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Tom Hoctor

Tom Hoctor

  • Tom’s research focuses on twentieth-century economic and political theory, especially theories of markets. He is inte... moreedit
This article argues that a reactionary mode of politics is emerging and informing more and more debate on the British Right. It defines reaction as 1) historicist attacks on liberal institutions or proxies, 2) the assertion of an... more
This article argues that a reactionary mode of politics is emerging and informing more and more debate on the British Right. It defines reaction as 1) historicist attacks on liberal institutions or proxies, 2) the assertion of an anti-historicist 'birth-culture' axiom and 3) a platform of the 'racialisation' of welfare and the targeting of welfare in ways which promotes traditionalist values. It then assesses the published works of Nick Timothy, former chief of staff to Theresa May, and Munira Mirza, former political advisor to Boris Johnson, to assess
In 2018, academies accounted for 72% of all English secondary schools, compared to 6% in 2009 (National Audit Office, 2018). English academy schooling conforms to marketizing trends in international education reform, but Conservative... more
In 2018, academies accounted for 72% of all English secondary schools, compared to 6% in 2009 (National Audit Office, 2018). English academy schooling conforms to marketizing trends in international education reform, but Conservative politicians have also attempted to promote particular moral values. This article analyses the tensions between neoliberalism and neoconservatism and applies this analysis to a concrete debate taking place within the Conservative Party in the 2000s and 2010s. It uses arguments made by an illustrative group of Conservative politicians to explore and analyse the tension between these two reform trends. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it will present the key arguments which were marshalled by a selection of thinkers affiliated with the Conservative Party in favour of educational reform. It will do this by analysing Conservative articulations of the failure of state education; the role of the consumer and the relationship between democracy and the market. Secondly, it will explore the degree to which marketizing and traditionalist impulses in education reform should be considered complimentary or contradictory. I will conclude by arguing that the parent-consumer functions as a vanishing mediator between neoliberal and neoconservative ideological positions.
This article contributes to a growing literature on economic epistemologies by arguing that so-called 'neoliberal' ways of thinking are characteristic of a trend in wider social theory to privilege epistemological problematics over... more
This article contributes to a growing literature on economic epistemologies by arguing that so-called 'neoliberal' ways of thinking are characteristic of a trend in wider social theory to privilege epistemological problematics over ontological ones. It will approach the shared nature of these epistemological precepts through an interrogation of the formal approaches to economic value used in the work of Schumpeter, Mises and Hayek and compare this with Derrida and Saussure's understanding of linguistic value. Using a Marxian understanding of use-value, it will be argued that the movement to abolish the transcendental signified in post-structural philosophy is homologous to the abolition of objective value in economics. It will be claimed that the impulse to abolish the Thing shared by economic theorists and poststructuralists follows from a shared, though necessarily differently constituted, antisocialism. In both cases, undermining the Thing is seen as a means of undermining organised socialist politics. I will conclude by arguing that these similarities demonstrate the need for neoliberalism and critique of neoliberalism to be historicised as part of a wider
This article is part of a special issue about the work of Andrew Gamble on the Conservative Party. It argues that the Conservatives are increasingly split between the economic logic of Hayekian market theory and the political logic of... more
This article is part of a special issue about the work of Andrew Gamble on the Conservative Party. It argues that the Conservatives are increasingly split between the economic logic of Hayekian market theory and the political logic of neoconservatism. It demonstrates this tension through a discussion of the works of Freidrich Hayek and Leo Strauss. Finally, I examine how Brexit and Boris Johnson's 'levelling up' agenda can be understood as structured by this division between the economic and the political.
This article sets out the contours of a Marxist hermeneutic approach to political economy. It begins by outlining how such a critique of political economy would function, with a particular emphasis on approaches which understand the... more
This article sets out the contours of a Marxist hermeneutic approach to political economy. It begins by outlining how such a critique of political economy would function, with a particular emphasis on approaches which understand the discipline of economics as theory. It further claims that critique is over-reliant on the concept neoliberalism; that the categories proper to economic critique are value, time and space and that the innovation of a hermeneutic approach would be to reintroduce a sphere for antagonism through the analysis of the relationship of economic theory to value. To substantiate this argument, I offer an analysis of some important trends in recent scholarship on neoliberalism, notably the regulation school and the work of Wendy Brown. The article concludes by arguing that a reorientation towards value is timely and necessary, given the serious global recession precipitated by the Coronavirus and the economic reorganisation which will ensue.
Critique of "neoliberalism" is generally thought of as a preoccupation of the political Left. Here it will be argued that the British Right has also been developing a distinctive critique of neoliberalism and its failure, whether they... more
Critique of "neoliberalism" is generally thought of as a preoccupation of the political Left. Here it will be argued that the British Right has also been developing a distinctive critique of neoliberalism and its failure, whether they thought about it in these precise terms or not. This represented an attempt by Conservative intellectuals to grapple with the enduring legacy of Thatcherism in the party. The objectives of this paper are threefold. Firstly, it will examine the contours of a distinctively Conservative description of neoliberal society by drawing on the work of Jesse Norman. Secondly, it will explain and contextualise their account of neoliberal economic failure and a possible avenue to its rehabilitation. And, thirdly, it will explain why this rehabilitation was itself a failure through a critique of Norman's attempts to read Hayek through Burke. It concludes by observing that what civic forms of conservatism fail to offer is a thoroughgoing examination of functions that markets are unable to perform.