Dysfunctional Cultures and the Making of Homo Economicus: Expert Personas and Liberal Consent in Austerity Regimes
Abstract
Since the early years of the debt crisis that begun in 2010 in Greece, a large part of Greek liberal intellectuals and public commentators has argued for an interpretative framework with the notion of ‘national identity’ as the root of all Greece’s troubles. Among other, their narrative presented the crisis as an opportunity for Greeks to rediscover themselves and acquire a more ‘Western’ and market-friendly outlook while austerity policies are realized. Here, the crisis was read as an outcome of a ‘deviant culture’ that now has the opportunity to recover. In this article, we focus on how the discourse of media personas who are ‘non-political actors’ -a philosopher and a marketing guru- popularized this framework especially between the years 2010 to 2013. We argue that these discourses, working to shape new social identities of flexibility, mobility and competition, compatible with the requirements of neoliberalism to overcome the crisis, work more effectively when voiced by supposedly ‘neutral’ agents.
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