What do you think?
Rate this book
Cours au Collège de France/Lectures at the Collège de France #8
Nascita della biopolitica. Corso al Collège de France, 1978-1979
Edizione stabilita sotto la direzione di François Ewald e Alessandro Fontana da Michel Senellart
La traduzione dei Résumés dei corsi tenuti da Focault al Collège de France dal 1978 al 1979 aggiunge una nuova dimensione all'opera del grande filosofo francese. Questi documenti, redatti al termine di ogni anno di insegnamento, illustrano l'itinerario di una delle esperienze didattico-filosofiche più importanti del nostro tempo.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
172 people are currently reading
4293 people want to read
About the author
Michel Foucault
763 books6,469 followersPaul-Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationships between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, psychology, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, Marxism and critical theory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
August 26, 2017
Έχω σημειώσει σε κάθε περιθώριο του βιβλίου, έχω τσακίσει δεκάδες σελίδες, πράγμα που πιθανότατα σημαίνει ότι θα ανατρέχω διαρκώς σε αυτό –εξηγεί άλλωστε τις ρίζες και τις προϋποθέσεις των φαινομένων που βιώνουμε σήμερα σε οικονομικό και πολιτειακό επίπεδο. Το κείμενο χρειάζεται την προσοχή του αναγνώστη, σε καμία περίπτωση όμως δεν είναι δύσβατο για κάποιον λιγότερο μυημένο. Η σκέψη του Foucault, σφιχτά δομημένη και πλούσια σε ερμηνευτικές παρατηρήσεις, για μένα τουλάχιστον, είναι συναρπαστική.
Συγχαρητήρια στις εκδόσεις Πλέθρον για την επιμέλεια του βιβλίου και την, όπως πάντα, προσεγμένη έκδοση αλλά και στον Βασίλη Πετσογιάννη για τη μετάφραση.
Συγχαρητήρια στις εκδόσεις Πλέθρον για την επιμέλεια του βιβλίου και την, όπως πάντα, προσεγμένη έκδοση αλλά και στον Βασίλη Πετσογιάννη για τη μετάφραση.
March 3, 2011
Docked one star because my 25th birthday will now forever be associated with neoliberalism and the logic of the market economy. Damn youuuu Foucauuuuuult! *shakes fist*
March 5, 2017
These lectures represent one of the most interesting intellectual failures in the last 100 or so years: Foucault's attempt to describe what he meant by "biopolitics" (a topic he originally raised a few years earlier in the series of lectures collected in Society Must Be Defended). Ultimately, reading this book, one has to come to the conclusion that he simply could never quite put his finger on it - he got lost right from the beginning and ended up giving a kind of history of liberalism, which was supposed to be the introduction but ended up being the entire project. Yet his account of liberalism is incredibly rich nonetheless, and throws up a vast number of interesting ideas: one has an image of Foucault taking out his spade and shoveling downwards into the earth, throwing sods of soil haphazardly over his shoulder. At the end one is left with only a mound of dirt haphazardly arranged, but there are plenty of diamonds if you're prepared to sift through it.
It's perhaps worth saying that ultimately one gets the impression that Foucault ended up being more convinced by the work of Smith, Ricardo, Ferguson, Hayek, Roepke, etc. than he was by his own leftist critique of them, but couldn't quite bring himself to admit it in so many words.
It's perhaps worth saying that ultimately one gets the impression that Foucault ended up being more convinced by the work of Smith, Ricardo, Ferguson, Hayek, Roepke, etc. than he was by his own leftist critique of them, but couldn't quite bring himself to admit it in so many words.
January 31, 2021
To say that these lectures are controversial is an understatement. A lot of ink has been spilled trying to decipher the extent of Foucault's supposed sympathies towards neoliberalism - which some have even interpreted as a full conversion - and how these can or cannot be squared with Foucault's leftist and radical politics. I will leave this issue aside as unanswerable. Considering only the academic merits of the lectures, they are really impressive. Both critics of neoliberalism and its sympathetic proponents will find something useful and insightful in these lectures.
Formally, the lectures are well ordered, clearly argued, and deeply researched. There is almost no trace here of the notoriously obscurantist Foucault. Compared to something like Madness and Civilization - a book that I also adore but whose hallucinogenic writing style can be infuriating - these lectures are stylistically dry and sober. The English edition also featured extensive footnotes that were extremely helpful in clarifying the main text which, after all, is based on the transcriptions of oral lectures and therefore lacks a few subtleties of a well-edited book.
Content-wise, we get an erudite and insightful historical survey of the origins and developments of the neoliberal approach to government, the law, markets, civil society, the individual, etc... Unlike many of the left-wing critics of neoliberalism today, Foucault does not engage in straw-manning Adam Smith, Walter Eucken, Wilhelm Röpke, Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, F.A. Hayek, and the other social thinkers and political economists. Instead, he offers a nuanced and sympathetic reading of their central ideas, from the "invisible hand" to "the competitive order." At the same time, he weaves together a coherent and powerful (if sometimes overambitious and "totalizing") narrative of neoliberalism with its unique methodologies, obsessions, epistemic assumptions, and arts of governance.
I do have a few criticisms. Since Foucault was not deeply familiar with all branches of liberalism, some of his analysis of particular thinkers can be shallow. For example, he does not seem to understand the major difference between the rational Homo Oeconomics model of the neoclassical school and the epistemically humble non-idealized model of the Scottish/Austrian school. He lumps them all together under neoliberal political economy. My other criticism of the book is that its schoolmasterly, value-free, and encyclopaedic presentation leaves something to be desired. Foucault goes through so many thinkers, eras, concepts, schools of thought, historical periods, countries, and the like, that the reader can get dizzy with details, and it is not always clear whether he is simply presenting the views of the thinkers he is discussing or whether he is agreeing with their analysis of society. (This obviously is also the reason why commentators can disagree on the degree to which Foucault himself sympathized with the neoliberal "schema")
My last criticism is tied to the previous point. Epistemically and ethically, I find Foucault's focus on discourse and framework analysis perfectly legitimate, but it can also lead to truth-relativism with all the problems that come with that. This "poststructuralist" or "postmodern" aspect of his work is both its biggest strength but also its biggest weakness. What I find admirable about it is its ability to ask deep structural questions about social organization and the different ways in which different societies categorize and manipulate the world. When I find lamentable is its tendency to ignore if not downright reject the validity of attempting to inquire about the relative merits of the truth claims made by the different epistemic frameworks. One of the consequences of such a postmodern skepticism towards universal truth is the inability to ask questions such as "Was this view true?" For example, it does not seem possible to evaluate the relative merits of, say, the invisible hand theory of market organisation versus the mercantilist theory of market organisation. The most Foucault is willing to do is analyze the effects of such claims and theories on social organization, knowledge production, and power relations.
Thankfully, even if you disagree with this epistemic point of view, the lectures are illuminating. The reader can decide for themselves whether the neoliberal art of governance is merely a historical configuration of power and truth relations (as Foucault seems to suggest) or whether it also discovered some "universal" truths such as those contained in the "laws" of political economy.
Overall, I was enthralled by the combination of scholarly erudition and original philosophical insight on these pages. I highly recommend any students of the history of ideas to read this book. I cannot say if they reveal Foucault to have moved a few steps towards neoliberalism in his later years, but they contain some fantastic analysis of the history of (neo)liberalism and the unique "art of governance" associated with the "production of freedom" within the competitive order.
Formally, the lectures are well ordered, clearly argued, and deeply researched. There is almost no trace here of the notoriously obscurantist Foucault. Compared to something like Madness and Civilization - a book that I also adore but whose hallucinogenic writing style can be infuriating - these lectures are stylistically dry and sober. The English edition also featured extensive footnotes that were extremely helpful in clarifying the main text which, after all, is based on the transcriptions of oral lectures and therefore lacks a few subtleties of a well-edited book.
Content-wise, we get an erudite and insightful historical survey of the origins and developments of the neoliberal approach to government, the law, markets, civil society, the individual, etc... Unlike many of the left-wing critics of neoliberalism today, Foucault does not engage in straw-manning Adam Smith, Walter Eucken, Wilhelm Röpke, Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, F.A. Hayek, and the other social thinkers and political economists. Instead, he offers a nuanced and sympathetic reading of their central ideas, from the "invisible hand" to "the competitive order." At the same time, he weaves together a coherent and powerful (if sometimes overambitious and "totalizing") narrative of neoliberalism with its unique methodologies, obsessions, epistemic assumptions, and arts of governance.
I do have a few criticisms. Since Foucault was not deeply familiar with all branches of liberalism, some of his analysis of particular thinkers can be shallow. For example, he does not seem to understand the major difference between the rational Homo Oeconomics model of the neoclassical school and the epistemically humble non-idealized model of the Scottish/Austrian school. He lumps them all together under neoliberal political economy. My other criticism of the book is that its schoolmasterly, value-free, and encyclopaedic presentation leaves something to be desired. Foucault goes through so many thinkers, eras, concepts, schools of thought, historical periods, countries, and the like, that the reader can get dizzy with details, and it is not always clear whether he is simply presenting the views of the thinkers he is discussing or whether he is agreeing with their analysis of society. (This obviously is also the reason why commentators can disagree on the degree to which Foucault himself sympathized with the neoliberal "schema")
My last criticism is tied to the previous point. Epistemically and ethically, I find Foucault's focus on discourse and framework analysis perfectly legitimate, but it can also lead to truth-relativism with all the problems that come with that. This "poststructuralist" or "postmodern" aspect of his work is both its biggest strength but also its biggest weakness. What I find admirable about it is its ability to ask deep structural questions about social organization and the different ways in which different societies categorize and manipulate the world. When I find lamentable is its tendency to ignore if not downright reject the validity of attempting to inquire about the relative merits of the truth claims made by the different epistemic frameworks. One of the consequences of such a postmodern skepticism towards universal truth is the inability to ask questions such as "Was this view true?" For example, it does not seem possible to evaluate the relative merits of, say, the invisible hand theory of market organisation versus the mercantilist theory of market organisation. The most Foucault is willing to do is analyze the effects of such claims and theories on social organization, knowledge production, and power relations.
Thankfully, even if you disagree with this epistemic point of view, the lectures are illuminating. The reader can decide for themselves whether the neoliberal art of governance is merely a historical configuration of power and truth relations (as Foucault seems to suggest) or whether it also discovered some "universal" truths such as those contained in the "laws" of political economy.
Overall, I was enthralled by the combination of scholarly erudition and original philosophical insight on these pages. I highly recommend any students of the history of ideas to read this book. I cannot say if they reveal Foucault to have moved a few steps towards neoliberalism in his later years, but they contain some fantastic analysis of the history of (neo)liberalism and the unique "art of governance" associated with the "production of freedom" within the competitive order.
August 18, 2018
«تولد زیستسیاست» مجموعهی درسگفتارهای کلژ دو فرانس میشل فوکو در سال تحصیلی ۱۹۷۸ تا ۱۹۷۹ است که بعدها به شکل کتاب منتشر شده. اگر به فرنچتئوری و بهخصوص میشل فوکو علاقهمند باشید، مجموعهای است ارزشمند که شاید بتواند بخشی از سمتوسوی اندیشههای فوکو در آخرین سالهای زندگیاش را نمایان کند.
اما دو نکتهی سلبی دربارهی محتوای کتاب: اول اینکه خیال نکنید «تولد زیستسیاست» میشل فوکو پر از واژهی «زیستسیاست» و کلیدواژههای مربوط به آن است. در آغاز این سلسله درسگفتارها قرار بوده مقدمهای بیاید برای پرداختن به مفهوم زیستسیاست، اما مقدمه به قدری طولانی شده که عملاً همهی جلسهها را به خود اختصاص داده. در متن مربوط به آخرین جلسه، که جمعبندی همهی جلسههای قبلی است، میخوانیم: «کل دورهی درسی امسال به چیزی اختصاص داده شد که میبایست تنها مقدمهی آن باشد. مضمون این درسگفتارها باید زیستسیاست میبود...»
نکتهی دوم هم اینکه شاید نام این کتاب را در نوشتهها و سخنرانیهایی شنیده باشید که در نقد نئولیبرالیسم نوشته یا گفته شدهاند. شاید در بین انتقادهای شدید وطنی از نئولیبرالیسم، از این کتاب به عنوان «متنی درخشان» در «نقد» نئولیبرالیسم یاد شود. اما اگر متن را بهدقت بخوانید، میبینید مطلقاً این طور نیست. درست است که تولد زیستسیاست دربارهی لیبرالیسم و نئولیبرالیسم است، اما در جهت نقد کوبنده از اینها نیست. اتفاقاً این کتاب، تا آنجا که من میفهمم، در بخشهایی در پاسخ به نقد «سطحی» مارکسیستها به سرمایهداری نوشته شده (و اساساً فرنچتئوری را باید در مقام واکنشی به مارکسیسم قالب در دوران پس از جنگ دوم فهمید).
جایی از این درسگفتارها فوکو به صراحت میگوید: «اویکن در یک فرمول مهم میگوید باید «به سوی نوعی حقوق اقتصادی آگاهانه حرکت کنیم». به نظر من [فوکو] این فرمول را باید جزءبهجزء در برابر صورتبندی مارکسیستی سطحیای قرار داد که در آن وقتی مورخان دست به تحلیل میزنند، اقتصاد همواره از آگاهیشان گریزان است.» [توضیح اینکه اویکن بنیانگذار نئولیبرالیسم حلقهی وین است.]
اما چرا فوکو سراغ بررسی (و نه نقد کوبندهی) نئولیبرالیسم رفته؟ باز هم به گمان من در پاسخ به برداشت مارکسیستها از سرمایه و سرمایهداری و بهویژه تحلیل اقتصادی مفهوم کار در اقتصاد کلاسیک. به گمان من، یکی از مهمترین گزارههایی که فوکو در این درسگفتارها روی آن تاکید میکند، چنین است: «اولاً سرمایهداری بنیادینی که دارای منطق، تناقضها و بنبستهای خاص خود باشد، در کار نیست. دوم، اکنون ابداع یا خلق سرمایهداریای متمایز از نوع نخست، متمایز از سرمایهداریای که میشناسیم، کاملاً امکانپذیر میشود.» فوکو این جملهها را پس از برشمردن ویژگیهای نئولیبرالیسم میگوید، در حالی که کمی قبلتر، به این نکته اشاره میکند که تحلیل مارکسیستی ذات و بنیادی تغییرناپذیر برای سرمایهداری قائل است: «در تحلیل به سبک مارکسیستی در کلیترین معنای کلمه، این منطق اقتصادی سرمایه و انباشت آن است که در تاریخ سرمایهداری تعیینکننده است و بنابراین میتوانید ببینید که در واقع چون سرمایه یک منطق بیشتر ندارد، پس فقط یک سرمایهداری میتواند وجود داشته باشد.»
به زبان ساده، فوکو میکوشد نشان دهد برخلاف تصور مارکسیستها، تنها یک سرمایهداری بنیادین وجود ندارد و اگر مارکسیسم سطحی در نقد جدی سرمایهداری ناتوان مانده، به این دلیل است که به وجود ذات و بنیادی تغییرناپذیر برای سرمایهداری باور دارد. از سوی دیگر، فوکو میکوشد که امکان اندیشیدن به انواع دیگر سرمایهداری [و احتمالاً انواع بهتر سرمایهداری] را بگشاید.
این حرفها [هرچند بر اساس گفتههای خود فوکو و متن این درسگفتارها بیان شده] شاید برای فوکوپرستان چندان خوشایند به نظر نرسد، اما میشود گفت فوکو در آثار دیگرش هم از این استراتژی بهره میبرد و اساساً معتقد است کار سیاسی یعنی همین. برای نمونه، فوکو در متنی با عنوان «سوژه و قدرت»، که در مجموعهی «تئاتر فلسفه» به فارسی برگردانده شده، مینویسد: «باید با رد آن نوع فردیتی که طی چندین قرن بر ما تحمی�� شده است، شکلهای جدیدی از سوژهمندی را ایجاد کنیم».
به هر ترتیب، اگر بخواهیم کمی احتیاط بهخرج بدهیم، باید بگوییم فوکو در اواخر دههی هفتاد نسبت به امکانات تحلیل نئولیبرالیستی اقتصاد، ذهنیت بازی داشته که تولد زیستسیاست بهخوبی این مساله را نشان میدهد.
دربارهی ترجمهی کتاب
ترجمهی متون فلسفی، شبهفلسفی، انسانشناسی و جستارهایی از این دست در دهههای اخیر از روندهای مهم تولید کتاب در ایران بوده. مسالهای که خودش میتواند موضوعی برای بررسی جدی باشد. اما به گمان من و بهطور کلی، بین ترجمه در این حوزه و اندیشهورزی دقیق در آن، شکافی وجود دارد که در نهایت روی کیفیت ترجمهها هم تاثیر منفی میگذارد. این شکاف، خیلی ساده، باعث میشود در جاهایی مترجم از چیزی که ترجمه میکند دور بیفتد و دست آخر جملههایی نامفهوم، اشتباه و گاه معکوس تحویل دهد.
ترجمهی رضا نجفزاده از تولد زیستسیاست، ترجمهای بهنسبت روان است که ارزش خواندن دارد، اما کم نیست مواردی که از لحاظ مفهومی نامناسب و گاه اشتباه برگردانده شده. یکی از این اشتباهها ترجمهی عبارت
critical commonplace
به «رخداد بحرانی نادر» (؟!) است که چند پاراگراف پشت سر هم را از معنا میاندازد. و این یکی از این اشتباهها است.
پیشنهادم این است که اگر میخواهید کتاب را دقیق بخوانید، حتما نسخهای انگلیسی از آن را کنار دست داشته باشید و برای درک جملههای مبهم و نامفهوم، به متن انگلیسی نگاه کنید.
January 9, 2013
Since biopolitics comes out of the liberal need for limitation of government, the plan was to discuss liberalism in its classical and contemporary forms and then come to the discussion of politics of life. But Foucault never comes to the second part so this book is actually the comprehensive guide to the development of liberalism and neo-liberalism.
It starts with the Freiburg School which dealt with the same Weberian "irrational rationality" of capitalism as the Frankfurt School, but takes a completely different direction in the Ordoliberal thought. Ordoliberals believed in the free market, but also in the responsibility of the government to ensure that the fragile price adjusting mechanisms of the market function properly and actually bring the best possible results of competition. They defined themselves against National Socialism, Soviet Socialism, and Keynesian interventionism.
The next development in the liberal thought is American neo-liberalism of the Chicago school and "anarcho-capitalism" which applies the market rationality to new spheres such as the family, birth rates, delinquency, etc. Instead of being a political or economic theory, liberalism in the US is "a way of being and thinking" and thus supported from both the left and the right.
It would be interesting to hear Foucault's thoughts on the development of neo-liberalism and possible emergence of post neo-liberal societies in the past few decades. This work is essential for any attempt at a discussion of liberal governmental rationalities, past or contemporary.
It starts with the Freiburg School which dealt with the same Weberian "irrational rationality" of capitalism as the Frankfurt School, but takes a completely different direction in the Ordoliberal thought. Ordoliberals believed in the free market, but also in the responsibility of the government to ensure that the fragile price adjusting mechanisms of the market function properly and actually bring the best possible results of competition. They defined themselves against National Socialism, Soviet Socialism, and Keynesian interventionism.
The next development in the liberal thought is American neo-liberalism of the Chicago school and "anarcho-capitalism" which applies the market rationality to new spheres such as the family, birth rates, delinquency, etc. Instead of being a political or economic theory, liberalism in the US is "a way of being and thinking" and thus supported from both the left and the right.
It would be interesting to hear Foucault's thoughts on the development of neo-liberalism and possible emergence of post neo-liberal societies in the past few decades. This work is essential for any attempt at a discussion of liberal governmental rationalities, past or contemporary.
September 23, 2016
An history of liberalism. Foucault meant to speak about biopolitics but got lost in the introduction and now his fail is published for everyone to see.
Read
November 1, 2020It was several years ago that I was let in on the trade secret that while Foucault's books are obscure, his lectures are models of clarity, and come in convenient book form anyway. I let this useful fact lay unused for some time, but after several failed attempts to surmount The Order of Things and one pleasant stroll through this - prompted, if you can believe it, by a dream that suggested it - I can confirm: Foucault's lectures may seem clearer than his books, Foucault's lectures may read clearer than his books, but don't let that deceive you; they really are much clearer than his books.
(Or at least this collection is much clearer than that book; maybe History of Sexuality Vol. 1 is a model of lucidity and Security, Territory, Population is impenetrable - or maybe I'm just a dumbass and they're all perfectly transparent.)
Since it doesn't drape itself under a cloak of obscurity, it's possible to get a good look at the anatomy of the subject of these lectures as a whole and conclude that it's a bit odd: two transformations of liberalism/free market economic thought; one in the mid-1700s and one in the mid-1900s (Foucault mentions at the end that he had meant the main thrust of the year's lectures to concern the 1800s and then got distracted; and I can respect his honesty and sympathize with his getting excited by what might have been a tangent.) These are the early modern turn from natural jurisprudence to political economy, and the postwar emergence of ordoliberalism and the Chicago school.
What is natural jurisprudence? Well, it is a method within political philosophy which is probably most familiar to people in our day through the social contract theorists - Hobbes, Locke, and all that - which emphasized the voluntary nature of society, the conditions that would have to hold for free individuals surrendering a portion of their natural rights, and determining which rights they had or had not had to surrender in order for this to be possible, and of those retained, how they would limit the state and the ends it sought for itself. So natural jurisprudence played a limiting function against the early modern fiscal-military state: the state wanted to endlessly tax and conscript its population so that it could better engage in endless warfare against other European states that were doing the same thing, and against weaker states on other continents that hadn't quite gotten up to speed yet. In this sense natural jurisprudence was a basically medieval way of limiting the sovereign - the king says your city must offer up one hundred youths, you produce a writ from a king three centuries ago saying the city is granted a liberty of offering up only two doughty warriors each year, the king grumbles that the law limits him. It's just that natural jurisprudence is relatively rationalized.
The problem with this is that it doesn't really speak to the language of the fiscal-military state. You're raising purely moral or at best procedural objections, to which it can merely say, "yeah, but I don't care. I'm out here in a highly competitive game of natural selection against other warlord states! It's tough out here in early modern Europe! Limiting myself by your principles is basically letting parasites swim through my bloodstream. I have to optimize for one thing and one thing only!"
What classical political economy is able to do, then, is speak to the sovereign in its own language: "if you wish to maximize the resources at your disposal, you must respect the natural laws that govern social relations and the market economy, not kill the goose that lays the golden egg, &c." Sovereign overreach is thus limited by a reason internal to rather than external to the state.
Foucault then zips over to the 1900s to discuss ordoliberalism. German liberalism has never been in a great position, but it did produce some outstanding thinkers, all of whom the ordoliberals are drawing from, especially Kant and Weber. Emerging from the Third Reich, the ordoliberals are aware of the dangers of combinations of trusts and what they designate as the "Leviathan state," from reading Weber, they know that capitalism does not protect itself but constantly produces self-undermining aspects, and that it did not emerge from nature but had to be created by history, and being liberals they don't want to abandon capitalism. So what the ordoliberals give is another kind of revolution in liberal economic thought, which might even be seen as a kind of radicalization of that achieved by classical political economy against natural jurisprudence: the market economy is denaturalized, it is understood as a creation of society and the state, it is understood as a historically specific aberration but nevertheless a desirable one that promotes human prosperity and freedom.
So the question of the proper limits of state power, for the natural jurists: "What rights does the state have and which are reserved to individuals?" For classical political economy it was "at which point does state action become self-undermining by interference with natural market processes?" And for the ordoliberals it is: "what powers and actions of the state are necessary to create and maintain competitive, economically rational markets, and what powers must it abjure so that it does not rather harm this precious hothouse flower?"
Foucault also discusses the Chicago school, but if you've read discussions of disciplinary imperialism, it's a bit old hat. (Maybe new hat at the time?)
What's most prominent about these accounts is what they omit: republicanism, for instance; the entire eighteenth century, as noted, which Foucault also blushingly admits includes the biopolitics mentioned in the title of the lecture series; nearly any conditions of thought external to the leading thinkers of any given era. For his reputation as a methodological radical - he has an intruiging aside early on about his method where he says he adopts a sort of hyper-nominalism where it's assumed that the object of his inquiry (madness, the state, whatever) doesn't exist and tries to describe things without it - this ends up being traditional, textualist intellectual history. But of the things I already know a bit about and that he does discuss - the natural law theorists, classical political economy, the Chicago school - he seems to be fair and raise a number of interesting points, and I plan to pick up some of the other lecture collections at some point.
(Or at least this collection is much clearer than that book; maybe History of Sexuality Vol. 1 is a model of lucidity and Security, Territory, Population is impenetrable - or maybe I'm just a dumbass and they're all perfectly transparent.)
Since it doesn't drape itself under a cloak of obscurity, it's possible to get a good look at the anatomy of the subject of these lectures as a whole and conclude that it's a bit odd: two transformations of liberalism/free market economic thought; one in the mid-1700s and one in the mid-1900s (Foucault mentions at the end that he had meant the main thrust of the year's lectures to concern the 1800s and then got distracted; and I can respect his honesty and sympathize with his getting excited by what might have been a tangent.) These are the early modern turn from natural jurisprudence to political economy, and the postwar emergence of ordoliberalism and the Chicago school.
What is natural jurisprudence? Well, it is a method within political philosophy which is probably most familiar to people in our day through the social contract theorists - Hobbes, Locke, and all that - which emphasized the voluntary nature of society, the conditions that would have to hold for free individuals surrendering a portion of their natural rights, and determining which rights they had or had not had to surrender in order for this to be possible, and of those retained, how they would limit the state and the ends it sought for itself. So natural jurisprudence played a limiting function against the early modern fiscal-military state: the state wanted to endlessly tax and conscript its population so that it could better engage in endless warfare against other European states that were doing the same thing, and against weaker states on other continents that hadn't quite gotten up to speed yet. In this sense natural jurisprudence was a basically medieval way of limiting the sovereign - the king says your city must offer up one hundred youths, you produce a writ from a king three centuries ago saying the city is granted a liberty of offering up only two doughty warriors each year, the king grumbles that the law limits him. It's just that natural jurisprudence is relatively rationalized.
The problem with this is that it doesn't really speak to the language of the fiscal-military state. You're raising purely moral or at best procedural objections, to which it can merely say, "yeah, but I don't care. I'm out here in a highly competitive game of natural selection against other warlord states! It's tough out here in early modern Europe! Limiting myself by your principles is basically letting parasites swim through my bloodstream. I have to optimize for one thing and one thing only!"
What classical political economy is able to do, then, is speak to the sovereign in its own language: "if you wish to maximize the resources at your disposal, you must respect the natural laws that govern social relations and the market economy, not kill the goose that lays the golden egg, &c." Sovereign overreach is thus limited by a reason internal to rather than external to the state.
Foucault then zips over to the 1900s to discuss ordoliberalism. German liberalism has never been in a great position, but it did produce some outstanding thinkers, all of whom the ordoliberals are drawing from, especially Kant and Weber. Emerging from the Third Reich, the ordoliberals are aware of the dangers of combinations of trusts and what they designate as the "Leviathan state," from reading Weber, they know that capitalism does not protect itself but constantly produces self-undermining aspects, and that it did not emerge from nature but had to be created by history, and being liberals they don't want to abandon capitalism. So what the ordoliberals give is another kind of revolution in liberal economic thought, which might even be seen as a kind of radicalization of that achieved by classical political economy against natural jurisprudence: the market economy is denaturalized, it is understood as a creation of society and the state, it is understood as a historically specific aberration but nevertheless a desirable one that promotes human prosperity and freedom.
So the question of the proper limits of state power, for the natural jurists: "What rights does the state have and which are reserved to individuals?" For classical political economy it was "at which point does state action become self-undermining by interference with natural market processes?" And for the ordoliberals it is: "what powers and actions of the state are necessary to create and maintain competitive, economically rational markets, and what powers must it abjure so that it does not rather harm this precious hothouse flower?"
Foucault also discusses the Chicago school, but if you've read discussions of disciplinary imperialism, it's a bit old hat. (Maybe new hat at the time?)
What's most prominent about these accounts is what they omit: republicanism, for instance; the entire eighteenth century, as noted, which Foucault also blushingly admits includes the biopolitics mentioned in the title of the lecture series; nearly any conditions of thought external to the leading thinkers of any given era. For his reputation as a methodological radical - he has an intruiging aside early on about his method where he says he adopts a sort of hyper-nominalism where it's assumed that the object of his inquiry (madness, the state, whatever) doesn't exist and tries to describe things without it - this ends up being traditional, textualist intellectual history. But of the things I already know a bit about and that he does discuss - the natural law theorists, classical political economy, the Chicago school - he seems to be fair and raise a number of interesting points, and I plan to pick up some of the other lecture collections at some point.
November 3, 2018
درخشان بودن کار فوکو جدای استدلالهاش، مسیر منطقی و شیوهایه که تو پرداخت بحث به کار میگیره و قطعه قطعههای پازل رو به ترتیب کامل میکنه؛ ویژگیای که باعث میشه متن علیرغم سنگین بودنش شیرین باشه. درسگفتار زیستسیاست نهایتا هم به گفتهی خود فوکو به تبیین کامل خود زیستسیاست نمیرسه و روی مقدمه باقی میمونه که با توجه به اهمیت بالای مطالب قابل درکه. دیدگاه متفاوت فوکو در شرح مسالهی لیبرالیسمِ بعد از قرن هیجدهم، تفاوت مسیر فرانسه و انگلستان در طرح مساله و شکلگیری مکاتب نئولیبرال آلمان و آمریکا مشهوده و حقیقتا هم بینش فوقالعادهایه.
May 5, 2018
واقعیت اینه که لیبرالیسم رو به دروغ یه ما نشون دادند. در خالی که واقعیت لبیرالیسم توی این کتاب کفته شده. هر دولتمردی که این کتابو نخونده به درد نمیخوره
June 14, 2023
4 stars because he only actually discusses biopolitics for a few pages. Philosophical clickbait!
October 18, 2019
liberal, homo economicus, neoliberal, sivil toplum; iktidar.
February 15, 2025
Historical political analysis which takes the form of a genealogy of liberalism -> neoliberalism -> population biopolitics
April 21, 2013
Excellent analysis about the neo-liberal governmentality!
Above all decisive differentia between German neo-liberalism(ordoliberalism) and American neo-liberalism.
Röpke said:“Competition is a principle of order in the domain of the market economy, but it is not a principle on which it would be possible to erect the whole of society. Morally and sociologically, competition is a principle that dissolves more than it unifies.”So, while establishing a policy such that competition can function economically, it is necessary to organize “a political and moral framework,”(pp.242-3)
Therefore this political and moral framework required a state that can maintain itself above the different competing groups and enterprises. And this political and moral framework must ensure “a community which is not fragmented,” and guarantee cooperation between men who are “naturally rooted and socially integrated. (p.243)
In comparison with the ambiguity of German ordoliberalism, American neo-liberalism evidently appears much more radical or much more complete and exhaustive. American neo-liberalism still involves, in fact, the generalization of the economic form of the market. It involves generalizing it throughout the social body and including the whole of the social system not usually conducted through or sanctioned by monetary exchanges. This, as it were, absolute generalization, this unlimited generalization of the form of the market entails a number of consequences or includes a number of aspects.
First differentia: the generalization of the economic form of the market beyond monetary exchanges functions in American neo-liberalism as a principle of intelligibility and a principle of decipherment of social relationships and individual behavior. This means that analysis in terms of the market economy or, in other words, of supply and demand, can function as a schema which is applicable to non-economic domains. And, thanks to this analytical schema or grid of intelligibility, it will be possible to reveal in non-economic processes, relations, and behavior a number of intelligible relations which otherwise would not have appeared as such—a sort of economic analysis of the non-economic. The neo-liberals do this for a number of domains. (ex. human capital and human investment, mother-child relationship, and types of relations that previously fell more in the domains of demography, sociology, psychology, and social psychology, and the phenomena of marriage and what takes place within a household) (pp.243-5)
The second differentia is that the economic grid will or should make it possible to test governmental action, gauge its validity, and to object to activities of the public authorities on the grounds of their abuses, excesses, futility, and wasteful expenditure. In short, the economic grid is not applied in this case in order to understand social processes and make them intelligible; it involves anchoring and justifying a permanent political criticism of political and governmental action. It involves scrutinizing every action of the public authorities in terms of the game of supply and demand, in terms of efficiency with regard to the particular elements of this game, and in terms of the cost of intervention by the public authorities in the field of the market. In short, it involves criticism of the governmentality actually exercised which is not just a political or juridical criticism. (p.246)
Above all decisive differentia between German neo-liberalism(ordoliberalism) and American neo-liberalism.
Röpke said:“Competition is a principle of order in the domain of the market economy, but it is not a principle on which it would be possible to erect the whole of society. Morally and sociologically, competition is a principle that dissolves more than it unifies.”So, while establishing a policy such that competition can function economically, it is necessary to organize “a political and moral framework,”(pp.242-3)
Therefore this political and moral framework required a state that can maintain itself above the different competing groups and enterprises. And this political and moral framework must ensure “a community which is not fragmented,” and guarantee cooperation between men who are “naturally rooted and socially integrated. (p.243)
In comparison with the ambiguity of German ordoliberalism, American neo-liberalism evidently appears much more radical or much more complete and exhaustive. American neo-liberalism still involves, in fact, the generalization of the economic form of the market. It involves generalizing it throughout the social body and including the whole of the social system not usually conducted through or sanctioned by monetary exchanges. This, as it were, absolute generalization, this unlimited generalization of the form of the market entails a number of consequences or includes a number of aspects.
First differentia: the generalization of the economic form of the market beyond monetary exchanges functions in American neo-liberalism as a principle of intelligibility and a principle of decipherment of social relationships and individual behavior. This means that analysis in terms of the market economy or, in other words, of supply and demand, can function as a schema which is applicable to non-economic domains. And, thanks to this analytical schema or grid of intelligibility, it will be possible to reveal in non-economic processes, relations, and behavior a number of intelligible relations which otherwise would not have appeared as such—a sort of economic analysis of the non-economic. The neo-liberals do this for a number of domains. (ex. human capital and human investment, mother-child relationship, and types of relations that previously fell more in the domains of demography, sociology, psychology, and social psychology, and the phenomena of marriage and what takes place within a household) (pp.243-5)
The second differentia is that the economic grid will or should make it possible to test governmental action, gauge its validity, and to object to activities of the public authorities on the grounds of their abuses, excesses, futility, and wasteful expenditure. In short, the economic grid is not applied in this case in order to understand social processes and make them intelligible; it involves anchoring and justifying a permanent political criticism of political and governmental action. It involves scrutinizing every action of the public authorities in terms of the game of supply and demand, in terms of efficiency with regard to the particular elements of this game, and in terms of the cost of intervention by the public authorities in the field of the market. In short, it involves criticism of the governmentality actually exercised which is not just a political or juridical criticism. (p.246)
October 23, 2019
Foucault's geneological account of Neoliberalism as formed in both Germany (Ordoliberalism) and the US (anarcho-capitalism). Foucault also presents an interesting way of viewing politics—through Governmentality, which is "the art of governing" or the logic of governing (or, as the name suggests, a mentality of governing). Though i don't agree with Foucault when he says that the state has no heart, but is "nothing else but the mobile effect of a regime of multiple governmentalities", approaching a study of politics in this manner produces an interesting analysis (governemtnality strikes me as more of a second-order characteristic, if i'm understanding the concept correctly). The first few chapters where Foucault explains governmentality are perhaps the most interesting (a part i found especially interesting was how raison d'etat relates to external constraints, and the specific character these external constraints must take, and how liberalism is rather a form of least-raison d'etat rather than a constraint on raison d'etat (an important distinction)). The discussion of liberalism and neoliberalism was also interesting, but in many ways i think this is one of those books that's... "reputation precedes it", but instead of reputation, its content precedes it. By that i mean, it has really defined the popular contemporary understanding of neoliberalism to the point where you probably already know in broad-strokes the conclusions Foucault reaches. Though Foucault never gets around to actually discussing Biopolitcs (which is a shame, as i was looking for some context of Agamben's discussion of it in Homo Sacer) there is a hint of how neoliberal governmentality leads to Biopolitics in his covering of the concept of Human Capital; "as soon as a society poses itself with the problem of the improvement of its Human Capital in general, it is inevitable that the problem of the control, screening, and improvement of the Human Capital of individuals, as a function of unions and consequent reproduction, will become actual, or at any rate, called for." All in all a great read, made me hate neoliberalism more than i already did, the geneological method is always a pleasure to read, four outta five.
May 19, 2013
If you want to know about biopolitics, this is not really the book to read. Foucault spent the majority of this semester detailing the ways in which his studies of liberalism, ordoliberlaism, and neoliberalism set the stage for his notion of biopolitics, but he doesn't actually get around to lecturing about biopolitics. Nonetheless, a fascinating read for anyone interested in "regimes of veridiction," as institutionalized systems of legitimate knowledge production and the effect this has on individuals and society in general.
December 7, 2016
Such brilliance and subtlety. Anyone interested in a robust historical tracking of the emergence of neoliberalism as a set of practices and rational conduct as opposed to a set of values ought to read this closely.
February 16, 2021
من سه بار کتاب رو خوندم و هر بار کلی مطلب جدید یاد گرفتم
مطمئنم اگر دو سه بار دیگه هم بخونم باز هم مطلب جدید داره
تو این کتاب مشخص میشه که چرا و چگونه همه جنبه های زندگی ما درگیر سیاست شده
مطمئنم اگر دو سه بار دیگه هم بخونم باز هم مطلب جدید داره
تو این کتاب مشخص میشه که چرا و چگونه همه جنبه های زندگی ما درگیر سیاست شده
August 13, 2024
(3.5 stars)
foucault CLICKBAITED ME literally so hard bc this is supposed to be about biopolitics and he talks about neoliberalism LITERALLY 11/12 LECTURES. my guy fuck you for this. i don’t want economic theory rn. pls
still semi-interesting tbh. very thorough in his historical analyses, never thought id learn so much about german ordoliberalism. i am sure if i was more interested in economic theory and how it ties into political theory this would be awesome (eli if you're reading this i feel like you'd fw it), but unfortunately, that's not entirely my cup of tea. the one lecture on biopower was SO COOL i was very mad it wasnt the entire book as advertised. ended up being all but useless for the research i read this for. as the french say, 1000 cigarettes will reduce the pain and suffering. they also say c'est la vie!
so much blander and less fun read-wise than other foucaults, probably because they're lectures. also makes for a much denser read. but then again, i am unbearably stupid when it comes to critical theory so anyone with more than 3 braincells that aren't fried from tiktoks will probably enjoy this more.
anyways! time to go back to my silly little novels and also more foucault eventually. why am i concentrating in critical theory again
foucault CLICKBAITED ME literally so hard bc this is supposed to be about biopolitics and he talks about neoliberalism LITERALLY 11/12 LECTURES. my guy fuck you for this. i don’t want economic theory rn. pls
still semi-interesting tbh. very thorough in his historical analyses, never thought id learn so much about german ordoliberalism. i am sure if i was more interested in economic theory and how it ties into political theory this would be awesome (eli if you're reading this i feel like you'd fw it), but unfortunately, that's not entirely my cup of tea. the one lecture on biopower was SO COOL i was very mad it wasnt the entire book as advertised. ended up being all but useless for the research i read this for. as the french say, 1000 cigarettes will reduce the pain and suffering. they also say c'est la vie!
so much blander and less fun read-wise than other foucaults, probably because they're lectures. also makes for a much denser read. but then again, i am unbearably stupid when it comes to critical theory so anyone with more than 3 braincells that aren't fried from tiktoks will probably enjoy this more.
anyways! time to go back to my silly little novels and also more foucault eventually. why am i concentrating in critical theory again
April 1, 2020
Pues por fin me he terminado la Biopolítica.
Ha sido una semana dura.
Es curioso que se haya recogido en un libro el ideal de irse por un cerro totalmente diferente al que se pretendía al principio. El libro se convierte en un análisis de la lógica neoliberal.
No diré que no he aprendido, porque ahora puedo dejar de usar la palabra -neoliberal- como truco de persona de izquierdas sin conocer el fondo. Lo que me sorprende es que en partes del libro, Foucault, más que fascinado, parece casi convencido por argumentos desde Locke a Hayek.
Aunque sí que es verdad que he salido con más preguntas de las que debería y menos armas metodológicas de las que creía.
No le deis las riendas a los ordoliberales que terminamos como terminamos. En el individuo-empresa.
Ahora a escalar otras montañas en Francia.
Ha sido una semana dura.
Es curioso que se haya recogido en un libro el ideal de irse por un cerro totalmente diferente al que se pretendía al principio. El libro se convierte en un análisis de la lógica neoliberal.
No diré que no he aprendido, porque ahora puedo dejar de usar la palabra -neoliberal- como truco de persona de izquierdas sin conocer el fondo. Lo que me sorprende es que en partes del libro, Foucault, más que fascinado, parece casi convencido por argumentos desde Locke a Hayek.
Aunque sí que es verdad que he salido con más preguntas de las que debería y menos armas metodológicas de las que creía.
No le deis las riendas a los ordoliberales que terminamos como terminamos. En el individuo-empresa.
Ahora a escalar otras montañas en Francia.
March 5, 2024
Foucault is quite infamous for his seemingly inaccessible writings, yet this one ended up being (probably) the best way to get acquainted with his theoretical universe. I happened to write one of my papers (the acski3 one) on the empirical manifestations and creation of the homo economicus via the involvement of the World Bank in Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, so I was passionate about this topic long before I got to read this.
Nonetheless, while very hard to grasp at times, its contribution to the conceptual clarification of neo-liberalism and (bordeline) debunking of its conventional understanding is truly of merit. I think it makes me spiral even more (alas, what is even the world we live in if not a big lie lol), but I also wish I had read it sooner because it would have allowed for many other scholarly articles I had to read to lay out differently in my mind.
Nonetheless, while very hard to grasp at times, its contribution to the conceptual clarification of neo-liberalism and (bordeline) debunking of its conventional understanding is truly of merit. I think it makes me spiral even more (alas, what is even the world we live in if not a big lie lol), but I also wish I had read it sooner because it would have allowed for many other scholarly articles I had to read to lay out differently in my mind.
May 2, 2017
Foucault's history of neoliberalism – which, as he eventually admits, this series of lectures putatively addressing biopolitics swiftly became – reveals the genesis of a mode of governmentality defined by its fundamental mistrust of the state as such. From 18th-century liberalism's conviction – hypostatized in Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' – that the mechanisms of the market economy are opaque to the sovereign's insight, an ideological thread of free-market determinism unwinds into the 20th century, culminating in the theories of Freiburg-school economists in the 1940s who emerged from the experience of the second World War having drawn the conclusion that state power and economic intervention are mutually inflationary, inevitably tending toward totalitarianism. As it happens, then, this is an excellent genealogical study of the logics motivating and structuring liberal thought (and thus the mode of government underpinning most modern Western states) – just don't come to it expecting the promised discussion of how these states comprising individual rational enterprises attempted to govern their statistical-aggregate populations!
February 17, 2025
Un privilegio poder tomar clases con Foucault y que sus pensamientos hayan quedado inmortalizados en tomos escritos.
La relevancia de los temas tratados en Nacimiento de la biopolítica es escalofriante, nos educa sobre neoliberalismo y sobre la mercantilización de nuestras vidas pero también nos enseña a pensar el poder de manera transversal, como un proceso que constantemente se reactualiza y al que nunca tenemos que dejar de prestarle atención.
A pesar de que lo leí para una monografía, aprendí muchísimo y realmente al terminarlo sentí la adquisición de conocimiento nuevo. Espero encontrarme con más tomos del College de France de acá en adelante <3
La relevancia de los temas tratados en Nacimiento de la biopolítica es escalofriante, nos educa sobre neoliberalismo y sobre la mercantilización de nuestras vidas pero también nos enseña a pensar el poder de manera transversal, como un proceso que constantemente se reactualiza y al que nunca tenemos que dejar de prestarle atención.
A pesar de que lo leí para una monografía, aprendí muchísimo y realmente al terminarlo sentí la adquisición de conocimiento nuevo. Espero encontrarme con más tomos del College de France de acá en adelante <3
May 5, 2021
Interessante verhandelingen over het liberalisme. Ik denk te weten dat Foucault een neoliberaal is!
April 10, 2025
tytuł to straszny clickbait
February 10, 2020
never enough critiques of liberalism
April 16, 2020
THE ABSOLUTE SAUCE!
September 29, 2021
تولد زیست اولین مجلد از مجموعه درسگفتارهای فوکو در کلژ دوفرانس است. او در این جلسات (که سخنانش بهشکل مکتوب درآمدهاند) حاصل پژوهشهای سالانهی خود را طی جلسهای دهساعته به دانشجویان، اساتید و علاقهمندان ارائه میدهد. فوکو که اندیشمند سیاسیِ پرکاریست، در این مجموعه به مضامین بسیار زیادی اشاره میکند و تقریباً میتوان ادعا کرد که مسیر پژوهشهای او جهانشمولاند و سعی در پوشش تمامی ابعاد جامعهشناسانه دارند. مهمترین نکته، نگاه فلسفی-روانشناختی فوکوست که با دیدگاههای سیاسی-جامعهشناسی او ادغام شدهاند.
October 7, 2017
In this text Foucault goes at length into the birth of neoliberalism in German, France and the United States. He develops an analysis for showing the development from the disciplinary societies of the 18th/19th century into what Deleuze will call a society of control in the 20th century through the birth of neoliberalism. This is no longer a system of power interested in individuals, and impacting their lives explicitly. Instead, neoliberalism is content to shape the rules of the game and allow people to play a game within that framework. In this work Foucault shows the ways that those rules are developed throughout the early part of the 20th century, and how they are implemented starting in Germany after WWII.
This text has been used to suggest that Foucault is sympathetic to neoliberalism, but I would suggest otherwise. The method of analysis used by Foucault to show the transition from New-Deal Era Keynesian economics to the neoliberal economics of the late 20th century is not so different from the method he uses in earlier texts such as Discipline and Punish which did not provide a normative, but rather an empirical account of the difference between spectacle and disciplinary societies. In the former book, Foucault does not give an explicit preference to either penal system. Instead, he works to show the difference in the mechanisms of power in order to display that the relation of power does not disappear in the new society, but it simply changes into a different type of power relationship. In other words, discipline is not discussed as better or worse, but simply as different from spectacular power.
It seems that a similar account is taking place in this series of lectures. Foucault is exploring not whether neoliberalism exerts a better form of power relation than the disciplinary society, but instead how power dynamics function differently between these two societies. To cite Deleuze speaking on the different between “control” societies (neoliberal societies) and disciplinary societies, “There is no need to ask which is the toughest regime, for it’s within each of them that liberating and enslaving forces confront one another” (Postscript on the Societies of Control). Foucault’s account does not ask which society is superior, he only examines the ways that power flows through each of them in order to show that relations of power are inherent to both systems. Neoliberalism works to enable the freedom of individuals within a system, or game. Instead of intervening in that game, neoliberalism simply creates the board on which the game is played—it is the creator of rules, if you will. Thus, even though neoliberalism purports to extend economic freedom to each individual in society, Foucault’s analysis shows that one is free insofar as one plays within the rules of the system. Escaping the game is an impossibility. In this way, Neoliberalism does not work to discipline and produce individuals, but instead, works to control the flows of desire by presenting the only acceptable milieu. Not trapped within a system of discipline, but trapped within the milieu.
This text has been used to suggest that Foucault is sympathetic to neoliberalism, but I would suggest otherwise. The method of analysis used by Foucault to show the transition from New-Deal Era Keynesian economics to the neoliberal economics of the late 20th century is not so different from the method he uses in earlier texts such as Discipline and Punish which did not provide a normative, but rather an empirical account of the difference between spectacle and disciplinary societies. In the former book, Foucault does not give an explicit preference to either penal system. Instead, he works to show the difference in the mechanisms of power in order to display that the relation of power does not disappear in the new society, but it simply changes into a different type of power relationship. In other words, discipline is not discussed as better or worse, but simply as different from spectacular power.
It seems that a similar account is taking place in this series of lectures. Foucault is exploring not whether neoliberalism exerts a better form of power relation than the disciplinary society, but instead how power dynamics function differently between these two societies. To cite Deleuze speaking on the different between “control” societies (neoliberal societies) and disciplinary societies, “There is no need to ask which is the toughest regime, for it’s within each of them that liberating and enslaving forces confront one another” (Postscript on the Societies of Control). Foucault’s account does not ask which society is superior, he only examines the ways that power flows through each of them in order to show that relations of power are inherent to both systems. Neoliberalism works to enable the freedom of individuals within a system, or game. Instead of intervening in that game, neoliberalism simply creates the board on which the game is played—it is the creator of rules, if you will. Thus, even though neoliberalism purports to extend economic freedom to each individual in society, Foucault’s analysis shows that one is free insofar as one plays within the rules of the system. Escaping the game is an impossibility. In this way, Neoliberalism does not work to discipline and produce individuals, but instead, works to control the flows of desire by presenting the only acceptable milieu. Not trapped within a system of discipline, but trapped within the milieu.
April 1, 2014
Picking up, at least at the beginning, from the 77-78 'Security, Territory, Population' lectures - where Foucault first delved into governmentality - The Birth of Biopolitics serves as Foucault's promise to talk about, well, biopolitics. He doesn't do this at all. Instead, Foucault tracks the problem of liberal governmentality through a level of analysis concerned with the rationality (or rather, types of rationality) by which state administration functions and proceeds. Liberalism, then, is viewed as a practice. As both an art of governing (that precisely produces and consumes freedom) and a limitation to governing (liberalism as permanent critique of the state apparatus).
This takes Foucault into an illuminating discussion on the modern developments in liberalism - German ordoliberalism, American anarcho-liberalism; neoliberalism. (Foucault's only engagement with contemporary theory in his lecture courses.) His analysis of arts of governing enable him to highlight how Ordoliberalism attempted to found the post-War German state on economic freedom (market rationality) itself, and, particularly pertinently, the extension of economic analysis into all domains of life found in the theory of human capital of Schultz, Becker, and so on. These are just two points of analysis in this timely lecture course. Timely because they were delivered at what is considered by many to be the advent of neoliberalism: Thatcher (Prime Minister from 1979) and Reagan (defeated Carter in 1980 election).
This lecture course is important for a number of reasons, both because of its timely nature, but also in relation to some slight engagements and rejections of Marx (of the logic of capital, and so on), which illuminate yet again Foucault's ambivalence towards Marx and Marxism, a divide that was stark in post-1968 French philosophy (not least between Foucault and Sartre).
This takes Foucault into an illuminating discussion on the modern developments in liberalism - German ordoliberalism, American anarcho-liberalism; neoliberalism. (Foucault's only engagement with contemporary theory in his lecture courses.) His analysis of arts of governing enable him to highlight how Ordoliberalism attempted to found the post-War German state on economic freedom (market rationality) itself, and, particularly pertinently, the extension of economic analysis into all domains of life found in the theory of human capital of Schultz, Becker, and so on. These are just two points of analysis in this timely lecture course. Timely because they were delivered at what is considered by many to be the advent of neoliberalism: Thatcher (Prime Minister from 1979) and Reagan (defeated Carter in 1980 election).
This lecture course is important for a number of reasons, both because of its timely nature, but also in relation to some slight engagements and rejections of Marx (of the logic of capital, and so on), which illuminate yet again Foucault's ambivalence towards Marx and Marxism, a divide that was stark in post-1968 French philosophy (not least between Foucault and Sartre).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews