Re: [Foucault-L] Relationship between liberalism (or liberal governmentality) and biopolitics

[xavier delcourt <delcourt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list