ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: FREEDOM FROM THE MARKET: ANTAGONISTIC DISRUPTIONS OF NEOLIBERAL CAPITALISM Yvonne Wanda Slosarski, Doctor of Philosophy, 2018 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Kristy L. Maddux Associate Professor Department of Communication The 2016 U.S. presidential election showcased prominent rejections of the existing political and economic order, as many voters channeled frustrations over rising inequality and instability into support for candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who acknowledged the widespread economic struggles of the market globalization age. This recent electoral example is one of many global rejections of free market expansion, a phenomenon that my dissertation examines. While rhetorical scholars have addressed the growing prominence of the free market and its logics, my project examines how people have resisted what is often called neoliberalism. Taking an approach to rhetoric derived from theories of articulation, in this project, I define neoliberalism as a hegemonic articulation that strings together four governing principles: freedom as primary, economics as natural, the individual as rational actor, and the free market as pure. The project examines three activist discourses that challenged neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s and that continue to resonate today: the 1986 U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Economic Justice for All pastoral letter, the Kathy Lee Gifford sweatshop scandal of 1996, and Seattle’s 1999 World Trade Organization protests. With each case, I demonstrate how neoliberal discourses themselves fostered tensions and how people exploited these tensions to challenge neoliberal hegemony; following theories of articulation, I call these challenges “antagonisms.” This project suggests that we should understand activist moments as “antagonistic disruptions” that that interrupt hegemonic discourses and evoke the possibility of their demise. Taken together, these case studies offer three major lessons for scholars and activists. First, the project suggests that powerful discourses—like neoliberalism—are comprised of necessary tensions, and that scholars can identify those tensions and that activists can exploit them. Second, the dissertation teaches scholars and activists that existing discourses and previous antagonisms enable people to challenge powerful discourses. Thus, scholars and activists learn that antagonisms are disruptive when they participate in legible frames of reference. Third, the cases suggest that the more multi- modal and frequent the antagonistic engagement, the more forceful the disruption. This project then, recommends that scholars study multi-modal recurrence and that activists strive for multi-modal consistency. FREEDOM FROM THE MARKET: ANTAGONISTIC DISRUPTIONS OF NEOLIBERAL CAPITALISM by Yvonne Wanda Slosarski Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Advisory Committee: Professor Kristy L. Maddux, Chair Professor James F. Klumpp Professor Shawn J. Parry-Giles Professor Trevor Parry-Giles Professor Orrin Wang © Copyright by Yvonne Wanda Slosarski 2017 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Kristy Maddux, who consistently sharpened my analytical and writing skills and who counseled me through both the highs and lows of designing and writing this project. Thank you, also, Dr. Maddux for your sense of humor and for your forthright, honest, and prompt feedback. I would also like to thank my committee members for teaching me how to conceptualize, execute, and strengthen this dissertation. Thank you, Dr. Shawn J. Parry-Giles, for teaching me how to write clearly and for pushing me to refine my notions of agency. Thank you, Dr. Trevor Parry-Giles, for providing honest feedback and professional guidance since my first semester of graduate school. Thank you, Dr. James F. Klumpp, for your open office door and for treating scholarship as an impactful philosophy and practice. Thank you, Dr. Orrin Wang, for sharing your expertise in critical theory and for your openness to intellectual dialogue. I feel an overwhelming gratitude to my partner, Nathan Luecking, for his tireless and unending support, which manifested in emotional, intellectual, and material ways. Nathan uplifted me during my lowest moments and celebrated each milestone with love and joy. This dissertation is Nathan’s as much as it is mine. I also wish to thank my parents, Elizabeth and Richard Slosarski, who not only raised me to think critically and engage completely, but who also encouraged me throughout graduate school. Finally, I am profoundly grateful to my dear friends from this department: Katie Brown, Morgan Hess, William Howell, Jessica Lu, Thomas McCloskey, Nora Murphy, Jade Olson, Devin Scott, Janna Soeder, and Sifan Xu. Friends, without your sincere support, righteous rage, and loving labor, this dissertation would never have come to fruition. Thank you. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... i Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... ii Chapter 1 The Neoliberal Articulation and its Antagonisms ..................................................................... 1 An Articulation Approach to Rhetoric ......................................................................... 5 Symbolicity and Materiality ............................................................................ 6 Ideology, Hegemony, and Agentic Social Change ......................................... 10 Methodological Commitments ........................................................................ 19 Neoliberalism as Hegemonic Articulation ................................................................... 21 Development and Spread of Neoliberal Articulation ...................................... 23 Economic Crisis of 1970s ............................................................................... 24 Antecedent Articulations ................................................................................. 28 Cultural Practices and Structural Adjustments ................................................ 35 Antagonizing the Neoliberal Articulation .................................................................... 40 Chapter 2 Economic Justice for All: The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Antagonistic Metaphysics ................... 54 The Long 1980s: Burgeoning Neoliberal Articulation ................................................. 58 Crisis ................................................................................................................ 58 Reaganite Freedom Economics ....................................................................... 62 Christianized Agency and Moral Economics ............................................................... 65 Christianized Politics ....................................................................................... 66 EJA’s Christian Economics ............................................................................. 68 U.S. Pastoral Letter Genre ............................................................................................ 71 Collective Enunciation ..................................................................................... 75 Dual Subjectivities ........................................................................................... 76 iii Public Doctrine ................................................................................................ 82 Catholic Social Teaching .............................................................................................. 87 CST Ontology ................................................................................................. 89 CST Axiology ................................................................................................. 94 Economic Justice ............................................................................................ 98 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 106 Chapter 3 Sweatshop Shame and Gifford Guilt: Antagonistic Emotion and Free Market Optimism ....... 119 Early-to-Mid 1990s: Free Market Optimism ............................................................... 124 Peaceful Prosperity ......................................................................................... 126 Self-Realization ….......................................................................................... 129 Promoting Neoliberal Attachments ................................................................ 133 Gifford as Free Market Optimist ................................................................................. 136 Circulating Class Shame .............................................................................................. 141 Revelations ..................................................................................................... 142 Accusations .................................................................................................... 148 Reactions ........................................................................................................ 153 Transforming Class Shame into Class Guilt ............................................................... 163 Personal