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

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The example of the contemporary university can help contextualize the concept of the futilitarian condition. The university is now dependent on a vast army of casual and adjunct teaching staff, mostly postgraduate students or post-PhD gig workers, without whom the university would collapse. Yet these staff are routinely treated with contempt by university hierarchies, and exploited on short-term contracts that rarely cover the entirety of the hours they actually work. Neil Vallelly is a political and social theorist based at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research has appeared in journals such as Rethinking Marxism, Angelaki, and Poetics Today, and magazines, including New Internationalist and ROAR. In 2022, he will take up a two-year Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at Otago, working on a history of capitalism and migrant detention. An Italian translation of Futilitarianism will be published in March 2022. 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. 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. To develop the theory of futilitarianism, and its relationship to neoliberalism, I use the first part of the book to situate neoliberalism within the intellectual history of utilitarianism. I examine Jeremy Bentham’s writings on political economy, and, in particular, his association of money with the principle of utility. In an essay from the 1770s, “The Philosophy of Economic Science,” Bentham wrote that “the thermometer is the instrument for measuring the heat of weather, the Barometer the instrument for measuring the pressure of the Air… Money is the instrument for measuring the quantity of pleasure and pain.” This association of money with utility runs throughout Benthamite utilitarianism, leading Will Davies to conclude in his book The Happiness Industry (2015), that “by putting out there the idea that money might have some privileged relationship to our inner experience, Bentham set the stage for the entangling of psychological research and capitalism that would shape the business practices of the twentieth century.”

Vallelly, N. (2022, February). Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the production of uselessness: An interview with Neil Vallelly. New Books in Education, New Books Network Podcast, hosted by Thomas Discenna. Retrieved from https://newbooksnetwork.com/futilitarianism 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. The genesis of the futilitarian condition emerged precisely at the point where utility became sanctified under capitalism, because at that moment, the possibility of futilitarianism also came into existence. Under the conditions of capitalism, the greatest happiness principle cannot be realized, or, at least, only a perverted version of it can exist. The working class have always carried the burden of the labor of utility maximization — of producing the things that are useful and, ultimately, the money associated with 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. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary examples, from self-help literature and marketing jargon to political speeches and governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vallelly coins several terms--including the futilitarian condition, homo futilitus, and semio-futility--to demonstrate that in the neoliberal decades, the practice of utility maximization traps us in useless and repetitive behaviors that foreclose the possibility of collective happiness.

Areas of Research Supervision

Vallelly, N. (2020). Counting the cost: COVID-19 and the crisis of utilitarianism. In V. Lyon-Callo, Y. M. Madra, C. Özselçuk, J. Randall, M. Safri, C. Sato & B. W. Shear (Eds.), Pandemic and the crisis of capitalism: A rethinking Marxism dossier. (pp. 215-223). Boston, MA: ReMarx Books. Retrieved from http://rethinkingmarxism.org/Dossier2020 Under such logic, the most moral society is the one in which individuals pursue the accumulation of money, under the ethical dictate that not only will this lead to individual happiness but also greater collective well-being. The perceived symbiosis between utility maximization and the accumulation of wealth has been a dominant mantra of capitalist societies, where political power routinely ensures that utility is defined as money, and where a utilitarian ethics is continually invoked as justification for the exploitations and inequalities involved in the accumulation of capital. The proceeds from your monthly pledge will go directly towards sustaining ROAR as an independent publication and building our collective power as a movement.

By focusing on futility rather than nihilism, the theory of futilitarianism extrapolates not only the experience of meaninglessness that comes with neoliberalism, but the construction of that meaninglessness in contemporary social and political practices. Futilitarianism brings the futility of everyday life in the neoliberal period to the fore, with the hope of generating ideas of how to counter meaninglessness that do not end up in nihilism. Nihilism is an end-in-itself; an increased awareness and understanding of futility can be the starting point of something meaningful. Where classical Marxists once believed in the inexorable historical arrival of a better tomorrow, one of the most alienating features of neoliberalism is how it naturalizes history out of existence. Since there is “no alternative” to the world as it is, aesthetics becomes the endless recycling of cultural images and symbols from the past, a pastiche of postmodern nostalgia for a time where people could actually make a difference. Even language becomes increasingly incapable of bearing the gravitas of meaning we need it to, as communication is flattened by digital discourse and the rich texture of the world becomes liquidated into two hundred eighty digestible characters. Politics Against Futility Dr Neil Vallelly has been awarded the Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (from 2022). His book, Futilitarianism - Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness, will be available from February.

Academic qualifications

Vallelly, N. (2016). Practicing disappearance: A postmodern methodology. Electronic Book Review. Retrieved from https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/practicing-disappearance-a-postmodern-methodology

Futilitarianism is published in November as part of the PERC series with Goldsmiths Press. PERC Director Will Davies will facilitate an online discussion about the book with the author Neil Vallelly and the following speakers Vallelly, N. (2020). The self-help myth. New Internationalist, (2 June). Retrieved from https://newint.org/features/2020/04/07/feature In late 2021, Neil was awarded a two-year Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on a project on the historical relationship between neoliberalism and migrant incarceration in Aotearoa and beyond. He is also developing several collaborative research projects on topics relating to social reproduction and essential work during the COVID-19 pandemic, the history of migration policy in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the cultural politics of suicide in public. ROAR is published by the Foundation for Autonomous Media and Research, an independent non-profit organization registered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. All editors and board members are volunteers. This allows us to spend all income from our Patreon account on sustaining and expanding our publishing project. Once we have paid for basic running costs like web hosting, the remaining proceeds will be invested in high-quality content and illustrations for future issues.This is an excerpt of Neil Vallely’s “ Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness.” Out now from Goldsmiths Press. This original and compelling tour de force is essential reading for anyone who thinks that there must be more to life than this.” But as Vallelly points out, it was not to last.“The neoliberals won the long game,” he writes. “The economic stagnation and political crises of 1970s crippled Keynesian logic. In its place, [Friedrich] Hayek and the neoliberal cabal of the Chicago School of Economics chewed the ear of sympathetic politicians in the US, UK, and further afield.” Neoliberal Futilitarianism