What do you think?
Rate this book
Foucault and Neoliberalism
Michel Foucault's death in 1984 coincided with the fading away of the hopes for social transformation that characterized the postwar period. In the decades following his death, neoliberalism has triumphed and attacks on social rights have become increasingly bold. If Foucault was not a direct witness of these years, his work on neoliberalism is nonetheless prescient: the question of liberalism occupies an important place in his last works. Since his death, Foucault's conceptual apparatus has acquired a central, even dominant position for a substantial segment of the world's intellectual left.
However, as the contributions to this volume demonstrate, Foucault's attitude towards neoliberalism was at least equivocal. Far from leading an intellectual struggle against free market orthodoxy, Foucault seems in many ways to endorse it. How is one to understand his radical critique of the welfare state, understood as an instrument of biopower? Or his support for the pandering anti-Marxism of the so-called new philosophers? Is it possible that Foucault was seduced by neoliberalism?
This question is not merely of biographical interest: it forces us to confront more generally the mutations of the left since May 1968, the disillusionment of the years that followed and the profound transformations in the French intellectual field over the past thirty years. To understand the 1980s and the neoliberal triumph is to explore the most ambiguous corners of the intellectual left through one of its most important figures.
However, as the contributions to this volume demonstrate, Foucault's attitude towards neoliberalism was at least equivocal. Far from leading an intellectual struggle against free market orthodoxy, Foucault seems in many ways to endorse it. How is one to understand his radical critique of the welfare state, understood as an instrument of biopower? Or his support for the pandering anti-Marxism of the so-called new philosophers? Is it possible that Foucault was seduced by neoliberalism?
This question is not merely of biographical interest: it forces us to confront more generally the mutations of the left since May 1968, the disillusionment of the years that followed and the profound transformations in the French intellectual field over the past thirty years. To understand the 1980s and the neoliberal triumph is to explore the most ambiguous corners of the intellectual left through one of its most important figures.
152 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 26, 2014
22 people are currently reading
434 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 6, 2017
I have spent too many hours of my life in seminars with 'scholars' talking about Foucault that have never read more than the first few pages of the regicide. The plurality of Foucaults - the plurality of theoretical and political positions in his life - is not logged or registered.
And there are some dark and disturbing Foucaults to discover, including the ambivalent interest and support for neoliberalism - particularly its Germanic manifestations - late in his life.
This fine edited collection - without a single weak chapter - goes full throttle into this latter period and probes the inconsistencies and complexity of his final intellectual gasp.
The book is detailed. It is precise. It is well written. It is convincing. A ripper of an edited collection.
This book explains why scholars should fall in love with Foucault in their late teens and early twenties, but should commit to Althusser in the long term.
And yet. And yet... Foucault remains a seductive intellectual lover. One of the final chapters features a translation of "The great rage of facts.” He remains a fickle, intoxicating, infuriating, naughty but politically unsatisfying and damaging figure. This edited collection recognizes this ambivalence.
And there are some dark and disturbing Foucaults to discover, including the ambivalent interest and support for neoliberalism - particularly its Germanic manifestations - late in his life.
This fine edited collection - without a single weak chapter - goes full throttle into this latter period and probes the inconsistencies and complexity of his final intellectual gasp.
The book is detailed. It is precise. It is well written. It is convincing. A ripper of an edited collection.
This book explains why scholars should fall in love with Foucault in their late teens and early twenties, but should commit to Althusser in the long term.
And yet. And yet... Foucault remains a seductive intellectual lover. One of the final chapters features a translation of "The great rage of facts.” He remains a fickle, intoxicating, infuriating, naughty but politically unsatisfying and damaging figure. This edited collection recognizes this ambivalence.
Want to read
December 26, 2016Extremely provocative interview with the author in the Jacobin
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/fo...
Foucault as the godfather of neoliberalism with an anarcho-hipster slant? That is a very depressing thought. Neoliberalism was not just a movement of capitalism or the Establishment; it also infected the terms of the opposition. The spirit of '68 has failed us. Back to Marx, back to Marx.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/fo...
Foucault as the godfather of neoliberalism with an anarcho-hipster slant? That is a very depressing thought. Neoliberalism was not just a movement of capitalism or the Establishment; it also infected the terms of the opposition. The spirit of '68 has failed us. Back to Marx, back to Marx.
June 22, 2016
Gosh, this is provocative! Criticising Foucault, the arch intellectual opponent of capitalism/imperialism/neoliberalism, is a brave position to take, and this collection tackles the great man's writings head on with probing critiques. Not just does this suggest that Foucault was sometimes seduced by neoliberalism, but that his thinking could be seen to be complicit with upholding it.
As with any essay collection, this is designed to be controversial and there's certainly no 'party line' that the contributors are taking. At the same time, the book itself is a testament to the ability the (intellectual) Left has to investigate and interrogate its own position, however uncomfortable that might sometimes be.
Readers do need to have a fairly knowledgeable acquaintance with Foucault's writings before tackling this, and have a sense of how his frameworks of thought have influenced the way in which we understand the (post)modern world - so not for beginners or the casual reader but a book which shakes up the Foucauldian status quo.
As with any essay collection, this is designed to be controversial and there's certainly no 'party line' that the contributors are taking. At the same time, the book itself is a testament to the ability the (intellectual) Left has to investigate and interrogate its own position, however uncomfortable that might sometimes be.
Readers do need to have a fairly knowledgeable acquaintance with Foucault's writings before tackling this, and have a sense of how his frameworks of thought have influenced the way in which we understand the (post)modern world - so not for beginners or the casual reader but a book which shakes up the Foucauldian status quo.
March 20, 2022
Theoretically rich and accessible even to ppl not familiar with his work.
Some ppl claim the left/right paradigm is obsolete but texts like this kind of show how the only way to go after you've fallen out of love with the left is right
Foucault was one of the first leftist thinkers that took the neoliberal texts not merely as propaganda but as serious intellectual work and his preference for economic liberalism over the disciplinary power of the state is put in no ambiguous terms.
Foucault breaks the barrier a lot of young leftists might have in regards to thinkers like Hayek and Friedman and invites you to appreciate the deep theoretical richness and emancipatory potential proposals like a negative income tax might have compared with traditional forms of social government that structurally and implicitly make judgement calls between the worthy and the unworthy poor.
A wonderful and much needed book if anything to get ppl engaging honestly with the ideological opponents they almost always fail to take seriously through the eyes of the second most influent and original thinker of the 20th century
Some ppl claim the left/right paradigm is obsolete but texts like this kind of show how the only way to go after you've fallen out of love with the left is right
Foucault was one of the first leftist thinkers that took the neoliberal texts not merely as propaganda but as serious intellectual work and his preference for economic liberalism over the disciplinary power of the state is put in no ambiguous terms.
Foucault breaks the barrier a lot of young leftists might have in regards to thinkers like Hayek and Friedman and invites you to appreciate the deep theoretical richness and emancipatory potential proposals like a negative income tax might have compared with traditional forms of social government that structurally and implicitly make judgement calls between the worthy and the unworthy poor.
A wonderful and much needed book if anything to get ppl engaging honestly with the ideological opponents they almost always fail to take seriously through the eyes of the second most influent and original thinker of the 20th century
April 2, 2016
I've been working through these essays while re-reading the Birth of Biopolitics. Are many of the criticisms levelled here at Foucault valid? -- hmm. of many I'd say no. But there were a couple of essays that provoke a re-evaluation of Foucault's legacy. In particular why has Foucault's (implicit) "projection" of a neo-liberal future, a "permissive society", so far from the actual society that we find ourselves in today?
January 15, 2022
My apologies to the editor for the low rating because it's merely another one of these bogus French postmodern theorists posing as a (faux) intellectual, yet should be known -- and shown to be -- most for total bullshit. There's a great book I'm reading now that I wish were available when I was in grad school and got their hucksters shoved down my throat, their words -- god! I thought "Horseshit" then, even more now. There's an amazing book by a pair of actual scientists -- hard science as opposed to the soft sciences -- and specifically physics as they're physicists who currently think these morons -- Lacan, Kristeva, Derrida especially -- that their premise seems utterly insane -- until you discover it either confirms what you knew all along (check!) or shows you the truth -- that these assholes were pompous frauds who virtually all resorted to using terminology, ideas, math, alleged context from the hard sciences -- physics itself would have been a good start-- and used language so intentionally beyond the grasp of their grad school Liberal Arts student audiences that they successfully intimidated several generations into thinking they were more than just polymaths, much more. But as these physicists show, using ONLY math, physics, other hard sciences and some damn common sense, these frauds were SO full of shit in claiming to be experts while lying threw their teeth as what they blabbed on about often was total nonsense, akin to a baby warbling, and as some were wont to say, "As I have mathematically proven to you,..." when in point of fact, THEY HAVEN'T! Instead they've proven they themselves don't understand the very concepts, the hard science LAWS that cannot be bullshitted with, so they try to make things work that don't or can't or defy the laws of science or prove they're babbling idiots, etc. It's one of the most DELIGHTFUL books I've ever read! (If interested -- and I'm not affiliated with nor stand to gain financially or any other way -- the book is called "Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science" by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) These scientists don't do what the postmodern theorists do and for which they are derided, which is to attempt to hijack terms and ideas as though you're an expert when in fact you've shown yourself to be too stupid to understand shit and you've made an ass of yourself. The authors don't really care about the point or the theories or ideologies or the soft science aspects to these alleged thinkers. They even claim that as hard scientists, such may be beyond their training and understanding and why would they pretend otherwise -- like the French intimidation squad do? Their beef was hearing ole Mr. Foucault here, as well as Irigaray, Baudrillard and the others continually abuse mathematics and physics, etc., and attempting to integrate things they themselves didn't understand -- indeed, some proved they were too damn stupid to -- into their respective agendas so that when these authors take examples from various books, lectures, presentations, etc., to prove their points -- which is these jokers are "scientific" frauds posing as geniuses and for which they are guilty and should be punished (I guess by public humiliation in the form of books like this).
This all stemmed from a prank one of the authors played to see if they could prove their case, which worked so successfully that the idea for this book arose from it. I laughed my butt off when I read it because I had briefly considered doing something similar in grad school but was so busy I thought I couldn't afford to "waste" the necessary time involved. Basically one of these scientists had studied, read, made notes on the massive amount and degree of bullshit -- especially on the part of several specific ones -- and then drafted a "typical" postmodern liberal arts paper using similar tactics in resorting to words and phrases so big and intimidating that they should have been viewed as a damn genius by all rights -- when in point of fact, these guys were laughing their butts off because this author had virtually resorted to William Burroughs' infamous cutup method to take utter nonsensical nonsense that not only wasn't remotely accurate but in many cases, literally so wrong as the best thing that could describe it was utter intentional bullshit. The paper was a joke. And the joke worked! They submitted it to a major peer reviewed journal and it was ACCEPTED with glowing comments from the readers about their damn genius and so on and so on, thus proving their point that integrating hard science terminology into an ideological agenda so removed from reality or basic sense by resorting to big word mumbo jumbo and strong personalities to intimidate and persuade their audiences into taking it for granted they were damn geniuses along the lines of many of the European philosophers -- but better! And it was not to be questioned. Which I learned quickly when I was in grad school.
So this particular book isn't necessarily that bad and my very biased and admittedly subjective poor rating is more reflective of my hatred of these bullshitters so that the author and any involved are simply guilty by association -- merely in paying enough attention to these people as to waste time not remotely necessary to waste -- and reading actual scientific proof that literally confirmed my decades of suspicions was not freeing or liberating (that had happened 20 years before for me) so much as made me feel proud to be justified in my critical contempt for these gods of the canon and if I myself had the time -- having published my share of criticism in peer reviewed journals -- to waste writing about one or any of these people I would, but I have much to do that is part of real life, not fairy-tale life, and too little time so I must simply remain satisfied with true criticism based on reality and hope that others in the liberal arts one day catch on and these people are dumped from the curriculum in disgrace, as is merited. You know, there's a reason I've not been a member of or involved with organizations like the MLA for this entire century while being admitted -- and having to undergo some substantial vetting to be accepted -- professional organizations like the American Physical Society -- APS Physics -- and the ANS, or American Nuclear Society or that I've been a member of IEEE since 1997, etc. I don't have formal educations and terminal degrees in these fields, but I've been able to make my cases when necessary and they've been legitimate while back in the liberals arts, fluid subjectivity that's not grounded in rigid truths and facts but which can be manipulated for misuse, thus allowing "The Academy" to continue playing out its dramas and soap operas and earning the poor reputation it's been earning over the past several decades while various hard sciences have made discovery after discovery -- all of which must be falsifiable and is put to the test -- in order for anything to gain any academic credence at all -- something sorely lacking in the soft sciences. This book probably deserves a higher rating and again, my apology to Mr Zamora, but I hate these frauds so much and what they've done to almost entirely only American and British English departments, as well as some other liberal arts departments, that I can't disguise my contempt at merely seeing the names of them. While names like Max Plank and Neil Bohrs mean something truly substantial and because of that, my life is so much for the better.
This all stemmed from a prank one of the authors played to see if they could prove their case, which worked so successfully that the idea for this book arose from it. I laughed my butt off when I read it because I had briefly considered doing something similar in grad school but was so busy I thought I couldn't afford to "waste" the necessary time involved. Basically one of these scientists had studied, read, made notes on the massive amount and degree of bullshit -- especially on the part of several specific ones -- and then drafted a "typical" postmodern liberal arts paper using similar tactics in resorting to words and phrases so big and intimidating that they should have been viewed as a damn genius by all rights -- when in point of fact, these guys were laughing their butts off because this author had virtually resorted to William Burroughs' infamous cutup method to take utter nonsensical nonsense that not only wasn't remotely accurate but in many cases, literally so wrong as the best thing that could describe it was utter intentional bullshit. The paper was a joke. And the joke worked! They submitted it to a major peer reviewed journal and it was ACCEPTED with glowing comments from the readers about their damn genius and so on and so on, thus proving their point that integrating hard science terminology into an ideological agenda so removed from reality or basic sense by resorting to big word mumbo jumbo and strong personalities to intimidate and persuade their audiences into taking it for granted they were damn geniuses along the lines of many of the European philosophers -- but better! And it was not to be questioned. Which I learned quickly when I was in grad school.
So this particular book isn't necessarily that bad and my very biased and admittedly subjective poor rating is more reflective of my hatred of these bullshitters so that the author and any involved are simply guilty by association -- merely in paying enough attention to these people as to waste time not remotely necessary to waste -- and reading actual scientific proof that literally confirmed my decades of suspicions was not freeing or liberating (that had happened 20 years before for me) so much as made me feel proud to be justified in my critical contempt for these gods of the canon and if I myself had the time -- having published my share of criticism in peer reviewed journals -- to waste writing about one or any of these people I would, but I have much to do that is part of real life, not fairy-tale life, and too little time so I must simply remain satisfied with true criticism based on reality and hope that others in the liberal arts one day catch on and these people are dumped from the curriculum in disgrace, as is merited. You know, there's a reason I've not been a member of or involved with organizations like the MLA for this entire century while being admitted -- and having to undergo some substantial vetting to be accepted -- professional organizations like the American Physical Society -- APS Physics -- and the ANS, or American Nuclear Society or that I've been a member of IEEE since 1997, etc. I don't have formal educations and terminal degrees in these fields, but I've been able to make my cases when necessary and they've been legitimate while back in the liberals arts, fluid subjectivity that's not grounded in rigid truths and facts but which can be manipulated for misuse, thus allowing "The Academy" to continue playing out its dramas and soap operas and earning the poor reputation it's been earning over the past several decades while various hard sciences have made discovery after discovery -- all of which must be falsifiable and is put to the test -- in order for anything to gain any academic credence at all -- something sorely lacking in the soft sciences. This book probably deserves a higher rating and again, my apology to Mr Zamora, but I hate these frauds so much and what they've done to almost entirely only American and British English departments, as well as some other liberal arts departments, that I can't disguise my contempt at merely seeing the names of them. While names like Max Plank and Neil Bohrs mean something truly substantial and because of that, my life is so much for the better.
November 5, 2021
A great collection of essays examining the shortcomings of Foucault’s perspective in the late 1970s in light of his inability to completely develop his theory of neoliberalism and governmentality prior to his death in 1984. His disciples attempted to explain the contradictions away, to the detriment of deeper and clearer understanding. The book criticises Foucault for not seeing neoliberalism for what it would shape up to become, but also does not fail to praise the strengths of Foucault’s work and to situate his shortcomings in their proper historical context. Repeating his errors today and failing to see the pathologies of neoliberalism is inexcusable.
November 12, 2019
Interesting if you’re into Foucault and Neoliberalism, obviously
September 19, 2023
Great collection of essays about Foucault and Foucault studies
Some chapters definitely piqued my interest in books the authors have written
Some chapters definitely piqued my interest in books the authors have written
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews