Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 5, 7 Feb 1979 lecture

Foucault here situates emergence of liberalism as a response to Nazism.

Ordolibs address four obstacles to liberal policy: 1) protected
economy, 2) state socialism, 3) economic planning, 4) Keynesian
intervention (107-8). This is the first ordolib coup (110).

Second ordolib coup is showing that Nazism proposes the withering away
of the state but is in fact the state’s expansion of the state (111).
This is, as he presents it, paradoxical. It is interestingly resonant
with the ‘starve the beast’ approach of contemporary (21st c.)
neoliberalism. The ordo coup de force is specifying Nazism as
unlimited state power. The coup was in their showing how the Nazi
discourse claim to wither the state was mere appearance. It was
merely apparent because their claim to organize the economy dictated
that they had to expand the state (112), “a necessary link between
this economic organization and this growth of the state” (113). This
is a standard neoliberal trope linking intervention/planning to
fascism (cf. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom).
Third ordolib coup is showing that Nazi statism and anti-liberalism
lead to massification despite the Nazi critique of massification
(114). This is a function of the Nazi limiting of the market economy.

The meta-problem for the ordoliberals is the ‘technique of
intervention’ construed as a technology (115).

Shift in neoliberalism from ‘naturalistic’ underpinnings (of 18th c.
and 19th c. liberalism) to ‘formalist’ underpinnings (120ff.). In our
language, this is a shift from Hume to Husserl. Because the market
is not a naturally-occurring process but rather something we have to
create. So the ordoliberals are setting up the formal structure of
competition rather than the nature of free exchange. In
earlier/classical liberalism the market was not a site of jurisdiction
but “something that obeyed and had to be obey ‘natural,’ that is to
say, spontaneous mechanisms” (31).

Some of us questioned Foucault’s description of this shift. If you
look in ordo-liberalism for a justification of the eidetic/formal
structure of market competition, then their claim will be that this
formal structure ‘naturally’ (as if by an invisible hand) leads to
social order and progress. But perhaps Foucault is right, because
perhaps their justification is simply that this formal structure
blocks the way to Nazism, statism, planning, etc.. And Nazism,
according to Foucault, loomed large for the ordo-liberals as a sort of
negative justification.

Foucault discusses Weber as background for both Freiburg ordoliberals
and Frankfurt critical theory (105). From logic of contradiction to
analysis based on “the division between the rational and the
irrational” (105). Earlier Foucault had mentioned Frankfurt School in
similar respects, describing it as “that well-known critique of
European rationality and its excesses… from romanticism to the
Frankfurt School” (35). Foucault contrasts this to his own analysis
in terms of modes of veridiction. The Weberians are different, in
that they work by way of rationality against irrationality. Frankfurt
School wants to show how social rationality better understood can
nullify economic irrationality (is Foucault thinking of Habermas as
the culmination of Frankfurt school?). Freiburg School wants to show
how economic rationality can make it possible to nullify social
irrationality of capitalism. So for the latter, setting up a formal
structure in which agents and firms can rationally pursue economic
self-interest helps block social irrationalities of capitalism
resulting from Nazism, etc.. Again, Nazism is the big problem that
the ordoliberals are looking to do away with. So they end up on
opposite sides. So Foucault’s claim is that despite apparent
antagonism, that they actually share in common Weberian.

Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 4, 31 January 1979

Theory of the State:

pg. 77 Theorizing the state is, according to Foucault, “an indigestible meal.” Rather there are processes of “statification” that bring together multiple practices under a certain kind of governmental rationality. The State has no essence. It has not autonomous source of power. It harnesses or brings into resonance (as Deleuze and Guattari say) multiple practices as a “perpetual process.” “The state is nothing else but the multiple effect of a regime of multiple governmentalities.”

The problem of Nazism (representation vs. Sovereignty):

pg. 80-90. Foucault then skips ahead in the theory of the liberal state to address the origins of the neoliberal turn in Germany in 1948. After world war two the German state had been destroyed. The Germans had to disavow the guarantee that States necessarily represent their people, and in fact this is what happened in Nazisim: the state had abused its powers of economic and social intervention and violated the freedoms of its citizens. It had to “forfeit its right to representativity.” But then under what conditions could the German’s rebuild the State with no clear representativity to reestablish collective consensus toward a new sovereignty? The German’s invented a new “framework” or formal rules that could apply to everyone to insure their maximum freedom. This framework could only claim to represent insofar as it guaranteed the liberty of its population. Economic rules, and frameworks both secure individual liberty and economic growth without deferring to political sovereignty. The economic framework then becomes primary to the state. The state is thus based on economic competition and sovereignty.

On Marxism:

pg. 91 “It is often said, well, at least by those who know his work, that there is no theory of power in Marx, that the theory of the state is inadequate, and that it really is time to produce it.” Foucault oddly claims that Hobbes was the last theorist of the state (as someone who was a supporter of monarchy). “Locke does not produce a theory of the state.” Rather he produces, “principles of government.” (The state is limited by natural right by civil society who have the right to rebel) = rationality of governing ourselves: externally limits the state. Hobbes (The state has no responsibility to civil society. )= “Not an autonomous source of power. An effect, or mobile shape of a perpetual statification (étatisation).”

According to Foucault “there is no governmental rationality of socialism.” It has been always relied on liberal notions of governmentally. Marxism and Liberalism are thus not opposed. We cannot find in the “text” of socialism a true governmentally, it still needs to be invented.

Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 3, 24 Jan 1979

This session began with a few questions from around the table. Foucault argues that the historical shift from mercantilist to liberal discursive practices is defined in part by the growing rejection of a zero-sum economic theory in favor of an economic doctrine that is characterized by a general assumption of mutual enrichment. Is this a fair description of this discursive shift that began to take hold in the 18^th century? Second question: does Foucault treat terms such as “liberalism” and “colonialism” as historically situated in the same way that “sex(uality)” is argued to be a historically-specific concept in The History of Sexuality: Vol. 1? The first question was never directly returned to—perhaps this line of thought will be pursued in later meetings. The second question regarding the historically-situated nature of Foucault’s concepts set the direction of the meeting.

Through reference to such texts as The Archaeology of Knowledge, “What is Enlightenment?”, Discipline and Punish, and the first two lectures of the current reading, the group reached consensus that discourses and practices, as Foucault understands them, should be grasped at the level of the historical and contingent conditions that allow for true and false claims to be made. “Freedom”, for instance, should not be understood as a universal concept that can be measured according to a single quantitative standard across different moments and places. No, there are only multiple instantiations of “freedom” that differ qualitatively and possibly incommensurably, from one historical occurrence to the next. Foucault’s method is thus to begin with the practices and discourses themselves through which to understand the use of such universal phrases rather than to engage in the more common practice of assuming the universal givenness of a concept such as “freedom” and explaining specific practices and discourses according to this predetermined mold.

The interconnectedness of “nature” and “freedom” within the emergence of the liberal discursive framework was employed by the reading group as an example of the historically-specific nature of the meaning of such terms.

This discussion led to a debate regarding the purpose of Foucault’s genealogical work. Is it the case that Foucault meant to study practices and discourses in their particular historicity in order to “unmask” the true meaning and intent lying just underneath the surface of events? Or is it the case that such an unmasking only reveals another mask, behind which is yet another ad infinitum? That behind the masks of a particular discourse or practice lay only further layers of historically-specific frameworks of meaning? Through reference to other texts of Foucault, our group agreed to the second interpretive option. But if we reject that Foucault was engaged in the straightforwardly liberationist project of unmasking the hidden and true nature of things behind the façade of historical practices, what should we understand the value of Foucault’s approach to be? Perhaps, as one member suggested, it is to allow for the reframing of currently extant debates, if nothing else.

This discussion quickly became a metaphilosophical debate regarding the value of history to philosophy. Does philosophy need history? What is the philosophical justification for focusing on the history of concepts rather than simply doing analytic philosophy? It is not exactly clear how John Rawls, for instance, would have benefitted from an extensive amount of historical research. As someone suggested, perhaps history is indispensible to philosophy when one considers that the subject matter of philosophy is inherently historical. Had we not run out of time, we might have solved this question once and for all.

Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 2, 17 January 1979

Political economy is also a concern of Foucault’s in The Order of Things. However, it is here where he defines it fully in its emergence. He’s historicizing the Marxists, i.e., examining political economy as an object that has emerged. Further, he’s articulating the conditions of the particular regime of veridiction that can give rise to the ability to talk about political economy. Also interesting that he’s talking about liberals rather than Marx. Why? B/c dialectical logic is simplistic (42), which can be construed as an implicit criticism of Marxist thought. (Note: almost word for word the same description that Deleuze and Guattari give of their philosophy of history in 1000 Plateaus.)

May be avoiding a Marxist formulation of political economy because of its reliance upon notions of desire/repression for its explanation of historical change. Rather, the logic remains heterogenous and spatial rather than temporal, or, rather, a spatialization of temporality. Yet, at the same time, he’s still talking about history and how the present came to be, so temporality must be entailed in Foucault’s analyses. Yet, there is no Aufhebung in Foucault’s philosophy of history; in other words, there is no historical necessity in the description of historical change. Also, as he mentions in Security, Territory, and Population, because we cannot determine the strategies for intervention based upon determinate negation. The strategies for change must arise out of the contingent circumstances in which we find ourselves; Foucault’s imperative is non-paradoxical as is the Marxist imperative for historical change: we can find no reason to rise to arms if history is necessarily unfolding in a process of determinate negation. This is scary: a Foucaultian philosophy of history cannot guarantee that capitalism will ever be reformed, etc.

In addition, we must recognize that he’s spending most of his time tracing the utilitarian strand of the development of political practice (i.e., radical), rather than the contractarian (i.e., revolutionary or rights-based). It may be the case that Foucault privileges the ‘radical’ strand as a description of practice, whereas ‘revolutionary’ language is what we continue to use to justify our political practice.

Finally, leaving Marx off of the table may be justifiable because liberalism is the practice that defines 20th c. political life. If we analyze the way that the present regime has stabilized itself, we may begin to understand how we might resist in the present; this can be distinguished from culling descriptions of resistances in the past and trying to remotivate those for our present strategic political purposes. This can be further distinguished from thinkers like Deleuze and Badiou, who theorize the novel and contingent event that is outside of the present, an event which can rupture contemporary practice and provide novel means for political struggle.

Jurisdiction and veridiction (34). Regimes of veridiction: regimes of truth and falsity. Regimes of jurisdiction: regimes of external, axiomatic, deductive means of limitation on sovereign power. These are objects of analysis by which we might map heterogenous assemblages. Veridiction is compared to autolimitation, or internal limitation of government (or raison d’Etat), whereas jurisdiction is compared to law, or the external limitation of government. Another way of stating this same distinction is between an axiomatic, deductive approach (jurisdiction) versus an empirical, inductive approach (veridiction). Under the conditions introduced with the advent of political economy, there is no longer an ‘outside,’ so to speak. There is as further distinction among regimes of veridication, that which operates under disciplinary power and that which operates under biopower.