Neoliberalism In John Wacquant's Leviathan
WEEK # 5
• What is Neoliberalism
Wacquant describes for the reader the neoliberal state as one that is inherently penal, developing “punitive containment” (Wacquant, 2010, p. 198).as a government technique for managing deepening urban marginality. In his “Leviathan” state he suggests most socially and economically marginalized classes are controlled through a mixture of prisonfare and workfare. One of the keys in his definition is the use of prisonfare to warehouse permanently unemployed sections of the society, thereby penalizing, warehousing, and locking up poverty. On the other front is workfare which is viewed as welfare that is contingent upon job seeking at substandard wages. Wacquant uses the definitions to translate economic injustice
…show more content…
Simply put, those who are not playing by the rules of the white rich do not deserve public assistance. He contrasts this new regime as contrasting social and criminal insecurity. He suggests that the growth of the prison industry in the United States is a political response, not to secure against rising criminal insecurity, but to combat social insecurity. This social insecurity is brought about by the, “fragmentation of wage labor and the shakeup of ethnic hierarchy” (Wacquant, 2010, p. 198). He asserts the use of workfare and prisonfare are the means for society to control the urban disorders spawned by economic deregulation and to discipline the disobedient sectors of the working …show more content…
masculine state, wielding incarceration, behavior regulation, and strict law enforcement penalties. This leads to a, “double regulation of poverty by the joint action of punitive welfare turned-workfare and an aggressive penal bureaucracy” (Wacquant, 2010, p. 202). This falls directly of shoulders of the marginalized, impoverished, inner-city, black neighborhoods. Wacquant wraps this into his description of today’s penial policy in the US that is more interested in punitive practices focused on locking up the poor and warehousing them and not rehabilitating convicts and changing their behavior. This effectively confines the marginalized into isolated neighborhoods, making them invisible, and reducing the likelihood they will pose a threat on
Disparity By Victor M. Rios: Chapter Summary
1664 Words | 7 PagesThe author acknowledges that capitalist globalization and neoliberalism have created the deplorable economic conditions in which many Oakland residents live. He alludes to the need to change the “social order” of impoverished communities and the “social contexts” in which individuals make vital choices about their lives. However, he eschews any call for systematic social change and instead hopes that policymakers will change policies and redistribute resources from criminal justice programs to “nurturing institutions.” Such hopes are undoubtedly well-intentioned, but they pale in comparison with the social problems the author has so capably illuminated. In the end, Rios avoids any acknowledgment that the end of anti-working class and racist repression, the progressive transformation of social institutions, and the massive redistribution of material resources will require the abolition of capitalism and the development of a new socialist
Comparing Bruce Western's Punishment And Inequality In America
98 Words | 1 PagesOver the last thirty years, the prison population in the United States has increased more than seven-fold to over two million people, including vastly disproportionate numbers of minorities and people with little education. For some racial and educational groups, incarceration has become a depressingly regular experience, and prison culture and influence pervade their communities. Almost 60 percent of black male high school drop-outs in their early thirties have spent time in prison. In Punishment and Inequality in America, sociologist Bruce Western explores the recent era of mass incarceration and the serious social and economic consequences it has wrought.
Review Of Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander
924 Words | 4 PagesThe first chapter looks at how the racial caste system came to be in the United States as a way of controlling labor. The second chapter looks at how the system has slowly evolved throughout history and the impact that the civil rights movement has had in affecting that evolution. It also looks at how supreme court decisions in the past hundred years have changed the way officers have been allowed to act. The third chapter looks at the idea that the justice system has become a means for class control. In particularly in the form of the “War on Drugs” creating a disproportionate amount of people of color incarcerated for nonviolent offenses and how police departments are financially incentivized to prioritize their efforts towards drug offenses.
Resilient American People In The 1800s
896 Words | 4 PagesSociologists have determined, the predominant cause of a revolution in the world is poor economic conditions, where people are not able to get adequate income to take care of their bare necessities to feed themselves and make the ends meet. Hence, many resort to illegal activities, particularly in highly populated areas, where massive competition for jobs exists. As can be concluded, it is inevitable that eventually many of the people who commit illegal acts get caught by law enforcement authorities, and subsequently end up in jail. Accordingly, due to the instability of the economic and political growth, many people feel obligated to move elsewhere, not only to seek employment to support their families, but to find a better and safer environment to live in. This shows how resilient American people truly were.
The Emerging Republican Majority Essay
2541 Words | 11 PagesHarvey 2005; Peck 2008; Springer 2010). Combined with an all encompassing commitment to extend the free market into virtually every aspect of life; neoliberalism is characterized by market deregulation, the redistribution of social service provision, and regressive tax policies that significantly enhance the power of elites and expand inequality (Harvey 2005). As a doctrine, neoliberalists "argue for the desirability of a society organized around self-regulating markets, and free, to the extent possible, from social and political intervention" (Glassman 2009: 497). As a policy neoliberalism often differs from its theory and the implementation of neoliberal policy is uneven (ibid).
John Q Essay
515 Words | 3 PagesLevitan M. A crisis in Black male employment: unemployment and joblessness in New York City, 2003. Community Service Society. Available at www.cssny.org. Accessed March
The New Jim Crow Analysis
1721 Words | 7 PagesMichelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.
Common Interest And Injustice In The United States
354 Words | 2 PagesAs a result of this concept, the lines of segregation between rich and poor grew more and more until the poor became thieves, robbers, and murderers due to the vast majority of them refusing to sacrifice labor for sustenance. Upon reaching a level of increased crime it became clear that the most economically sound idea would be to generate revenue from the labor of the-majority-lower class inmates as a form of privatized
Summary Of The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Prison
1586 Words | 7 PagesThe criminal justice system may be more corrupt than the people who fill our prisons. It is amazing to see the many ways that certain parts of society actually benefit from the current system we support. This book,The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison, by authors Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton, has open my eyes to a very corrupt idealism. They are very precise in their supporting examples as well by walking the reader through each step and analogy.
New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander: Book Review
666 Words | 3 PagesMichelle Alexander argues in her introduction to the New Jim Crow that the racial caste in America has not ended and that it just has been redesigned. She highlights the ways that the justice system of the United States controls blacks through deliberately imposed legal restrictions. The United States has the leading incarceration rates in the world and most of the individuals involved with the country’s correctional system are African-American men. This essay seeks to discuss the author’s overall argument in the book. The essay will also discuss how the topics in the first three chapters of the book help Alexander develop this argument.
Annotated Bibliography: The New Jim Crow
1343 Words | 6 PagesAnnotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.
Pyrrhic Defeat Theory
774 Words | 4 PagesThe United States prides itself on being a country of opportunities where the underprivileged can rise up and everyone is treated equally, but is that really the case? In reality the income of an individual gives them advantages of going above the system. The sociological explanation of the influence of the wealthy over the criminal justice system is described in the of the Pyrrhic defeat theory written in Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton book The Rich Get Richer and the Poor get Prison Ideology, class and Criminal Justice. The Pyrrhic defeat theory emphasizes the failure of the criminal justice is the consequence of success for those in power, who are taking advantage of the system.
Argumentative Essay On Incarceration In America
874 Words | 4 PagesOver 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.
Foucault's Neoliberalism Analysis
1269 Words | 6 PagesAs the last one, neoliberalism could be seen in governmentality approaches. The concept of ‘governmentality’ is a term used by Michel Foucault (1991) in his work on modern forms of political power. It is a term that combines ‘government’ and ‘rationality’, suggesting a form of political analysis that focuses on the forms of knowledge that make objects visible and available for governing. In Foucault’s terms, governmentality refers to a distinctive modality for exercising power, one which is not reducible to ‘the state’ This interpretation of neoliberalism centers on acknowledging a processual character where neoliberalism’s articulation with existing circumstances comes through endlessly unfolding failures and successes in the relations between
Marxism Vs Communist Manifesto
1436 Words | 6 PagesWorking class pressures on the capitalist system expands the state’s power as it allows for an extension into new areas for rationalization. These pressures may lead to more employment or expansion of educational resources but these improvements are usually geared toward the development of capitalism. Although these pressures allow for an expansion of state power, the state must still be wary of damaging business confidence. The state must also consider two more issues; how the class antagonisms from expanding social services will affect their rule and how the state’s power grows with an expanded role. Therborn argues that when state managers concede to working class pressures, they outline new policies that barely affect business confidence and still expand state power.
More about Neoliberalism In John Wacquant's Leviathan
Disparity By Victor M. Rios: Chapter Summary
1664 Words | 7 PagesComparing Bruce Western's Punishment And Inequality In America
98 Words | 1 PagesReview Of Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander
924 Words | 4 PagesResilient American People In The 1800s
896 Words | 4 PagesThe Emerging Republican Majority Essay
2541 Words | 11 PagesJohn Q Essay
515 Words | 3 PagesThe New Jim Crow Analysis
1721 Words | 7 PagesCommon Interest And Injustice In The United States
354 Words | 2 PagesSummary Of The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Prison
1586 Words | 7 PagesNew Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander: Book Review
666 Words | 3 PagesAnnotated Bibliography: The New Jim Crow
1343 Words | 6 PagesPyrrhic Defeat Theory
774 Words | 4 PagesArgumentative Essay On Incarceration In America
874 Words | 4 PagesFoucault's Neoliberalism Analysis
1269 Words | 6 PagesMarxism Vs Communist Manifesto
1436 Words | 6 Pages