Questions:
- If this is a genealogy, what kind of genealogy is it? Should we consider it as such?
- Question of neoliberalism about scarce resources and allocation of them. What is the relationship between this allocation and strategic programming? (P. 223, 227)
- Criticism against theory of imperialism; how much is MF concerned with Schumpeter’s criticism of Marxist/Luxemburgian theory of imperialism? (P.231-232)
- When MF discusses theory of human capital—move from labor to time, what is the role of temporality in MF conception of human capital?
- MF offers a historiography of neoliberalism; how do we reconcile this with genealogy? (P.216–219)
- Why does he choose these three events specifically; one could argue there’s a lot more events he could have chosen, what was the significance of these?
- “Let’s methodologically suppose universals don’t exist…” (P.3) The contrast between “dialectical logic” and “strategic logic”…”I suggest replacing dialectic logic with strategic logic…” Is this cool? (p.42)
Discussion:
Q 1: By ‘it’ being a genealogy..what do we mean?
It has a genealogical impetus but it is trying to track the present so it doesn’t have the same ability (Like D&P, for example) to examine an established archive. We don’t have the privilege of looking back on what is now obvious to us. MF sees this as a policy project but it is early to assess the nuance of techniques. Interesting that there is a lot of debates re why it is the “Birth of Biopolitics”? There is a foresight—maybe an anticipatory genealogy?
Is this where he is articulating his notion of biopolitics? What do we mean by it? The neoliberalist subject?
Post-war, Chicago school neoliberalism are main objects of critique. Is there a clear method or are these just observations?
Would Birth of Neoliberalism be a more accurate title? History of Sexuality where he works through concept of biopolitics/biopower.
He’s tracking a mode of thought, a mode of analysis…looking at how a specific form of subjectivity is made.
Maybe this is more of an archaeological analysis than genealogical?
Elements of policy, there’s a practice related to this discourse…a way of being.
Now we can track this because we are in the future of this present (could have not happened).
Not just empirical examples; MF as trying to create a system for these examples? P. 228 on taking a spouse with equal levels of human capital…P. 225 “principle of decipherment…” “problematic of needs…” There’s a sense in which he has these methodological terms that does sound more like an archaeology. The problematization more like genealogy; trying to constitute the thought undergirding the examples he uses.
Not starting with a universal but how a universal is being built. (Q 7)
We could look at a universal in neoliberalism and perform a genealogy on how it was built.
(P.223) “Adopts the task of analyzing a form of human behavior…”
Maybe this speak to Tiisala’s argument re an underlying savior? It’s not only about rationality in a science but rationality in a human behavior.
MF as citing theorists; this is pre-Reagan, pre-Thatcher…Sounds like a description of a “political rationality.” This is quintessential archaeology; the rationality isn’t an exercise of power. It’s another thing to have this in play, in policies. It’s not that there is no genealogy here but it’s not above and beyond History of Madness a Birth of the Clinic.
(P.232) “…programming of the processes I am talking about…” he sees the emergence of a kind of power here but you cannot get the full story. It’s archaeological but it’s more about where he’s standing in regards to this method.
Maybe MF is just developing a neoliberal theory of governmentality? Do all MF’s works have to be conscious of methodology?
Does seem there is something he is trying to track.
What is the difference between an archaeology and a traditional theory here?
These lectures approach interesting theoretical approaches to neoliberalism.
Even at the level of research, you don’t start with a method but observations…
MF also begins stating interest in government and art of government; liberalism as a government; the conduct of conduct. There is a continuity thematically with other things he’s doing as well.
The methodology question is important with MF because his work is so empirical. It seems like there is an onus on the research or the work to not be done in a pell-mell manner whereas speculative philosophy can get away with this more. We can then track that methodology in some extent. If we assume he is more or less applying a methodology, what in the method more or less causes him to deduce this theory of neoliberalism as opposed to others?
One question: how much is the method dependent on the historical dependence? If the neoliberal policy prescriptions haven’t been implemented, how can you give an adequate genealogical account of their power?
Distinction between recent past and near future: MF always discussing about recent past, describing something up until a few decades ago.
Rabinow and distinction between historiography for the past and anthropology for the contemporary investigation.
(P.33) “I don’t think we can find the cause….we should establish the intelligibility of this process…” Maybe one difference—one event as the cause for something, there’s still a focus on the event but there’s multiple and its not over-rationalizing the significance of the event?
Marxist critiques flatten the plurality of neoliberalism (it exists different in different political economies).
Regardless of it is a genealogy, how does genealogy figure into these broader historical events he is discussing?
Genealogy operates through multiple historical concatenations.
Role of the individual; we think of things like policy changes in terms of individuals; dangers of thinking of this in terms of ‘one event.’ Economic historian might point to one cause of an event, how does genealogy respond? History places a lot of emphasis on subjects as the movers of events rather than events themselves.
Interesting look at the family and the ways the private is folded into economics in ways others don’t notice, new to this period, not addressed by traditional Marxist analysis.
Discussion of migration as an investment in life; similarities to the way people discuss migrants today.
What did he have in mind in this section? (P.230)
“Migration has a cost…” Cost for the migrant, nation? Cost for who?
“What is the function of this cost…”
(Q 4) He contrasts economic subject qua labor power; (p 220) comment about Marx and the worker as just a worker; in neoliberal, worker is not a worker in social time it is an entrepreneur who invests in the future.
This is not about exploiting the worker til its death; you have to invest and replenish; it’s not capital against life but capital and life; a traditional Marxist view not sufficient for analysis.
Different kind of work; it’s not just abstract labor for a job but involves a level of self-investment as a worker. We can see this in people’s responses the things like why we go to college; not many would answer they go for the intrinsic value of wanting to know.
Time and temporality…(p 221) “neoliberals and marxists…[on] variables of time” How actually is time the key variable for neoliberals? How does this connect to Punitive Society lectures?
In the old capitalist model: time as purely abstract; in neoliberalism time: time reconstituted and matters, it’s about the individual’s future; time as something you plan.
(P 223) “Analysis of internal rationality…” there’s something intentional happening when you look at economics through the lens of behavior.
Key concept of neoliberalism MF draws on: choice. Choice is a phenomenon that governs economic behavior. Everyone is an entrepreneur capable of making good market choices on their own. Good economics cultivates good choices. It’s an economic theory that does away with broad economic theories. (P 222)
(P 226) “…Man of consumption, insofar as he consumes, is a producer…” This has a hold on how we both experience and use our time.
Fundamental shift from classical factory model (worker sells labor and that’s it) to labor as a function of classical accumulation which is itself a temporal motion?
