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Social psychology, consumer culture and neoliberalism: A response to Phelps and White (2018)
Author(s) -
McDonald Matthew,
Gough Brendan,
Wearing Stephen
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/jtsb.12214
Subject(s) - neoliberalism (international relations) , white (mutation) , capitalism , sociology , white paper , discipline , positive economics , epistemology , social science , economics , political science , law , politics , biochemistry , chemistry , philosophy , gene
The following essay responds to three main issues raised by Phelps and White (2018) in their critical commentary on our article (McDonald, Gough, Wearing & Deville, 2017). The first concerns the lack of precision in the conceptualisation of neoliberalism and the recent threats to it as we enter a potentially new phase of capitalism. While we share Phelps and White's concern, we argue that there is value in continuing to use neoliberalism as a concept for understanding some aspects of social behaviour. As to recent threats to neoliberalism, evidence indicates that it will continue to persist in the immediate future. To deal with neoliberalism's conceptual problems in social psychology, Phelps and White advance the potential theory of a ‘market‐derived logics’. We commend the authors for pursuing this endeavor, however, we caution that care needs to be taken in its conceptualisation. Lastly, we discuss Phelps and White's disciplinary reflections on social psychology.