Social Psychology and public policies: between the subject´s rights and the homo oeconomicus

Abstract

This article discusses the effects of public policies on the constitution of the subject, from problematizations in the field of Social Psychology based on philosophy of Michel Foucault. We consider public policies as an action of the State intended for investment in population life. This investment, from the 1988 Federal Constitution, would be the ideal to guarantee citizens’ civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights. Grounded on the discussion by Michel Foucault about the construction of the Modern State, which has been guided by the notion of bio-politics, we show that the figure of the homo oeconomicus has emerged from the relationship between State and Neoliberalism. We both point out that this relationship has caused a conflict between the subject’s rights and the interests of the economic market, and show how this has affected the ways of being and living, something that, from our point of view, presently constitutes practices in Social Psychology.