Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 10, 21 Mar 1979

I. Discussion began with methodological questions.

1. We began by comparing Foucault and Austin, taking off from 264n29. What distinguishes the Austinian analysis of speech acts (in context) from the Foucaultian analysis of discursive context? Austin seems to privilege language, utterance, speech, etc.. It might seem that Foucault does not privilege this, at least in his genealogical writings.

But one striking similarity is that both are building their analytics around the project of fleshing out a context, background, or problematization that makes possible a certain foreground conception—whereas Austin’s foreground tends more towards speech acts, Foucault’s foreground (at least in the genealogy) tends more towards practices. Both, however, are looking to get the respective foreground to recede into the background. Both are situating their objects of analysis in a broader context, and then it is this context that becomes the central object of analysis.

Here is a question worth considering. For Foucault, the foreground (of practice) emerges out of the background (of problematization) in such a way that both are made of the same stuff—‘it is all ice’ according to Paul Veyne’s wonderful iceberg metaphor. Is this also characteristic of Austin’s analyosis? This is possibly the case. Speech acts are constrained by context, but at the same time they reproduce those contexts. A speech act is always conditioned by other speech acts.

2. We then briefly turned to a methodological issue concerning Foucault’s analysis of neoliberalism, returning to last week’s question concerning whether or not Foucault is endorsing neoliberalism or merely describing it. Foucault is describing neoliberalism as our problematization. As part of our problematization it is something we are fluent in, and so something that appears attractive to us. Think about how attractive discipline is to us all—even if, after reading Foucault, we realize its darker side.

II. Discussion then turned from methodological questions to substantive issues regarding neoliberalism.

Foucault’s discussion at the end of the lecture to techniques of ‘environmental control’ seem to be throwing open the long-closed window onto biopolitics that he had promised throughout the lectures. So the neoliberal analytic, insofar as it analyzes us in these more environmental terms, is itself a part of, and reproductive of, biopower. “On the horizon of this analysis we see instead the image, idea, or theme-program of a society in which there is an optimization of systems of difference, in which the field is left open to fluctuating processes, in which minority individuals and practices are tolerated, in which action is brought to bear on the rules of the game rather than on the players, and finally in which there is an environmental type of intervention instead of the internal subjugation of individuals.” The logic of regulation that Foucault seems to be describing here seems analogous to the idea of axiomatization in Deleuze. Regulation, and neoliberalism, works by axiomatizing (even if only temporarily) a decision, without basing this decision in anything in particular we have knowledge of.

Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 9, 14 Mar 1979

Discussion began with questions.

Q1: What is kept and what is changed in the transition from the classical and neoliberal conception of homo economicus?

Q2: Economics as focus on activity rather than process. How is the abilities-machine distinct from Marxist account?

Q3: What is the new relationship between quality and quantity in the shift to the neoliberal conception of labor?

Q4: What is the distinction between labor power and capital ability?

Q5: How does “investment” (pg. 231) allow neoliberal economists avoid the Marxist contradictions of capitalism?

Q6: Does Foucault endorse or describe neoliberalism? If it is a description, is it one of the neoliberal discourse or of reality? Or both at the same time?

The shift from process to activity, for Foucault, is the shift from conceptualizing labor in terms of quantifiable processes to qualitative shifts and discoveries of new sources and forms of productivity, new markets, and uses of manpower. It is suggested that the analysis of innovation (pg. 231), demonstrates that there is no necessary logic of capitalism, that neoliberals used innovation to continue to keep capitalism developing in new ways. We should also keep in mind that the deployment of the concept of innovation does not substitute a new historical determinacy.

What does it mean to make an entrepreneur of ourselves? What process of subjectivation is this? What kind of subjects are we making ourselves into? (Labor power vs. capital ability) If there is a critique of capitalism, it needs to be at the level of who we are as subjects since power is productive of subjectivity. If we are an investor and an investment at the same time, isn’t there a parallel between his analysis of the self being the subject and object of ethical work discussed in later works? Why is this process of subjectivation different from care of the self of the Greeks? Is it that the Greeks meant to create an aesthetic object, a beautiful self? The neoliberal entrepreneur aims to create the most capital, not the beautiful self. What is the room for critique? How can one mode of subjectivation critique another? Perhaps it would be helpful to remember Foucault’s subjectivation typology:

	Substance	Mode	Work	Telos
First Greek Era	Aphrodisia	Aesthetics, reputation, glory	Rule-based asceticism	Asymmetrical self-mastery
Christianity	Desire	Revelation	Self-decipherment	Purity/Heaven
Neoliberal entrepreneur	Capital-abilities	Growth	Investment/Innovation	Utility

It is important to realize that there are multiple types of subjectivation working at one time; also, each person may embody many modes of subjectivation at once, and they don’t necessarily line up neatly. To end, what is the relation between modes of subjectivation and the systems and strategies that we are wrapped up in? We must take this problem up at the level of practice and not just theory.

Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 8, 7 Mar 1979

Discussion began per usual with those present posing questions:

1) Foucault begins with a discussion of methodology, explaining that one of his goals here is to generalize his analytic, rather than to say generalize a concept of the state (cf. 187). This raises a question of how we today, after Foucault, make use of his work. This is a crucial theme for our collaboratory. Given its importance for us, we should ask if this is an appropriate reading of these introductory pages. Further, is there an implicit critique here of uses of Foucault that seek to generalize concepts (e.g., biopolitics) without paying any attention to the analytical methodology? In the background of this question is a worry about the way in which Giorgio Agamben exploits Foucault’s concept of biopolitics without paying attention at all to Foucaultian method, in terms of his analytical strategies (against historical invariant) or his methodological styles (archaeology, genealogy, problematization).

2) Foucault’s discussion of state-phobia critique could be developed. Is it internal, a criticism of state from within? Or is it external, whereby people are critical of state policy, because it does not sufficiently guard against external threats?

3) Governmentality as working on children, poor, mental patients, etc.. It sounds like governmentality ranges on or works over those who are excluded. But later Foucault talks about the ‘game’ of the economy whereby everyone is included. Is there a tension here? How can we reconcile these ideas?

4) Following up on that, a question on the rationality of neoliberalism. How does it work for neoliberal governmentality to keep everyone involved and a part of the system, or rather, the economy?

In response to the last two questions ((3) and (4)), it was suggested that we can read Foucault’s analysis as showing how neoliberalism makes possible the inclusion of populations in ways that are nefarious, or startling, or at least disturbing. These populations are included as excluded. They are floating populations. It was pointed out that the logic of sovereignty (Agamben’s was mentioned) is blind to this kind of problem. There are problems that the logic of sovereignty is well-equipped to address. But there are other problems for which it is totally incompetent.

This has ramifications for question (2) insofar as the ‘included excluded’ or ‘floating populations’ are consequences of state-phobia. But they also act as a check on or guard against too much state-phobia. It does this by setting up a positive need for some kind of governmentality. So neoliberalism includes populations that are beckoned by existing fears of the middle classes (etc.), and in doing this it creates a need for the state. But we may be going beyond Foucault at this point.

In response to the methodological question (1). Foucault shows at the outset of the chapter that he is trying to vary his concepts (biopolitics, see first line of the chapter, neoliberalism, discipline, etc.) in order to test out a more general methodology for the analysis of relations of power (186). He talks about his “methodological reasons (la raison de method)” (186).

Foucault wants to “see the extent to which we could accept that the analysis of micro-powers, or procedures of governmentality, is not confined by definition to a precise domain determined by a sector of the scale, but should be considered simply as a point of view, a method of decipherement which may be valid for the whole scale, whatever its size” (186; cf. Foucault’s “Course Summary”, 317-8). Foucault wants to generalize (or maybe to universalize) the methodological project but he does not want to universalize (or even to generalize) concepts—in fact, his claim is that the universalization or at least the deployment of methodology depends on guarding against the universalization of concept.

Why guard against the universalization of the concept? Because such universalization is theory and as such cannot be either wrong or right. Foucault prefers to specify concepts in a way that is empirical-historical and as such is testable in a way not available to the universalizer. By empiricity and testability one need not invoke an idea of ‘scientific method’ (etc.)—we can get by here just with an idea of localized constraints on empirical inquiry rather than an infallible knock-down empirical method.

Why guard against the theoretical universalization of the concept? Because if one doesn’t, then one will employ vacuous explanations in terms that are all-too-general. Foucault writes, “it then becomes possible not only to use different analyses to support each other, but also to refer them back to each other and so deprive them of their specificity” (187; emphasis added). Depriving concepts and analyses of their specificity involves the loss of empirical grip, which involves the loss of grip on our historical present, which effectively acts as a block on being able to understand ourselves, to work on our selves, and to transform ourselves in the face of our problems. Foucault calls this “inflation in the sense of an increasing interchangeability of analyses and a loss of specificity” (188).

The specificities Foucault wants us to attend to include the distinction between liberal-welfare states and totalitarian-fascist states. He advances the “thesis that the welfare state has neither the same form, of course, nor, it seems to me, the same root or origin as the totalitarian state, as the Nazi, fascist, or Stalinist state” (190). These are not branches of the same tree. They employ different technologies in response to different problematizations.

How does all this connect to biopolitics? If biopolitics is social policy generally conceived, then neoliberalism shows how “social policy, is necessarily an economic policy at the same time” (198). Economic analysis thus becomes a powerful instrument or tool in a biopolitical regime. Neoliberalism works by coordinating the social and the economic in such a way that the two remain distinct or “decoupled” (201), such that their only point of contact is at the place where the economic rules are set up such that at the social level nobody is excluded (202). Whether or not neoliberalism was successful in this partition (probably not, or maybe obviously not) we recognize this as a quintessential liberal thematic.

Lastly, it was observed that in terms of the discussion of Chapter 7 last week, that Foucault’s claim here in Chapter 8 that neoliberalism involves working out “a sort of inverted social contract” (202) supports the analysis of Chapter 7 with the grid in which neoliberalism was described as a kind of ‘contractualist market-based’ political theory.

Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 7, Feb 21 1979 lecture

What is unique or new in neoliberalism? In ch. 6 Foucault made a case for the enterprise as a new focus in neoliberalism. The claim there was that enterprise-ification replaces commodification as the unique diacritic of contemporary liberalism. So pace Marcuse, we must critique the enterprise, not the commodity form, that is if we want to critique (i.e., understand, and remake) contemporary political society.

Now, in ch. 7, Foucault assesses the juridical rationality of neoliberalism in terms of the rule of law. So juridically, neoliberalism implements the rule of law, i.e. “the redefinition of the juridical institution and of the necessary rules of right in a society regulated on the basis of and in terms of the competitive market economy” (160). Socially, neoliberalism implements the enterprise form, i.e. “the formalization of society on the model of the enterprise” (160). These are the “two major axes” of German neoliberalism, i.e. ordoliberalism. The focus of ch. 7 is on the first of these two axes.

What characterizes the rule of law for neoliberals, according to Foucault? First, that it is formalist rather than interventionist. Foucault says that for neolibs, “The Rule of law, or formal economic legislation, is quite simply the opposite of a plan” (172). How do we make sense of this? What are some examples?

Example 1. One way of distinguishing would be in the case of the recent financial crisis. The Keynesian legacy of intervention involved bailouts of particular corporations in order to keep consumption and production levels above a minimum. The neoliberal (according to MF) approach would have been opposed to these bailouts as plans except insofar as they would be the only viable means of meeting the formal requirements of economic growth. A more paradigmatic neoliberal approach would be to insist on tighter formal regulations for the way that securities are created, backed, and traded (e.g., regulations on uses of mortgages for securitization etc.). The idea is making laws with regard to existence and trading of certain financial instruments. The plan, on the other hand, but is implemented regard to, say, distributions of already-existing financial instruments in this particular case.

Example 2. Fiscal-Centered v. Monetary-Centered. Fiscal policy is about implementing plans, and spending here or there. Monetary policy is about formal regulation, focused on monetary supply, and interest rates.

MF claims that formalization multiplies judicial intervention. The idea is that the ratio of judicial to administrative decisions increases in the favor of the former as the law is formalized. Foucault says “governmental interventions of the public authority are more and more formalized” and also “administrative intervention recedes” (176). The idea is the shift of authority and power from administration and executive power to judicial-former power. Think, for example, of formalization of traffic law, which relies on the idea of a traffic court which is the final venue for formalization of traffic (see example from Rougier as quoted by Foucault, 162). The highway code is the formalization-juridificaiton of traffic. The technique of the traffic cop would be to plan traffic: imagine a city with no traffic laws but only traffic cops.

What distinguishes neoliberalism from classical liberalism? The latter took markets to be natural and spontaneous orders—people needed to be free to exchange. The former now takes markets to be formal structures which are implemented—enterprises need to be able to compete and free markets.

Going beyond Foucault now, aren’t neoliberals as he describes them part of a more rationalist-constructivist tradition in political theory? Isn’t formal (rather than administrative) intervention still about the way in which the basics of society get set up? Isn’t this rightly contrasted with more spontaneous-order versions of liberalism (Adam Smith, Mises, Hayek, etc.)? Aren’t the latter versions not interested in ‘setting up the basics of society’ so much as they are interested in questions of social evolution and taking a historicistperspective? (If so, then we may have doubts about Foucault’s reading of Hayek.)

If the neoliberals are looking to set up society for the purposes of freeing the market, then aren’t they using a kind of Lockean-Kantian constructivist rule-of-law framework for the purposes of the Smithian idea of market freedom? For the purposes of elucidation: one might also use the same rule-of-law framework to arrive at a more interventionist conception. Another approach would be to use the Smithan classical liberal “spontaneous natural order” framework (161) for the purposes of arriving at a more social-egalitarian approach. There are, then, four options:

Constructivist Free-Market Approach: Neoliberalism
Constructivist Egalitarian Approach: Rawls
Spontaneous Order Free-Market Approach: Adam Smith’s Capitalism
Spontaneous Order Egalitarian Approach: ??

Admittedly, Smithians (and Hayekians) would probably endorse the rule of law, but they would do so for different reasons. Neoliberals endorse it for contractualist reasons broadly construed, but Austrians endorse it for spontaneous-order reasons. There is, then, a basic distinction in what we take to be the justification of a given political order: Is an order justified because the result of spontaneous-natural process? Or is it justified because it is the most rational, because it is the best kind of social design possible? What, for the neoliberals, justifies that kind of society?

Foucault 1979 CdF, Chapter 6, 14 Feb 1979

Discussion began per usual with those present posing questions:

1) A general request was made to expand on the three points Foucault makes/develops in this section (p. 130-132)—specifically how these points relate to enterprise. There was a general agreement that enterprise was the unit/point of analysis and could be substituted with another analytic object, like competition. There was some general concern as to whether or not F had fully elaborated the difference between Adam Smith and the Ordoliberals. One point of distinction is that Smith believed a free space/market must be created, whereas the Ordoliberals viewed the economy as creating this space of freedom through its operations.

2) Another question was raised as to whether an opposition must exist between the ‘agenda’ F discusses and governmentality. The agenda/non-agenda distinction was read as synonymous with the public/private distinction. A debate ensued as to whether or not the private is real or truly free because it is the product of a controlled environment. This does not mean that liberty of choice is controlled, of course, but the problem remains as to whether or not this issue of negative liberty/bio-political ‘free’ space is ever private or free.

3) There was a brief return to the issue of why F is or is not talking to the Marxists/communists in the room. Similarly, we asked, is Habbermas having any influence on F’s thought at this point?

4) Taking F on his word about the neoliberals, what is his take on monopoly--or is he simply descriptive?

5) A two part question was then raised: can we rehash the shift that occurred in previous chapter and explain its influence on what F says here, specifically with reference to the difference between classical/naturalized lib (lib of 18th/19th century) and neo-lib (i.e. what is this difference and what is the proper term use?); 2) p. 147ish, how does the new theory associated with neo-liberalism pan out and relate to the old/original form of liberalism? Especially in relation to commodity, exchange, monopoly, competition, and enterprise society--how do these map on to the shift he is describing?

It was pointed out, in response to this question, that there are two registers/lines of argument or response: liberal and critical theory. So part of the confusion in this chapter is that F is simultaneously tracing liberal justification and making side comments in relation to critical theory. This raised several other questions: Was critical theory late on the scene/irrelevant? Do critiques of Critical Theory even apply to what F is talking about (p. 149., bottom of first paragraph)?

Some responded by noting that capitalism does operate as Marcuse and other Marxists say...but shifts in capitalist society actually assimilated resistance movements etc. making the critiques of Marcuse etc. fall stillborn, but also the enterprise has taken up these movements to try and prevent mass culture/afford ‘individualism.’

The point ended up being: if there is something wrong with this, Marcuse isn’t going to help us see it/solve it.

The difference between cultural Marxism and bio-politics was then raised in terms of the control and manipulation of life, which led to the problem of species-being and a brief discussion of the Foucault/Chomsky debate. Foucault wants to reject this species being life talk, where as those who appeal to modern/liberal/enlightenment notions of ‘species-being’ or a natural human essence risk reproducing the problems they are trying to reject through their revolution because said beliefs are implicit to the very thing they are trying to reject.

F has to account for culture/doesn’t want to purely reject it...but this does not contain within it the notion of life being addressed by bio-politics.

Thus, Foucault is not satisfied with Marxism because it cannot address these other problems associated with bio-politics.

Marcuse can be stuck in matrix of the bio-political world without seeing the biopolitical machinations.

We need to resist/be wary of the system appropriating and reconstructing, which means we need to be wary of ourselves.

Point was made that F isn’t concerned with commodification, but is rather interested in the dynamics of competition and enterprise. This raised a larger issue of whether or not these things are seperable—commodification and enterprise/competition. We agreed that both are present--competition/enterprise and commodification—and the point, for F, is determining and analyzing which one is predominant for liberalis versus the neoliberals.

Purpose of neoliberal model is not to become rich off of selling goods, but is rather to market in order to perpetuate/build up a cultural movement etc.

Example: Viral Phenomenon, like flash mobs, which move certain enterprises.

Commodification and enterprise/exchange are linked, but not the same.

Part of what makes enterprise so insidious is that it is formed and guided by someone else--i.e. you are merely following and reproducing something that you did not create.

Example: Merchants of cool.

This returned us to the issue of statistics and populations: i.e. Who determines these needs, beliefs, ideas, etc.? Is it the person who is being tapped for marketing ideas or the marketing agent.