The denial of legitimacy of personal categories has also had profound implications for the construction of the keyword “risk” in neoliberalism. The connotations of the term “risk” are treacherous in the modern world. Should one approach risk as an actuarial concept, then the ability to sort individuals into stable categories and identities is the indispensable prerequisite for the application of probability algorithms to what would otherwise be merely the idiosyncratic and incommensurate life trajectories of historical personalities. Classical approaches to risk parlayed stable categories into prudential outcomes. Yet, because of the first commandment of the plasticity of the individual, this is increasingly not how everyday neoliberalism understands risk.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 336