Exposing the Effects of the “Invisible Hand” of the Neoliberal Agenda on Institutionalized Education and the Process of Sociocultural Reproduction

The neoliberal proposition that the “invisible hand” of the market is the most efficient and just mechanism for structuring economies, societies, and cultures has had a powerful impact on the nature and delivery of what have historically been considered as “public goods” in America, including social welfare services and public education. The mode of operation through which extensive and powerful networks of organizations dedicated to the prosecution of the neoliberal policy agenda and the ideological propositions and popular culture mythology that serve to support the conceptual frameworks that undergird them run counter to the realities of overarching social structures in America. In point of fact, these ideological and mythological tenets and images work to obscure these dispositive structural realities, many of which revolve around the operative dynamics of social capital networks and the ability of persons across a class structure to create and/or access such networks. Herein, we undertake an examination of how the resulting interplay of social structure, culture and individual agency lies at the heart of the process through which neoliberal propositions take on the aura of hegemony and become subject to sociocultural reproduction across generations.