 Foucault also emphasizes that neoliberal governmentality should be viewed as a particular way of producing subjects: it produces an economic subject structured by specific tendencies, preferences, and motivations. It aims to create social conditions that not only encourage and necessitate competitiveness and self-interest, but also produce them. Foucault discusses the work of the American neoliberal economists, in particular Gary Becker and his theory of human capital, in order to show how neoliberal subjects are understood as navigating the social realm by constantly making rational choices based on economic knowledge and the strict calculation of the necessary costs and desired benefits. Such subjects must make long-term and short-term investments in different aspects of their lives and acquire sufficient economic knowledge to be able to calculate costs, risks, and possible returns on the capital invested.