The Entrepreneurial Self

Question 1

What are technologies of power

Answer 1

Adopt various means of training to shape our self-conception and behaviour

I.e. Prison, school, employment office all tell u how to act

Question 2

What are technologies of the self

Answer 2

We draw on various discourses and use various tools to shape ourselves - religious and philosophical techniques, self help books etc

Question 3

Human Capital theory - Gary Becker

Answer 3

Human capital is resources that are imbedded in people and can influence future real income

View of human beings as agents who seek to “invest in themselves” in order to maximise their future income

Question 4

What is neoliberalism?

Answer 4

Advocates for free market capitalism

Question 5

What is the entrepreneurial self (Springer et al 2016)

Answer 5

Generally referring to the new political, economic, and social arrangements within society that emphasise market relations, retaking the role of the state, and individual responsibility

Question 6

Foucalt Perspective

Answer 6

Argues that intensive personal commitments to work are caused by neoliberal discourses (Musilek et al 2023)

He does not advocate that the entrepreneurial self is correct, Infact, highlights that the market driven imperatives of neoliberalism can create inequality, precarious labour conditions and the erosion of collective forms of resistance

Question 7

What is some criticism for Foucault

Answer 7

He overlooks the ways in which money and material objects influence people’s lives, making them invisible in the discussion about how economies work

Question 8

Explain the shift from hom economicus to entrepreneurial self

Answer 8

The idea (Foucalt) of homo economicus as someone who is primarily engaged in exchange, is replaced by the entrepreneurial-self. Basically being his own producer/source of earnings ‘individuals are on the whole responsible for their own value’

Question 9

Entrepreneurial self academic quotes
Rose (1999), Musilek et al (2023)

Answer 9

Rose (1999) documents how the idea of the worker as an entrepreneurial subject became influential in the context of production, portraying work as a sphere of autonomy

Musilek et al (2023) touches on why people invest and speculate ‘I want to have freedom, but at the moment I don’t have it.’

Question 10

Counter points to entrepreneurial self promotion

Answer 10

Governments have policies promoting entrepreneurial self, however they frequently fail to deliver, a host of policies should not be used to solve unemployment. Especially when being an entrepreneur usually ends up in failure

Question 11

What are the psychological effects (Scharf 2016)

Answer 11

Female classical musicians would always be concerned about how hard they work, how hard they train and improve. This is because they are constantly involved in improvement, causing them to hide injuries due to anxiety and insecurity

Question 12

What are the psychological effects (Musilek et al 2023)

Answer 12

There is the example of a person working hard at night and over weekends in order to save up for a start-up that will likely not be successful

Question 13

Marxist perspective (Harraway 2006)

Answer 13

From a Marxist perspective people may try to validate the fact that this is a causation of free market principles, with the concept naturalising and justifying capitalist relations to production, obscuring exploitation and inequality