Antonio Moretti

In his 1979 course Birth of biopolitics, Michel Foucault defined the concept of homo œconomicus as described and sketched by the liberal tradition as eminently governable. His goal was to underline a peculiar feat of this subject: given a certain input in the form of an environmental change, it is legit to foresee the output in advance. A considerable part of contemporary behavioural economics is founded on the critique of homo œconomicus’s alleged rational choice. On the contrary, according to certain current neuroscientific and psychological research, it is possible to argue that the behaviour of the average economic agent
is far from rational and based heavily on biases, fallacies and heuristics. Among others, this is 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Richard H. Thaler’s position. Yet, we argue that Thaler’s nudge theory and its consequent libertarian paternalism is entirely ascribable to Foucault’s remarks on the eminent governability of the economical subject. Which are then the possibilities of autonomous subjectivation available when the governmental instrument is the behaviour itself?


CultureLab | Questões de Subjectividade: Filosofia e Literatura