In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown advances a critique of neoliberalism by arguing that its most dangerous effects do not arise merely from market deregulation or corporate domination, but from the emergence of a pervasive neoliberal rationality that transforms every sphere of existence according to economic metrics. Drawing extensively upon Michel Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics while simultaneously revising them, Brown contends that neoliberalism should not be understood simply as an economic doctrine but as a governing form of reason that remakes states, institutions, and subjects in the image of the market. Central to her argument is the figure of homo oeconomicus, no longer conceived as the classical market actor oriented toward exchange, but as human capital perpetually tasked with enhancing its own competitive value. Under neoliberal rationality, individuals cease to exist primarily as political beings capable of collective self-rule and instead become entrepreneurial projects of investment, self-management, and portfolio enhancement. Brown demonstrates that this economization extends beyond markets proper, reorganising education, law, citizenship, governance, and even personal identity through the language of competitiveness, productivity, and investment return. Particularly significant is her claim that democracy is not merely weakened but conceptually hollowed out from within: political principles such as equality, liberty, sovereignty, and public deliberation are translated into economic terms until democratic citizenship itself loses substantive meaning. A paradigmatic illustration appears in her analysis of higher education, where universities increasingly abandon the cultivation of critical citizens in favour of producing economically competitive subjects measured through metrics of efficiency and market utility. Equally significant is her examination of the neoliberal state, which no longer legitimises itself through justice or popular sovereignty but through the management of economic growth, credit ratings, and investor confidence. The enduring contribution of Brown’s intervention resides in its demonstration that neoliberalism constitutes not simply a political-economic order but an ontological transformation of subjectivity itself, one that progressively erodes the conditions necessary for democratic imagination, collective action, and meaningful political freedom.
URBANISM MEETS ART