The erasure of the distinction between the form and the content of government and business by neoliberal governance is important. However, so are its effects in conjoining business and research. Since neoliberal governance is legitimated by its effectiveness in promulgating efficient means to ends, rather than, say, by its upholding of the principles of justice or of provisioning for its members, it has a distinctive relationship to knowledge. Good governance promotes economic growth, a good investment climate, and a high credit rating and requires the knowledge necessary to do this. Bad governance does not. Thus, the contouring of all knowledge to economic usefulness (evident in steadily accelerating moves to support academic research with high “impact factors” and to starve or eliminate research that does not have commercial impact) and of all government to economic health are two faces of the same phenomenon.

Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, loc. 626