신자유주의적 자유의 역설과 민주적인 사회적 공공성

Abstract

By the paradox of freedom I mean the reiterated phenomenon in the modern socio-political history that institutionalization of freedom itself brings about structural deprivation of freedom. We can also find this paradox in the contemporary neoliberal project. The purpose of this paper is to explain three aspects of this new paradox of freedom and to explore a perspective for going out of it in the direction to the democratic social publicness. Above all, I will show that this new paradox of freedom has its social origin in the neoliberal regime of recognition in the sphere of social labour dominated by the liquidized achievement principle (LAP). This neoliberal regime of recognition brings about the inverted self-relation which subordinates the principle of self-realization and creativity to the imperative of capital accumulation. This is the subjective aspect of the neoliberal paradox of freedom. The social aspect of it lies in the recognition without solidarity which destroys the social publicness, the social infrastructure of freedom. And we can find its political aspect in the neoliberal coalescence of bio-power and sovereign power. Lastly, I propose the discursive achievement principle(DAP), which is a coupling of achievement principle with Habermas’ “discourse principle”, as the principle of social recognition for democratic social publicness.