called “massification” and “proletarianization”, while the therapeutic seeks to make these men entrepreneurs of themselves. This would be the way to overcome the conflicts of capitalism: transforming to massificated and proletarianized man in a subject fully committed with their profession. We do not intend to recover a thought almost forgotten by history, but to explore the limits of our present, especially our forms of subjectivity. Although many of the contemporary criticisms have not seen this, it is necessary to ask how the diagnostics and the therapeutic proposals by neoliberals as Röpke persist in our present. Here we will not give definite answers, but some indications in this regard.