Futilitarianism: On Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness (Goldsmiths Press / PERC Papers)

Product Information

Futility masked as utility is the essence of neoliberalism’s transformation of everyday life. At every turn, we are encouraged as individuals to take on greater personal responsibility, to invest in ourselves wisely and to wring every last drip of utility from any opportunity. At the same time, the social and economic structures that can facilitate such individual acts of utility maximization are repeatedly dismantled and denigrated. As a result, the futilitarian condition has become the dominant human condition in the early 21st century, where individual pursuits of utility maximization are used as examples to convince us all that we do not need strong social infrastructure or better economic safeguards. But as Vallelly points out, it was not to last.“The neoliberals won the long game,” he writes. “The economic stagnation and political crises of 1970s crippled Keynesian logic. In its place, [Friedrich] Hayek and the neoliberal cabal of the Chicago School of Economics chewed the ear of sympathetic politicians in the US, UK, and further afield.” Neoliberal Futilitarianism MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide. Yet futility has rarely featured in any comprehensive way in the study of capitalism. Perhaps this is because futility appears to be a side-effect of capitalist production and its social relations, something that is not intrinsic to the functionality of capitalism. I argue, on the contrary, that the concept of futility deserves more attention in critical examinations of capitalism, especially because futility is central to the development, implementation and longevity of neoliberal capitalism in the early 21st century. Review of Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness by Neil Vallelly (Goldsmiths Press, 2021)

Futilitarianism is a neologism that comprises an argument. In the historical development of utilitarianism and capitalism, Vallelly argues, the principle of utility maximization became entwined with capital accumulation. With the emergence of neoliberal capitalism, however, the logic of utility flipped into one of futility. From the onset of neoliberalism to its contemporary mutations, Vallelly suggests, "existential futility is the logical outcome of the historical relationship between utilitarianism and capitalism" (51). The Hayekian anti-Benthamite vision won the long game in the twentieth century. I argue in the book that neoliberal economists and philosophers, and subsequent neoliberal politicians, were able to imagine and then construct a society which maintained utility maximisation on an individual level as a socially-accepted goal, but completely detached this activity from ideas of the common good or the greatest happiness principle. And thus, futilitarianism was born, where the practice of utility maximisation actively dismantles the common good. But when the proto-neoliberal Ludwig von Mises wrote to Ayn Rand, who herself dismissed the majority of the human race as mediocre at best and “second handers” at worst, he made no bones about it. Most people were “inferior” and owed any and all improvements in their lot to the “effort of men who are better than you.” The MIT Press has been a leader in open access book publishing for over two decades, beginning in 1995 with the publication of William Mitchell’s City of Bits, which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition. My recent book Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness, which is published as part of the Political Economy Research Centre (PERC) Series with Goldsmiths Press, is an attempt to articulate a particular form of existential entrapment within contemporary capitalism. I call this entrapment “the futilitarian condition,” which emerges when individuals are forced to maximise utility—which, under neoliberalism, effectively requires enhancing the myriad conditions to accumulate human capital—but in doing so, this leads to the worsening of our collective social and economic conditions. Through developing the concept “futilitarianism,” I aim to lay the theoretical foundations to both understand this entrapment and to imagine ways of thinking and organising that can help us overcome the futilitarian condition.If maximizing utility leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, as utilitarianism has always proposed, then why is it that as many of us currently maximize our utility—by working endlessly, undertaking further education and training, relentlessly marketing and selling ourselves—we are met with the steady worsening of collective social and economic conditions? In Futilitarianism, social and political theorist Neil Vallelly eloquently tells the story of how neoliberalism transformed the relationship between utility maximization and the common good. In a sense neoliberalism is defined by what Hannah Arendt artfully called a kind of impotent bigness, in which people have enough agency to satisfy their pleasures but but not enough to reclaim the world around them. This is reflected in what Vallelly calls the “semi-futility” of the culture around us, which is for the first time stamped by a sense of permanent hopelessness in the face of its own alienation.

Drawing on a vast array of contemporary examples, from self-help literature and marketing jargon to political speeches and governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vallelly coins several terms—including “the futilitarian condition,” “homo futilitus,” and “semio-futility”—to demonstrate that in the neoliberal decades, the practice of utility maximization traps us in useless and repetitive behaviors that foreclose the possibility of collective happiness. If maximising utility leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, as utilitarianism has always proposed, then why is it that as many of us currently maximize our utility—by working endlessly, undertaking further education and training, relentlessly marketing and selling ourselves—we are met with the steady worsening of collective social and economic conditions? In Futilitarianism, social and political theorist Neil Vallelly eloquently tells the story of how neoliberalism transformed the relationship between utility maximisation and the common good. Futilitarianism is instead a form of entrapment in the pursuit of meaningfulness, where we are forced to repeat a series of daily behaviors that ensnare us deeper into the pure logic of competition and individualism that negates any development of common bonds and collective welfare. Jessica Whyte and Wendy Brown are two of the most important theoretical influences on Futilitarianism, and rightly so. They warn us to avoid understanding this turn along purely economistic lines. This has long been a favored rhetorical trope of neoliberal politicians, who often insisted they were operating beyond ideology, or simply letting the natural “laws” of the market run their course. In fact, neoliberalism from the beginning was conceived as a fundamentally moral project to make the world safer for property while fashioning individuals into entrepreneurs of the self.The book concludes with a chapter titled “The Becoming-Common of the Futilitariat.” The goal here is imagine political organisation around the idea of futility, much in the same way that precarity has been used to organise seemingly disparate labour experiences of in the neoliberal decades. I argue that the term futility can reach even further than precarity, because even those who exist in more secure economic, social, and political situations can still be trapped in the futilitarian condition. What needs to occur, I suggest is a process of “becoming-common”—an understanding of which I adapt form the German political theorist Isabell Lorey—which, in short, entails a process of mutual recognition of the shared experience of futility. These experiences are of course not equivalent—some people experience much more extreme and violent forms of futility—but they do attest to a social relationality that can form the basis of political organisation. Neil Vallelly’s superb new book Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness is a polemic against the emptiness of the neoliberal era. It examines both its ideological roots, history, and political culture.

For centuries, economists and philosophers have theorized the value of utility: how it shapes the division of labor, influences consumer choice, and contributes to conceptions of the good life or common good. Utilitarian philosophers, from Jeremy Bentham to John Stuart Mill, told us that maximizing utility — the usefulness of an object and its capacity to cause pleasure or reduce pain — was the magical ingredient to happiness. Economists, from classical to neoclassical to neoliberal, have conceived of individuals and consumers as rational “utility-maximizers,” and Karl Marx reminded us that “nothing can be a value without first being an object of utility.” Neil Vallelly is a Researcher at Economic and Social Research Aotearoa (ESRA) and a Research Associate at the Centre for Global Migrations, University of Otago, New Zealand. His writing has appeared in such journals as Rethinking Marxism, Angelaki, and Poetics Today, and magazines including New Internationalistand ROAR. PERCSeriesROAR is published by the Foundation for Autonomous Media and Research, an independent non-profit organization registered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. All editors and board members are volunteers. This allows us to spend all income from our Patreon account on sustaining and expanding our publishing project. Once we have paid for basic running costs like web hosting, the remaining proceeds will be invested in high-quality content and illustrations for future issues. An extremely lucid, smart analysis of our dilemma. That life in neoliberalism is often futile and nihilistic has been obvious for a long time. That neoliberal politics is covertly pessimistic as to human survival has also been clear. What Vallelly achieves here is a remarkable new theoretical insight into why that is, and why utilitarianism under neoliberal capitalism must mutate into futilitarianism. A thoroughly welcome, timely and profound intervention. What Vallelly achieves here is a remarkable new theoretical insight into why… utilitarianism under neoliberal capitalism must mutate into futilitarianism. A thoroughly welcome, timely and profound intervention.” The proceeds from your monthly pledge will go directly towards sustaining ROAR as an independent publication and building our collective power as a movement. Neil Vallely’s “Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness,” is out now from Goldsmiths Press.

When Joseph De Maistre described the French Revolutionaries as satanic and destructive, he at least granted them the dignity of making an impact. José Gasset might have been wary of the “revolt of the masses” of mediocre people against the aristocracy, but occasionally expressed admiration for the permanence and sweep of their uprising. Few, these days, hold utilitarianism in high regard, as it relies on the calculation of utility and reduces the richness of life into pleasure and pain. As an ethical framework, it advocates the course of action determined by what decision maximizes ‘utility’, i.e., pleasure, happiness, or wellbeing for the most people. Jeremy Bentham coined the theory in 1789 and John Stuart Mill then built upon it, and in its day utilitarianism was a revolutionary turn in moral philosophy. Challenging the religion-based codes of ethics of the day, utilitarianism was rational, radical, and refreshing to the late Enlightenment thinkers it inspired.

Guests and Further Reading

Think 30,000+ words of revolutionary brainfood. A dozen or more thought-provoking essays from some of the leading thinkers and most inspiring activists out there. Global challenges, grassroots perspectives, revolutionary horizons. Edited and illustrated to perfection by the ROAR collective. Patreon will charge your card monthly for the amount you pledged. You can cancel this pledge anytime. To develop the theory of futilitarianism, and its relationship to neoliberalism, I use the first part of the book to situate neoliberalism within the intellectual history of utilitarianism. I examine Jeremy Bentham’s writings on political economy, and, in particular, his association of money with the principle of utility. In an essay from the 1770s, “The Philosophy of Economic Science,” Bentham wrote that “the thermometer is the instrument for measuring the heat of weather, the Barometer the instrument for measuring the pressure of the Air… Money is the instrument for measuring the quantity of pleasure and pain.” This association of money with utility runs throughout Benthamite utilitarianism, leading Will Davies to conclude in his book The Happiness Industry (2015), that “by putting out there the idea that money might have some privileged relationship to our inner experience, Bentham set the stage for the entangling of psychological research and capitalism that would shape the business practices of the twentieth century.” PERC seeks to refresh political economy, in the original sense of the term, as a pluralist and critical approach to the study of capitalism. In doing so it challenges the sense of economics as a discipline, separate from the other social sciences, aiming instead to combine economic knowledge with various other disciplinary approaches. This is a response to recent critiques of orthodox economics, as immune to interdisciplinarity and cut off from historical and political events. At the same time, the authority of economic experts and the relationship between academic research and the public (including, but not only, public policy-makers) are constant concerns running through PERC’s work.