Dear Nick,
You ask for sources for two assertions:
1. that foucault embraces the historical materialist view that history
should be understood in terms of the dynamics of the forces and
relations of production (as distinct from all of the other claims that
historical materialism also makes).
2. that Foucault claims that we live in capitalist societies with a
capitalist ruling class, which exploits a working class (on purpose).
In order to defend the first assertion, it is necessary to do some
terminological translation from Foucault's idiom into Marx's, and vice
versa. I have tried to do that already on this list, so I have
forwarded again what I previously wrote (see below). Technically
Foucault does not quite have "relations of production" in mind
exclusively; he has in mind the more inclusive notion of "relations of
power." The former, he holds, is a special case of the latter.
Over and above what I have written below, I add the following remark,
taken from "Prison Talk" (POWER/KNOWLEDGE, p. 53):
"It is impossible at the present time to write history without using a
whole range of concepts directly or indirectly linked to Marx's
thought and situating oneself within a horizon of thought which has
been defined and described by Marx. One might even wonder what
difference there could ultimately be between being a historian and
being a Marxist."
As for the second set of claims:
The most emphatic formulation of these ideas is probably that found in
"On Popular Justice," in POWER/KN., p. 26), where he says things like
"it is under the leadership of the proletariat that the
non-proletarianised people will join in the revolutionary battle." In
his debate with Chomsky, he anticipates "the dictatorship of the
proletariat." In an interview called "The History of Sexuality," he
denies that power "is independent or could be made sense of outside of
economic processes and the relations of production" (P/K, 188). In
"the Confession of the Flesh," he says that sexuality is, or can
rightly be seen as, "the strategy which allows the bourgeois class to
be the bourgeois class and to exercise its domination" (P/K, 203).
Finally (and this is a hastily assembled, partial list of such
remarks), in "The Subject and Power," pp. 212-213 of Dreyfus andd
Rabinow's book on Foucault, Foucault writes that "the struggle against
exploitation" became the most prominent kind of power struggle some
time during the 19th century, and that, although its prominence has
faded somewhat, nevertheless, "the struggles against...exploitation
have not disappeared. Quite the contrary."
As for the question of the "extra-discursive," I can only quote a
crucially important, but insufficiently heeded remark, where Foucault
points out that "my problem is not a linguistic one" (P/K, 198).
Some may want to suggest that in, say, THE ORDER OF THINGS, his
problem IS a linguistic one. I won't argue the point. BUt to say
that, in Discipline and Punish or Hist. of Sex. , Foucault is
primarily concerned with "discourse" seems to be straightforwardly
false.
I hope this helps.
Forwarded message:
>
> For Marx, the dynamics of historical "development" or "change" are to
> be understood in terms of the "agonism" (as MF would say) or
> "antagonism" (as KM would say) of the forces and relations of
> production.
>
> Forces of production include two elements: "labour-power" and "means
> of production." Foucault embraces this category, albeit not the
> terminology. He speaks of "a power which stems from aptitudes
> directly inherent in the body [read: labour-power -- S.D.] or relayed
> through external instruments [read: mmeans of production -- S.D.]." This
> "power" he thinks should be designated as "capacity" to avoid
> confusion with "power relations" between agents. (The quotation is
> from "The Subject and Power").
>
> As for the "relations of production," these clearly ARE (a special
> case of) relations of power in Foucault's sense. Take for example the
> fact that working people, according to the Manifesto, are obliged to
> sell their labour-power in order to survive. This is because, for
> example, other economic agents and authorities like the police and the
> courts etc. recognize the claim to ownership of the means and
> therefore of the product of proeduction made by the employers but
> would not recognize any claim workers might make to such ownership.
> Cf. T. Wartenburg on social "alignments" for a fuller account of how
> relations of production AS CONCEIVED BY MARXISM are relations of power.
>
> Now, the question is: does Foucault regard the dynamics of historical
> change in terms of an agonism between "capacities" (forces of
> production) and "relations of power"?
>
> I remind you that, for Marx, this agonism takes the form of a
> "fettering' of the "free development" of such capacities, followed by
> a "bursting asunder" of these fetters. That is to say, he sees it in
> terms of a back-and-forth movement of "deterritorialization" and
> "reterritorialization," in the vocabulary of Deleuze and Guattari.
>
> Consider the following remark, from CAPITAL, vol. I:
> "But if Modern Industry, by its very nature, therefore necessitates
> variation of labour, fluency of function, universal mobility of the
> labourer, on the other hand, in its capitalistic form, it reproduces
> the old division of labour with its ossified particularisations."
>
> Against the "ossified particularisations" (or what Foucault calls
> "subjection" or "pinning people down to their identity") that are
> reproduced by the old division of labour, Marx counterposes the idea
> of a "communist" "association", one in which "the full and free
> development of every individual forms the ruling principle" (CAP., v.
> I), and in which "the free development of each is the condition for
> the free development of all" (Manifesto).
>
> I think that the agonism of forces and relations of production
> described by Marx is exactly what Foucault has in mind when he speaks
> of "the paradox of the relations of capacity and power" ("What is
> Enlightenment?"). What else is discussing when he claims that "the
> agonism between power relations and the intransitivity of freedom is a
> permanent political task inherent in all social existence" ("The
> Subject and Power")? "What is at stake, then," Foucault writes, "is
> this: How can the growth of capabilities be disconnected from the
> intensification of power relations?" ("What is Enlightenment?").
>
> I think, in short, that when Foucault talks about struggles against
> "subjection," struggles of "de-individualization," he has in mind
> something VERY MUCH like what Marx has in mind when he talks about
> struggles against the "fettering" of the "free development" of the
> needs and abilities of "every individual" which (fettering) imposes
> "ossified particularisations" on people. What is Foucault's call for
> a "desexualization" of "bodies and pleasures" if not an echo of Marx's
> call on workers to "abolish the proletariat," along with all
> "ossified" classes, and to replace the division of labour with a
> society in which one "fishes in the morning, practises critical
> philosophy in the afternoon," etc., i.e., in which one develops
> oneself freely in different directions?
>
> I conclude with a quotation from Marx on the subject of communism,
> which relates the latter to what Foucault was later to call "ethics":
>
> "[T]he development of all human powers as such, not measured by any
> _previously given_ yardstick...[is] an end-in-itself, through which he
> does not reproduce himself in any specific character, but produces his
> totality, and does not seek to remain something he has already become,
> but is in the absolute movement of becoming." (Grundrisse).
>
> Steve D'Arcy
> darcy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
You ask for sources for two assertions:
1. that foucault embraces the historical materialist view that history
should be understood in terms of the dynamics of the forces and
relations of production (as distinct from all of the other claims that
historical materialism also makes).
2. that Foucault claims that we live in capitalist societies with a
capitalist ruling class, which exploits a working class (on purpose).
In order to defend the first assertion, it is necessary to do some
terminological translation from Foucault's idiom into Marx's, and vice
versa. I have tried to do that already on this list, so I have
forwarded again what I previously wrote (see below). Technically
Foucault does not quite have "relations of production" in mind
exclusively; he has in mind the more inclusive notion of "relations of
power." The former, he holds, is a special case of the latter.
Over and above what I have written below, I add the following remark,
taken from "Prison Talk" (POWER/KNOWLEDGE, p. 53):
"It is impossible at the present time to write history without using a
whole range of concepts directly or indirectly linked to Marx's
thought and situating oneself within a horizon of thought which has
been defined and described by Marx. One might even wonder what
difference there could ultimately be between being a historian and
being a Marxist."
As for the second set of claims:
The most emphatic formulation of these ideas is probably that found in
"On Popular Justice," in POWER/KN., p. 26), where he says things like
"it is under the leadership of the proletariat that the
non-proletarianised people will join in the revolutionary battle." In
his debate with Chomsky, he anticipates "the dictatorship of the
proletariat." In an interview called "The History of Sexuality," he
denies that power "is independent or could be made sense of outside of
economic processes and the relations of production" (P/K, 188). In
"the Confession of the Flesh," he says that sexuality is, or can
rightly be seen as, "the strategy which allows the bourgeois class to
be the bourgeois class and to exercise its domination" (P/K, 203).
Finally (and this is a hastily assembled, partial list of such
remarks), in "The Subject and Power," pp. 212-213 of Dreyfus andd
Rabinow's book on Foucault, Foucault writes that "the struggle against
exploitation" became the most prominent kind of power struggle some
time during the 19th century, and that, although its prominence has
faded somewhat, nevertheless, "the struggles against...exploitation
have not disappeared. Quite the contrary."
As for the question of the "extra-discursive," I can only quote a
crucially important, but insufficiently heeded remark, where Foucault
points out that "my problem is not a linguistic one" (P/K, 198).
Some may want to suggest that in, say, THE ORDER OF THINGS, his
problem IS a linguistic one. I won't argue the point. BUt to say
that, in Discipline and Punish or Hist. of Sex. , Foucault is
primarily concerned with "discourse" seems to be straightforwardly
false.
I hope this helps.
Forwarded message:
>
> For Marx, the dynamics of historical "development" or "change" are to
> be understood in terms of the "agonism" (as MF would say) or
> "antagonism" (as KM would say) of the forces and relations of
> production.
>
> Forces of production include two elements: "labour-power" and "means
> of production." Foucault embraces this category, albeit not the
> terminology. He speaks of "a power which stems from aptitudes
> directly inherent in the body [read: labour-power -- S.D.] or relayed
> through external instruments [read: mmeans of production -- S.D.]." This
> "power" he thinks should be designated as "capacity" to avoid
> confusion with "power relations" between agents. (The quotation is
> from "The Subject and Power").
>
> As for the "relations of production," these clearly ARE (a special
> case of) relations of power in Foucault's sense. Take for example the
> fact that working people, according to the Manifesto, are obliged to
> sell their labour-power in order to survive. This is because, for
> example, other economic agents and authorities like the police and the
> courts etc. recognize the claim to ownership of the means and
> therefore of the product of proeduction made by the employers but
> would not recognize any claim workers might make to such ownership.
> Cf. T. Wartenburg on social "alignments" for a fuller account of how
> relations of production AS CONCEIVED BY MARXISM are relations of power.
>
> Now, the question is: does Foucault regard the dynamics of historical
> change in terms of an agonism between "capacities" (forces of
> production) and "relations of power"?
>
> I remind you that, for Marx, this agonism takes the form of a
> "fettering' of the "free development" of such capacities, followed by
> a "bursting asunder" of these fetters. That is to say, he sees it in
> terms of a back-and-forth movement of "deterritorialization" and
> "reterritorialization," in the vocabulary of Deleuze and Guattari.
>
> Consider the following remark, from CAPITAL, vol. I:
> "But if Modern Industry, by its very nature, therefore necessitates
> variation of labour, fluency of function, universal mobility of the
> labourer, on the other hand, in its capitalistic form, it reproduces
> the old division of labour with its ossified particularisations."
>
> Against the "ossified particularisations" (or what Foucault calls
> "subjection" or "pinning people down to their identity") that are
> reproduced by the old division of labour, Marx counterposes the idea
> of a "communist" "association", one in which "the full and free
> development of every individual forms the ruling principle" (CAP., v.
> I), and in which "the free development of each is the condition for
> the free development of all" (Manifesto).
>
> I think that the agonism of forces and relations of production
> described by Marx is exactly what Foucault has in mind when he speaks
> of "the paradox of the relations of capacity and power" ("What is
> Enlightenment?"). What else is discussing when he claims that "the
> agonism between power relations and the intransitivity of freedom is a
> permanent political task inherent in all social existence" ("The
> Subject and Power")? "What is at stake, then," Foucault writes, "is
> this: How can the growth of capabilities be disconnected from the
> intensification of power relations?" ("What is Enlightenment?").
>
> I think, in short, that when Foucault talks about struggles against
> "subjection," struggles of "de-individualization," he has in mind
> something VERY MUCH like what Marx has in mind when he talks about
> struggles against the "fettering" of the "free development" of the
> needs and abilities of "every individual" which (fettering) imposes
> "ossified particularisations" on people. What is Foucault's call for
> a "desexualization" of "bodies and pleasures" if not an echo of Marx's
> call on workers to "abolish the proletariat," along with all
> "ossified" classes, and to replace the division of labour with a
> society in which one "fishes in the morning, practises critical
> philosophy in the afternoon," etc., i.e., in which one develops
> oneself freely in different directions?
>
> I conclude with a quotation from Marx on the subject of communism,
> which relates the latter to what Foucault was later to call "ethics":
>
> "[T]he development of all human powers as such, not measured by any
> _previously given_ yardstick...[is] an end-in-itself, through which he
> does not reproduce himself in any specific character, but produces his
> totality, and does not seek to remain something he has already become,
> but is in the absolute movement of becoming." (Grundrisse).
>
> Steve D'Arcy
> darcy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>