The Neoliberal Impasse: Economy in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go in terms of economy. Drawing on insights from the New Economic Criticism, we situate this novel within a neoliberal and biopolitical context to illustrate the many ways in which the clones’ emotional and mental states interplay with a larger neoliberal economic system that ruthlessly commodifies and exploits them. We argue that the economy of affect in Ishiguro’s novel partakes of a certain ambivalence ultimately originating in contradictions and mystifications of capitalism. We refer to Giorgio Agamben, Franco Berardi, and Mark Fisher to explore the subtle intersections between Ishiguro’s novel and the broader socioeconomic paradigms. Another seminal issue we look into in this regard is how mental health issues are depoliticized to further conceal the insidiousness of economic exploitation. We also discuss how aesthetic issues in Ishiguro’s novel bear on its critique of neoliberalism. We hope that our economically-informed reading will contribute to understanding Ishiguro’s subtle socioeconomic critique of neoliberal capitalism and how readers are engaged to think beyond the neoliberal impasse, hauntingly bodied forth by the writer, as a crucial step towards overcoming it. © 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.