Hi Richard,
I wonder what others here think of the work of Hardt and Negri and Paolo Virno? They argue that Foucault did not sufficiently comprehend the link between biopolitics and the development of labour as commodity. Their work is derived from Italian operaismo that began with Tronti and others. Deleuze makes reference to Tronti in his book on Foucault and speculates that Tronti may have developed similar insights to Foucault in the 60s. I see their work as an essential addition to Foucault (or perhaps as a Foucauldianised Marxism) which returns retains the materiality of power.
Richard
I dont think they argue what you say. but since you are interested in this topic, I hope you wont mind me bombarding you with the resources on generation-online. the latest addition is an interesting article on Foucault's lectures published last year by Gallimard on security territory and population, and the birth of biopolitics (by m. lazzarato). http://www.generation-online.org/p/fplazzarato2.htm
the main issue with operaismo and foucault is that resistance comes first. there are obviously other common elements at play - such as perspectivism with respect to political epistemology; relational notion of subjectivity in terms of social ontology; diffuse idea of power and of refusal in terms of micropolitics; primacy of language in production; I dont wanna go on and on. I wrote something on this here http://www.generation-online.org/other/acop/acop_postfordism.htm
but there are also other articles on our site on foucault by operaisti, such as negri's 'a contribution on foucault', 2004 http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpnegri14.htm
ciao
arianna