Human Become Coin: Neoliberalism, Anthropology, and Human Possibilities in No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men begins with Sheriff Ed Tom Bell reminiscing about only criminal sent to gas chamber. The man in question killed his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, and Bell's testimony was decisive in his conviction and sentencing. During their conversations, killer admits that he had been plannin to kill somebody for about as long as could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said knew was to hell (4). In response to this candor, Bell confesses, I thought I'd never seen person like that and it got me to wonderin if maybe was some (McCarthy 4). This new kind of human does not appear irrational or unreasonable: was not hard to talk to. Called me Sheriff' (4). He shows no regret; expects no mercy or forgiveness. In fact, is utterly clear that will be held responsible for his actions: knows is goin to hell (4). However, is also incapable of acting differently, knowing would do it again if given chance. This combination of horror and reason gives Bell pause, after all, [w]hat do you say to man that by his own admission has no soul? (4-5).We see here overarching concern of No Country for Old Men, namely emergence of new type of human being, one frighteningly devoid of any recognizable humanity, yet one that remains reasonable, principled, and calculating. Bell, from beginning, associates this humanity with character of Chigurh, a true and living prophet of destruction (5). Moreover, Bell parallels this emergence of humanity with breakdown in mercantile ethics that reaches into every strata of society (304). It is large-scale change in economics that, Bell suspects, has brought about emergence of this humanity. Hence, No Country for Old Men, novel set at beginning of period of neoliberal reforms1 (1980), takes up convergence of economics and human nature, emergence of kind of humanity arising from shift in economic processes.2 Key to this shift will be conviction, embodied in character of Chigurh, that market logic governs all human nature, social decision making, and even reality itself. In what follows, we show how No Country for Old Men details anthropology of neoliberalism both in character of Chigurh and in its framing of characters and narrative of novel as whole. In addition, we look at how novel presents sites of resistance to this anthropology, particularly how it challenges neoliberalism's claim that society as it currently exists is necessary and natural outcome of our competitive human nature. We begin with anthropology of neoliberalism.Homo economicusIn A Genealogy of Homo-Economicus: Neoliberalism and Production of Subjectivity, Jason Read argues, following Michel Foucault, that neoliberalism is more than political or economic program. Rather, it is ideological transformation, generated not from state, or from dominant class but from quotidian experience of buying and selling commodities from market, which is then extended across other social spaces (Read 26). The conviction that market logic and market forces determine all spheres of human life (social, political, economic, juridical, etc.) defines neoliberalism. As Foucault writes, the starting point and general frame of reference for economic analysis [in neoliberalism] should be way in which individuals allocate . . . scarce means to alternative ends (Foucault 222). Neoliberalism frames all human interactions as economic choices, choices about how to use one's limited resources to achieve one's desired ends. Significantly this formulation interprets all social life through singular lens of cost to benefit, as every individual decision becomes an attempt to garner maximum return on one's investments while managing risk of loss. Hence, under neoliberalism [everything for which human beings attempt to realize their ends, from marriage, to crime, to expenditures on children, can be understood economically' according to particular calculation of cost for benefit (Read 28). …