The neoliberal state, environmental pragmatism, and its discontents

The State, the market, and labour relations have been completely overestimated as a modus operandii of unchangeable stasis by the Neopragmatists. In their eagerness to accommodate to the overwhelming universalisation of the market as a metaphor for all kinds of interactions and communication, between individuals, between institutions, between classes, between peoples, between humanity and nature, Neopragmatists have forgotten the turn of the century philosophical critique of conventionality for which Pragmatism was once famous. It is true that the depth and breadth of surveillance, normalisation, and categorisation that is occurring under globalised neoliberalism is of overwhelming consequence. Yet philosophers have discussed for over a century the limits of categorical truth, the inevitability of exceeding all universalities, and the many and myriad complicating factors that disturb simple equations of cause and effect. These philosophical cautions need not be disposed of because of the strength of neoliberal confidence and the familiarity of the progressive unrolling of the machinery of industrial consumerism. Understanding these prevailing conditions as fully as possible is vital, but remaining caught in the neoliberal rubric is not only unnecessary, it is short-sighted and detrimental to both the environment and humanity.