I think you need to read The Order of Things more carefully, but you
will notice that Smith is positioned as a transitional figure whereas
David Ricardo is pretty much centred on a concept of man. Whether
the empirico-transcendental doublet idea (which relates predominantly
to Kant) is valid for Ricardo is a good question, but undoubtedly
Ricardo's work is centred on a notion of human nature. As far as
J.S. Mill is concerned, well there is a shift there in terms of how
value is explained but in abstract terms he is just as theoretical
humanist as Ricardo.
I suggest reading Keith Tribe's Land, Labour and Economic Discourse (1978). It's old, but still valuable. You won't find adequate answers to this on an email list, sorry.
You might also try the chapter on Foucault in Lecourt's Marxism and Epistemology for a critical view of Foucault's work of this period, especially regarding the Ricardo/Marx question.
Personally I find the Order of Things to be historicist to a quite objectionable degree, and even Hegelian. Foucault went on to provide an implicit critique of it in subsequent work, and didn't return to certain of its formulations regarding historical a prioris etc, which posed in such an abstract way were perhaps poorly formulated.
Anyway, I'm sure there are people here who would see Foucault's work as some kind of unity and would be appalled by what I have just stated!
On 21/04/2009, at 2:35 AM, Emmanoel B wrote:
I suggest reading Keith Tribe's Land, Labour and Economic Discourse (1978). It's old, but still valuable. You won't find adequate answers to this on an email list, sorry.
You might also try the chapter on Foucault in Lecourt's Marxism and Epistemology for a critical view of Foucault's work of this period, especially regarding the Ricardo/Marx question.
Personally I find the Order of Things to be historicist to a quite objectionable degree, and even Hegelian. Foucault went on to provide an implicit critique of it in subsequent work, and didn't return to certain of its formulations regarding historical a prioris etc, which posed in such an abstract way were perhaps poorly formulated.
Anyway, I'm sure there are people here who would see Foucault's work as some kind of unity and would be appalled by what I have just stated!
On 21/04/2009, at 2:35 AM, Emmanoel B wrote:
Hello, Chetan,
It is true, the "Birth of Biopolitics" is useful as well. To be more
precise, I would like to verify if "man" understood as an
empirico-transcendental doublet is found in the economic works of J. S. Mil,
A. Smith and W.S. Jevons, despite Foucault's definition of economics as an
empirical science. I am trying to better qualify Foucault's statements in
the works of those three economists.
Best regards,
Emmanoel
2009/4/20 Chetan Vemuri <aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx>
You might want to complement that with Foucault's 1979 course, The Birth of_______________________________________________
Biopolitics, which, unlike those two (fine book as they are), actually
deals
with economics and the figure of man in neoliberal economy, "homo
oeconomicus".
On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 8:43 AM, Emmanoel B <emmanoelb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi, all,similar
I am doing research on the history of economics from a foucauldian
perspective (mainly from "The Order of Things" and "Archaeology of
Knowledge"). I try to verify if Foucault's figure of Man appears in the
works of some economists of the nineteenth century. If anyone has a
kind of research or would like to exchange ideas about Foucault andhistory
economics, please, feel free to contact me!
Emmanoel
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Chetan Vemuri
West Des Moines, IA
aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx
(319)-512-9318
"You say you want a Revolution! Well you know, we all want to change the
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