A response to Alexandre's comment: "Le pouvoir disciplinaire
n'est donc pas economique au sens marxiste, mais economique
dans le sens d'econome, d'efficicacite a peu de frais"
First of all, thank you for your response, and I hope we
continue this discussion, because it is of great interest to
me; secondly, I apologize for reponding in English, but my
spoken and written French is atrocious, but I can read your
French.
First of all, the idea of an economistic rationality is not
new to Marx; Darwin, for example, borrowed principles from
teh economists such as the principle of scarcity,
overproduction of species-members, competition for habitat
both between and among species-members, etc. in showing that
the apparent design of different species is an effect of an
economy, not hte product of a designer, just as Adam Smith
argued that equilibrium in the marketplace is a natural
effect. Interestingly, in The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx
criticizes Proudhon, and indirectly the economists, for
treating the Feudal order of scoeity as articial and the
"design" of bourgois society as natural.
Foucault's claim that Bentham's reforms, and those of other
bourgois theorists, are economistic in that sense; they
adhere to a principle of immanence - the power of the King,
and the imposition of the monarchical order was no longer
necesary for Bourgois reformers to achieve a well-balanced
distribution of power. It is true that Foucault, on a
number of occasions speaks of the 'economy' of a discourse
in the theoretical sense that I think you are alluding to,
and this can be shown as early as L'ordre du discours. But
I think there is more to his analysis of reform strategies
than this. If we can say that he performs an "archeology"
of reform strategies, what we would find are relations
established first of all on representations in the Ancien
regime, where the King's body achieves a maximal
representation across the socail body, and secondly an
economy of power which is invisible, just as Adam Smith's
"designer" of the social, economic, and political order is
invisible.
My personal take on this issue is that certain Marxists -
especially after the Second International, read Marx as an
economist who has inverted the terms of teh Heglian
dialectic. If we accept ALthusser's criticisms of
economism, and we have every reason that Foucautl was
"subjected' to structural marxism during his tenure at teh
Ecole Normale, we can go further and claim taht Focualt was
aware of this alternative reading of Marx. The basic claim
of this reading is that Marx viewed the socail structure as
a comples, decentred whole, with economic determinations "in
the last instance." Aside from soem of the jargon embedded
in these claims, one idea that surfaces, and can, I think,
be clearly deciphered from Marx's works, is that he saw a
growing "economy" not just of the forces of production, but
of all social relations in modern society. The upshot is
that modern forms of power are characterized by an economic
rationality which is immanent to their functioning. Again,
by "economic" in this sense, I don't mean the industrial
sector alone; neither, I claim, did Marx, and Focuautl
adopted this very strategy for his analysis in D&P.
n'est donc pas economique au sens marxiste, mais economique
dans le sens d'econome, d'efficicacite a peu de frais"
First of all, thank you for your response, and I hope we
continue this discussion, because it is of great interest to
me; secondly, I apologize for reponding in English, but my
spoken and written French is atrocious, but I can read your
French.
First of all, the idea of an economistic rationality is not
new to Marx; Darwin, for example, borrowed principles from
teh economists such as the principle of scarcity,
overproduction of species-members, competition for habitat
both between and among species-members, etc. in showing that
the apparent design of different species is an effect of an
economy, not hte product of a designer, just as Adam Smith
argued that equilibrium in the marketplace is a natural
effect. Interestingly, in The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx
criticizes Proudhon, and indirectly the economists, for
treating the Feudal order of scoeity as articial and the
"design" of bourgois society as natural.
Foucault's claim that Bentham's reforms, and those of other
bourgois theorists, are economistic in that sense; they
adhere to a principle of immanence - the power of the King,
and the imposition of the monarchical order was no longer
necesary for Bourgois reformers to achieve a well-balanced
distribution of power. It is true that Foucault, on a
number of occasions speaks of the 'economy' of a discourse
in the theoretical sense that I think you are alluding to,
and this can be shown as early as L'ordre du discours. But
I think there is more to his analysis of reform strategies
than this. If we can say that he performs an "archeology"
of reform strategies, what we would find are relations
established first of all on representations in the Ancien
regime, where the King's body achieves a maximal
representation across the socail body, and secondly an
economy of power which is invisible, just as Adam Smith's
"designer" of the social, economic, and political order is
invisible.
My personal take on this issue is that certain Marxists -
especially after the Second International, read Marx as an
economist who has inverted the terms of teh Heglian
dialectic. If we accept ALthusser's criticisms of
economism, and we have every reason that Foucautl was
"subjected' to structural marxism during his tenure at teh
Ecole Normale, we can go further and claim taht Focualt was
aware of this alternative reading of Marx. The basic claim
of this reading is that Marx viewed the socail structure as
a comples, decentred whole, with economic determinations "in
the last instance." Aside from soem of the jargon embedded
in these claims, one idea that surfaces, and can, I think,
be clearly deciphered from Marx's works, is that he saw a
growing "economy" not just of the forces of production, but
of all social relations in modern society. The upshot is
that modern forms of power are characterized by an economic
rationality which is immanent to their functioning. Again,
by "economic" in this sense, I don't mean the industrial
sector alone; neither, I claim, did Marx, and Focuautl
adopted this very strategy for his analysis in D&P.