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

Product Information

MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Today we publish over 30 titles in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and technology. Utilitarianism and its implications, however, were not, in Bentham’s view, strictly limited to moral philosophy or conceptual analysis in a more abstract sense. Rather, Bentham wanted governments to adopt utilitarianism as a guiding principle of governance that might motivate politicians to strive toward the pursuit of collective wellbeing for the wider public. Though Bentham’s intended scope for the actualisation of his theory did not fully transpire in his own life, utilitarianism would go on to indirectly influence politics in complex, profound and material ways, not least in its outsized influence as a foundational cornerstone of neoclassical economics. As a result, utilitarianism has penetrated deep into the shape of our capitalist world we live in today, with the logic of utility and, specifically, its salient normativity, infusing aspects of work practices and shaping the dynamics of social interactions. 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. Neil Vallelly's analysis of our neoliberal predicament is at once historically informed, politically sophisticated, and close to our everyday experience. The book documents the ways that business and political leaders have increasingly offloaded responsibility for social ills onto individuals and shows that the constant exhortations to build up our human capital, to network, to self-brand, self-start, and self-actualize serve only to make us feel useless, anxious, and alone. With the term 'futilitarianism,' Vallelly has coined a witty new entry for our critical lexicon and pointed the way to new forms of solidarity that can overcome our individualized futility.

The book examines and theorizes futilitarianism as an ever-deepening process of individual entrapment, which occurs both despite and because of individuals' efforts to improve their own conditions. We inhabit a system that simultaneously prescribes and prevents individual "well-being." As we pursue our individual (and often even collective) goals, we paradoxically become less happy, more anxious, more indebted, more exploitable. As Vallelly points out, the most obvious tension in Bentham’s utilitarianism is between its individualism and concern with “a form of wellbeing that extends beyond the individual. Utilitarianism, after all, intends to maximise utility for the greatest amount of people, with, theoretically, no individual’s happiness prioritized over another’s.” Put another way, if it is psychologically true that each individual is egoistically motivated by the pursuit of pleasure for herself, how do we move from there to a moral argument that she should put her desires aside if that would secure greater happiness for others?

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. 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.” 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.” 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.

Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (first published 1789; Dover Publications, 2007)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. For this reason, utility can never be conceived exclusively as an economic or philosophical concept. Instead, utility is always representative of a certain understanding of political economy, of the relationships between forms of production, labor and trade and the mechanisms of government, power and, ultimately, capitalism. This fact is most evident in the work of Jeremy Bentham, a late 18th- and early 19th-century philosopher and social reformer. Bentham was the founder of modern utilitarianism and he could find only one credible measure for utility: money. In an essay titled “The Philosophy of Economic Science,” he wrote: “The Thermometer is the instrument for measuring the heat of the weather, the Barometer the instrument for measuring the pressure of the Air…. Money is the instrument for measuring the quantity of pain and pleasure.”

Vallelly’s main thesis is that under neoliberal capitalism the individual pursuit of utility is totally severed from the common good and that individual utility has morphed into a widespread futility. The way in which futility permeates neoliberal capitalism is understood as fairly novel: previous variants of capitalism were exploitative and destructive, but some residual logic of utility remained intact. Though Keynesian capitalism was centred on a collective utility, Hayek prioritized the utility maximization of the individual. For Keynes, capitalism was a Faustian bargain, a flawed system he believed would deliver future progress and that would one day liberate humanity from toil. Why Keynes’ prophecy failed to materialize, i.e., why improved technology has failed to reduce working hours, continues to be a hot topic of debate. Whilst reading Vallelly (particularly alongside the late David Graeber for an exposition of neoliberal work) may not fully solve the question in its entirety, his contribution provides a compelling intervention to the debate with his notion of futility and the claims it is entangled with. Put simply, futility arises because the pursuit of individual utility ignores the common good, and without the principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, utilitarianism ultimately becomes futile since we cannot avoid the fact that none of us exist outside our relationships to others. We are inherently connected to the world and to the rest of humanity; our wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of others. Instead of attempting to spread the greatest happiness to the greatest number, neoliberal capitalism seems to spread the greatest unhappiness to us all. To Vallely, capitalism has always been undergirded by the idea of utility maximization as an intellectual crutch. By linking endless capital accumulation with the purported attainment of utility, the historical and ongoing injustices of colonialism have been justified on the basis of the supposed longterm interest of the colonized people. Similarly, ever-widening inequality is justified as part and parcel of ‘human progress’, a view well-lodged in the writings of establishment thinkers like Harvard’s Steven Pinker. But whereas Keynesian capitalism advocated a more ‘majoritarian’ variant of utility, the Hayekian push towards neoliberalism put the onus on the individual, thus leading to the current futilitarian condition. Established in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design. Review of Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness by Neil Vallelly (Goldsmiths Press, 2021)Despite the appeal of this synthesis of utilitarianism and capitalism, it was never uncontroversial. In the twentieth century, Vallelly observes, there was a climatic struggle between socially minded utilitarians, mostly inspired by J. M. Keynes, and the increasingly strident neoliberal economists. For a while, the socially minded utilitarians were successful, and largely justified the creation of extensive welfare states on the grounds that a more even distribution of goods and services would make people happier and prevent needless suffering. Deeply inspired by the similarly grim Mark Fisher (of Capitalist Realism fame), the book is often sobering and even melancholic. Indeed in some of its more scathing passages, Futilitarianism reads like the academic equivalent of a primal scream against the injustice and alienation of the futilitarian era. But this passion drives and deepens Vallelly’s analysis, and the book will no doubt be welcomed by all of us who seek a better alternative to the despair of neoliberalism in the age of COVID-19. Utilitarianism and Capitalism While these thinkers may differ on how utility should be maximized, and who reaps the rewards of this process, few have disagreed that the maximization of utility is in and of itself a good thing. After all, where would human society be without utility? While nihilism is certainly present in neoliberalism, the concept of futilitarianism makes room for another dimension in the meaninglessness of neoliberal life. In this dimension, meaninglessness is neither something that is passively instituted nor actively embraced, but something that emerges in people’s lives without their consent or even knowledge, whether this be in their job, education, social circumstances, economic situation or legal status. Where nihilism entails taking up a certain outlook on the world, futilitarianism is much more insidious and internalized. After all, many of us might believe we are contributing to society in a meaningful way — ask any PR consultant.

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. 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. MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide.

Podcast

Since then, for all his insistence on its rationalistic simplicity, many have complained about deep tensions in Bentham’s position. Was he making a psychological claim about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain simply being fundamental human motivations, a moral claim about how they should be the fundamental human motivations, or both? But Bentham was convinced of the power of his argument, and claimed that the best moral and political system would be one dedicated to achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, as determined through a kind of felicific calculus. This original and compelling tour de force is essential reading for anyone who thinks that there must be more to life than this.” Neil Vallely’s “Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness,” is out now from Goldsmiths Press. 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. A proposal for countering the futility of neoliberal existence to build a egalitarian, sustainable, and hopeful future.