Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Pomona Senior Theses Pomona Student Scholarship 2013 Neoliberal Ideologies and Cultural Models of Work among Young French and American Business Students and Professionals: A Study in Institutional Change and Cultural Meaning Nolan Y. Ferar Pomona College Recommended Citation Ferar, Nolan Y., "Neoliberal Ideologies and Cultural Models of Work among Young French and American Business Students and Professionals: A Study in Institutional Change and Cultural Meaning" (2013). Pomona Senior Theses. Paper 91. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_theses/91 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Pomona Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pomona Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 2 Department of Anthropology May 6, 2012 _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Neoliberal Ideologies and Cultural Models of Work among Young French and American Business Students and Professionals: A Study in Institutional Change and Cultural Meaning By Nolan Y. Ferar Dr. Lynn Thomas ____________________________________________________________________________ Professor of Anthropology, Pomona College Dr. Claudia Strauss __________________________________________________________________________ Professor of Anthropology, Pitzer College 3 Abstract _________________________________________________________________________________________________ In this thesis I analyze semi‐structured interviews I conducted with fifteen young French and American business students and professionals in order to uncover cultural models relating to work, while paying particular attention to the acceptance or rejection of neoliberal ideas. To contextualize the analysis, I first review the history of neoliberal ideology along with its arrival and political and institutional influence in both countries. In the U.S., the neoliberal transition was rapid and dramatic under the Reagan administration, which constitutes a critical institutional juncture and a shift in the dominant paradigm of governance. In France, in contrast, neoliberal policies have been implemented reluctantly and incrementally, suggesting traditional French values relating to the state and its role in regulating the economy remain largely intact. In line with these historical patterns, the Americans I spoke to primarily conceptualize work as a commodity, accepting the definition of work as defined in the market; while the French interviewees conceptualize work as personal fulfillment and occupational citizenship, emphasizing the human and psychological essence of work and the need for moral regulation of the market economy, perceived as immoral and anarchic. Overall, the Americans much more readily accepted neoliberal ideas and policy directives and towards which the French were far less welcoming. In particular, I argue that the traditional role of the French state as responsible for the wellbeing of its citizens presents a major obstacle to neoliberal ideology, historically on an institutional level as well as in the minds of the French interviewees. 4 Acknowledgements _________________________________________________________________________________________________ I would like to thank my readers, Lynn Thomas and Claudia Strauss, who have both provided me with immeasurable assistance and encouragement with this project from beginning to end, and instilled in me invaluable curiosity and a passion for anthropology during the years I’ve studied under them. I am extremely indebted to my friends and family members in France and the United States who helped me to find people to interview; without their help, this project would not have been possible. I’m also very thankful for all the young French and American people who were willing to take the time out of their busy lives to talk to me about work. Finally, I thank my parents for giving me the upbringing, education and love that they have. 5 Table of Contents _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 1: Introduction, Methods and Literature Review 1 Chapter 2: Neoliberalism, the Regime of Flexible Accumulation, and the American Experience 23 Chapter 3: The French Experience of Neoliberalism 55 Chapter 4: American Cultural Models of Work: Work as a Commodity 85 Chapter 5: French Cultural Models of Work: Work as Personal Fulfillment and as Occupational Citizenship 125 Chapter 6: American and French Cultural Perspectives on the Market and the State and the Influence of Neoliberal Ideologies 154 Chapter 7: Conclusions 225 6 7 Chapter One Introduction, Methods and Literature Review “It’s a shame you didn’t go grocery shopping yesterday. I never go to the store on Sunday if I can help it,” my cousin chided me one rainy May afternoon, as we sat on a bench along the quai of Ile Saint Louis, where the Seine divides to envelop the small island at the heart of Paris. I didn’t see the problem. It was nearly time for dinner but this was Paris, not a village, and I wasn’t worried about being able to find groceries. “The Franprix across from my apartment is open right now,” I countered, somewhat taken aback by her attitude. “Yes, but it’s a matter of principle,” Célia explained, “Sunday is supposed to be the day everyone can be home, with their family, not at work. And if you go shopping on Sunday, you’re encouraging everyone to go to work.” As we got up, heading off to catch the metro home, Célia patiently resigned to the consequences of my lack of foresight and myself perplexed, trying to make sense of her point of view, it was not the first time I ran into cultural logics around work in France different from anything I’d encountered at home in America. I’d listened patiently to many French friends and family exalting the virtue of the thirty‐five hour work week—how it lets people enjoy family and pursue other interests—often explicitly contrasted to the perceived American attitude towards work, in short, that work is life. I’d seen crowds young and old marching through the streets of the capitol to protest raising the age of retirement. Nor was it the first time I’d grappled with cultural differences between France and the U.S generally. Indeed, being born 8 to a French mother and American father, raised in Portland, Oregon but educated at a French immersion school, my whole life I’ve straddled two cultures and have been constantly forced to compare and question them. I still recall as a child visiting my maternal family in Brittany, and being confused by why my two worlds were so different. The importance of family was different. The food was different. The cities were different. Why couldn’t I walk to the bakery at Portland, when I could walk to four or five in any small town France? What began as a necessary exercise in making sense of the world and myself gave me a distinct perspective, one that was more relativist and culturally curious; one, I believe, that led me to the discipline of anthropology. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that I today I’m still preoccupied by the differences between how Americans and the French people see and think about the world. From my observations and considerations of French attitudes towards work, I developed this project. Far from considering the topic of work as a curious and peripheral realm of difference that I happily stumbled across, I quickly came to see work as crucially central, both in people’s lives and in the organization of capitalist societies in general. Work is fundamental. As Budd explains, different conceptualizations of work “do not simply describe alternative perspectives on work; rather, they actively structure our understandings of and our experiences with work by providing frames of references, norms, values, and attitudes toward work that actors translate into specific practices” (Budd 2011:184). I decided that for my thesis I would interview French and Americans about work, with the aim of identifying distinct cultural models in each society. What is the framework in which 9 they are able to conceptualize work? How do these differences relate to institutional differences between how work is recognized and organized in each society? As I delved into the literature concerning work, states and political economy in France and the United States I learned that many scholars suggest a convergence in recent decades between French and American labor institutions, welfare systems, and national responses to economic crises according to a neoliberal paradigm. The possibility and extent of global convergence to a single economic, political and ideological model have important implications for the economic and political future of societies such as our own, and ultimately the cultural diversity of our species. As Levi‐Strauss anticipated, “we have lost the possibilities offered by these [geographical, linguistic and cultural] barriers for developing and testing new genetic combinations and cultural experiences” (Levi‐Strauss 1985:23). As global economic, political and value systems converge, so too does the fate of humanity. By examining if and how the neoliberal ideology that shaped national institutions over time also shape cultural conceptions, we deepen our understanding neoliberal ideas and their relation to culture, society and historical change. To begin my investigation,