These kinds of changes are often thought through the conceptual lens of ‘neoliberalism’. It’s worth describing what we might mean when we talk about neoliberalism, as the term – and imprecise uses of it – are all too quickly maligned. By neoliberalism, I mean a conscious, political project, undertaken to break the power of organised labour and develop new methods to extract profit from more and more of human social life, including from the legacy institutions of the welfare state. David Harvey describes it as the ‘gutting’ or ‘hollowing out’ of social programmes or social institutions.6 In its promise of breaking through the boredom of mid-twentieth century Fordism, it turns freedom in on itself. In promising freedom, it produces more coercion. As the philosopher, Byung-Chul Han puts it:

Neoliberalism represents a highly efficient, indeed an intelligent, system for exploiting freedom. Everything that belongs to practices and expressive forms of liberty – emotion, play and communication – comes to be exploited. It is inefficient to exploit people against their will. Allo-exploitation [exploitation carried out by other people] yields scant returns. Only when freedom is exploited are returns maximised.