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.