Neoliberalism: Between Utopia and Dystopia
This panel seeks to examine utopian representations of (neo)liberalism in 20th century literature and culture, emphasizing comparative connections to (neo)liberal political philosophy and economic theory.
In his famous work The Great Transformation, liberal political economist Karl Polanyi writes “civilization will continue to exist when the Utopian experiment of a self-regulating market will be no more than a memory.” Critical of the pure market society, Polanyi argues that the 19th century utopian vision of a pure market society eventuates in the end of civilization itself—a veritable dystopia of constant social unrest. Jaime Peck argues more recently that the “galvanizing utopian vision of freedom” neoliberalism promotes is nonetheless “a vagarious and crisis-strewn course.” In each case, the neoliberal utopian ideal of individual freedom in market society marks the impetus toward a dystopian society of alienation, inequality, and social instability.