Entrepreneur and Disaster Survivor Neoliberal Production of Psychological Subject

• Published in: Japanese Sociological Review Vol. 61; no. 4; pp. 455 - 472
• Main Author: SHIBUYA, Nozomu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: The Japan Sociological Society 31.03.2011
• Subjects: Emotions; Entrepreneurship; Foucault; Foucault, Michel; Neoliberalism; Quality of Life; Self Actualization; self-actualizing; shock doctrine; Workers
• ISSN: 0021-5414; 1884-2755
• DOI: 10.4057/jsr.61.455

Referring to the idea put forth by Foucault, this article shows the power of neoliberalism in constructing the self-actualizing "entrepreneurial self" and addresses the problems that arise from the entrepreneurial self-identity in terms of emotional labor. However, despite these difficulties, people are motivated to maintain their entrepreneurial selves, especially those who are less likely to be entrepreneurial such as precarious workers. Why is this so? Entrepreneurial aspiration is not necessarily limited by one's objective conditions of life. This paper, thus, focuses on the sense of discontent and despair produced by the psychological shock that Naomi Klein considers indispensable for the sustenance of neoliberalism and argues that the social production of discontent and despair is a condition of entrepreneurial aspiration and therefore, a condition of neoliberal subjectivity.