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From: xavier delcourt <delcourt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:51:32 +0200
Jason
Look for "human capital"
xavier delcourt
Le 29 juin 08 à 17:55, Jason Weidner a écrit :
In his 1978-1979 lectures, The Birth of Biopolitics, Foucault
presents an analysis of the historical development of
neoliberalism--focusing primarily on the German ordoliberals and
the Chicago school American neoliberals. In various places Foucault
mentions the connection between this liberal, or neoliberal
governmentality and the biopolitical, but this relation is never
clearly spelled out.
In the first lecture of 10 January 1979, Foucault says that "the
analysis of biopolitics can only get under way when we have
understood the general regime of this governmental reason [of
liberalism]...only when we know what this governmental regime
called liberalism was, will we be able to grasp what biopolitics is."
In his notes for the same lecture, he also writes, "With the
emergence of political economy, with the introduction of the
restrictive principle in governmental practice itself...the
subjects of right on which political sovereignty is exercised
appear as a population that a government must manage. This is the
point of departure for the organizational line of a 'biopolitics'.
But...this is only part of something much larger, which [is] this
new governmental reason...Studying liberalism as the general
framework of biopolitics."
So, here Foucault seems to be saying that biopolitics emerges from,
is made possible by this new form of liberal political reason--that
is, governmentality. In other words, once this new form of
political reason creates 'the population' as an object of knowledge
and of management, biopolitics can emerge; thus liberal
governmentality is a condition of possibility for the biopolitical.
I'm wondering what other ways there might be for thinking the
relationship between (neo)liberal governmentality and biopolitics.
Jason R. Weidner
PhD. candidate, Department of International Relations
Florida International University
Miami, FL USA
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