Ego

This chapter argues that the liberal conception, or formal system of private property, casts a shadow over what is really happening, where the power really lies, which is individual choice, or ego. The chapter draws from a range of historical examples in order to demonstrate what is meant by ego. The examples show that ego captures those actions undertaken solely to suit oneself. The model adopted is encapsulated in the work of Max Stirner to provide a biography of the neoliberal person. In exercising ego, the neoliberal person makes law—every choice is a making of law, the law of property as the individual, and not as the formal system, understands it.