Blindness and invisibility

This article deals with the politics of visibility and blindness with regard to the theoretical orientations of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. My intention is to analyze their work in the context of neoliberalism, here depicted from the perspective of a politics of blindness. More generally, liberalism and neoliberalism both must be considered from the viewpoint of critical visibility suggested by Gilles Deleuze. Following a short and undemanding definition of neoliberalism I consider the related achievements of these philosophers. Blindness is described as the precondition for liberal and neoliberal order, whence a question: how much blindness should exist in order to stabilize these orders? The article demonstrates that, for different reasons, Foucault and Agamben downplay the structurality of visibility in capitalism. Yet, to resist the blinding light presupposes a critical account of the regime of visibility in capitalism.