On Useful and Docile Bodies...
I too am interested in teh same question you are, but I
happen to read Foucault's anlytic of power relations in D&P
as being consistent with Marx's own claims about the body as
the site of the investments of power/knowledges. Though I
won't go into gret detail as yet, there are three claims
that Foucault makes in D&P which coincide with a Marxian
analysis (I"m not going to say much about Western Marxism,
but Barry Smart, Mark Poster, Abdul janmohamed and others
have linked Foucault with figures such as Lukacs and
Gramsci, and of course the link with Althusser runs
throughout Focuault's work).
The first claim is that what characterizes modern discursive
practices found in the disciplines is an "economistic
rationality". Bentham's reforms are targeted not at humane
reforms, but at a new economy of hte power to punish. This
rationality is fairly pervasive; one can speak of teh
economy of rights, the economy of technologies - especially
human technologies and "semio-techniques," ansd so on. The
economistic rationality is a feature of modern society. If
we throw out the base-superstructure reading of Marx, and
there's lots of reason to do so in a number of his texts,
principally in The German Ideology and the Grundrisse, we
can find support fro the calim that what characterizes
modern societies is that all socail relations are
"economistic" - that is to say, that an economic rationality
lies at the heart of theri functioning.
The second claim, which you hit upon in your analysis, is
that the body is not only a subjugated body, but it is
productive. What the body produces are a number of
sign-effects, which are taken up, "colonized," appropriated,
and distributed to other discplines. One can thus speak of
a politcal economy of the sign. Marx, from the Economic and
Philsophical Manuscripts onward, is a materialist, as is
well known, but he is also an eliminativist in the same way
Focuault is. The body is the site of power realtions in any
society (i.e. The King's body and the representative form of
power relations, and the disciplinary subject are both
productive of signs). Modern soceities, according to Marx,
are not only organized around the systematic extraction of
surplus value from labour, but th very body of the labourer
is "marked trained and tortured" in the process of
production. The "surplus effects" of Foucault's
disciplined, or dociloe bodies are systematically extracted
from those bodies. And just as Marx held that the more
value a labourer produces, the greater the power which
subjugates him is (i.e. the apitalist accumlates surplus
value, and in turn reinvests it into a greater alien power -
capital, machinery, etc. - all of which is expropriated from
labour), so in Foucault's case, the more sign-effects the
body produces, the greater the power/knowledge mechanism
which extracts those effects.
The third relation is that in Foucault's case, teh
'micro-physics of power' operate through the "politcal
technologies of the body." throughout Focuautl's later work
- I suppose you could say from D&P onward, though the first
indications are founs in Madness & Civ., he is interested in
technologies of the body; techniques of confinement, the
confessional as a technique, the examination, quaranting
patients, the techniques of the pastoral (in the later
volumes of HS), etc.
As "forces of production," these technologies have
accumlated, though tey are found inside newer and different
systems. They can be viewed, in modern disciplinary
societies, as forms of capital. They are used to produce
and distribute sign-effects, which are taken up and
colonized or appropriated by newer, and often more general
strategies.
So, I agree entirely with what you have to say about
Foucault and docility/usefulness, etc. But I disagree with
your reading of Marx. it is true that a purely repressive
conception of power is found in Freudo-Marxism, but that
whole enterprise from Reich to Marcuse is a"one-dimensional"
Marxism. Rusch and Kirchheimer (form what I gather), see
the disciplines as a necessary supplement ot industrial
organization. Marx, however, is not an essentialist - the
base-superstructure model is an oversimplification of his
views - whcih are actually much more complicated. Some
Western Marxists, such as Lukacs and Gramsci, read Marx as
inckluding economic relations inside a more complex social
totality. In Althusser's case, this totality is
"decentred." I think it's here that Foucault's work begins.
One last note: please include more commentary on the
relation between Foucault and Rusch and Kirchheimer if you
have anything on that.
Joe Cronin
I too am interested in teh same question you are, but I
happen to read Foucault's anlytic of power relations in D&P
as being consistent with Marx's own claims about the body as
the site of the investments of power/knowledges. Though I
won't go into gret detail as yet, there are three claims
that Foucault makes in D&P which coincide with a Marxian
analysis (I"m not going to say much about Western Marxism,
but Barry Smart, Mark Poster, Abdul janmohamed and others
have linked Foucault with figures such as Lukacs and
Gramsci, and of course the link with Althusser runs
throughout Focuault's work).
The first claim is that what characterizes modern discursive
practices found in the disciplines is an "economistic
rationality". Bentham's reforms are targeted not at humane
reforms, but at a new economy of hte power to punish. This
rationality is fairly pervasive; one can speak of teh
economy of rights, the economy of technologies - especially
human technologies and "semio-techniques," ansd so on. The
economistic rationality is a feature of modern society. If
we throw out the base-superstructure reading of Marx, and
there's lots of reason to do so in a number of his texts,
principally in The German Ideology and the Grundrisse, we
can find support fro the calim that what characterizes
modern societies is that all socail relations are
"economistic" - that is to say, that an economic rationality
lies at the heart of theri functioning.
The second claim, which you hit upon in your analysis, is
that the body is not only a subjugated body, but it is
productive. What the body produces are a number of
sign-effects, which are taken up, "colonized," appropriated,
and distributed to other discplines. One can thus speak of
a politcal economy of the sign. Marx, from the Economic and
Philsophical Manuscripts onward, is a materialist, as is
well known, but he is also an eliminativist in the same way
Focuault is. The body is the site of power realtions in any
society (i.e. The King's body and the representative form of
power relations, and the disciplinary subject are both
productive of signs). Modern soceities, according to Marx,
are not only organized around the systematic extraction of
surplus value from labour, but th very body of the labourer
is "marked trained and tortured" in the process of
production. The "surplus effects" of Foucault's
disciplined, or dociloe bodies are systematically extracted
from those bodies. And just as Marx held that the more
value a labourer produces, the greater the power which
subjugates him is (i.e. the apitalist accumlates surplus
value, and in turn reinvests it into a greater alien power -
capital, machinery, etc. - all of which is expropriated from
labour), so in Foucault's case, the more sign-effects the
body produces, the greater the power/knowledge mechanism
which extracts those effects.
The third relation is that in Foucault's case, teh
'micro-physics of power' operate through the "politcal
technologies of the body." throughout Focuautl's later work
- I suppose you could say from D&P onward, though the first
indications are founs in Madness & Civ., he is interested in
technologies of the body; techniques of confinement, the
confessional as a technique, the examination, quaranting
patients, the techniques of the pastoral (in the later
volumes of HS), etc.
As "forces of production," these technologies have
accumlated, though tey are found inside newer and different
systems. They can be viewed, in modern disciplinary
societies, as forms of capital. They are used to produce
and distribute sign-effects, which are taken up and
colonized or appropriated by newer, and often more general
strategies.
So, I agree entirely with what you have to say about
Foucault and docility/usefulness, etc. But I disagree with
your reading of Marx. it is true that a purely repressive
conception of power is found in Freudo-Marxism, but that
whole enterprise from Reich to Marcuse is a"one-dimensional"
Marxism. Rusch and Kirchheimer (form what I gather), see
the disciplines as a necessary supplement ot industrial
organization. Marx, however, is not an essentialist - the
base-superstructure model is an oversimplification of his
views - whcih are actually much more complicated. Some
Western Marxists, such as Lukacs and Gramsci, read Marx as
inckluding economic relations inside a more complex social
totality. In Althusser's case, this totality is
"decentred." I think it's here that Foucault's work begins.
One last note: please include more commentary on the
relation between Foucault and Rusch and Kirchheimer if you
have anything on that.
Joe Cronin