As neoliberal rationality remakes the human being as human capital, an earlier rendering of homo oeconomicus as an interest maximizer gives way to a formulation of the subject as both a member of a firm and as itself a firm, and in both cases as appropriately conducted by the governance practices appropriate to firms. These practices, as Chapter 4 will explore in detail, substitute ever-evolving new management techniques for top-down rule in state, firm, and subject alike. Centralized authority, law, policing, rules, and quotas are replaced by networked, team-based, practice-oriented techniques emphasizing incentivization, guidelines, and benchmarks.

Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, loc. 56