Entreprecariat reader synopses and abstracts: Difference between revisions
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Synopsis: "Toward the end of his life Michel Foucault became fascinated with how, during the seventeenth century and after, the state became preoccupied with the care of the individual citizen. This is particularly curious because it was at times when the state was at its most violent that it made its greatest investment in the care of its citizenry (during the French Revolution and World War Two, for instance). It is almost as if a paradoxical contract had been agreed upon: if you are prepared to die for the state then the state owes you your wellbeing. The antinomy arises: as the state apparatus constructs large destructive mechanisms (land armies and weapons systems) it simultaneously constructs technologies of care (culminating in the social democratic welfare state in the twentieth century). Foucault characterizes the antinomy with the phrase: ‘Go get slaughtered and we promise you a long and pleasant life. Life insurance is connected with a death command.’[1] It was in this period that the state was formed as the state per se, that it made it its business to make a political object of human happiness. | Synopsis: "Toward the end of his life Michel Foucault became fascinated with how, during the seventeenth century and after, the state became preoccupied with the care of the individual citizen. This is particularly curious because it was at times when the state was at its most violent that it made its greatest investment in the care of its citizenry (during the French Revolution and World War Two, for instance). It is almost as if a paradoxical contract had been agreed upon: if you are prepared to die for the state then the state owes you your wellbeing. The antinomy arises: as the state apparatus constructs large destructive mechanisms (land armies and weapons systems) it simultaneously constructs technologies of care (culminating in the social democratic welfare state in the twentieth century). Foucault characterizes the antinomy with the phrase: ‘Go get slaughtered and we promise you a long and pleasant life. Life insurance is connected with a death command.’[1] It was in this period that the state was formed as the state per se, that it made it its business to make a political object of human happiness. | ||
It was in the seventeenth century that the state formulated the notion of police, not in the sense of a force that would fight and prevent crime, but as a form of statecraft that would oversee the wellbeing of its citizenry, which would view (and construct) the citizen not only through their judicial status but as working, trading, living beings. By the nineteenth century German universities taught Polizeiwissenschaft, which concerned itself with describing, defining and organizing the new technologies of state power. It was then that the happiness of individuals was seen as a requirement for the survival and development of the state and it also became axiomatic that positive intervention in the behaviour of individuals was the state’s task. It was within this context that the political rationality arose that, as the individual had an effect on society (either positively or negatively) it was beholden on the state to compile information about the wellbeing and aptitude of the individual. This political technology, Foucault argues, provides the basic reason for the existence of the modern state and is therefore more important than any arguments about ideology, because whichever government is in power, the needs of the state prevail. The state can govern directly, through legislation, or indirectly by formulating values of individuality that the individual will seek to preserve.[2] | It was in the seventeenth century that the state formulated the notion of police, not in the sense of a force that would fight and prevent crime, but as a form of statecraft that would oversee the wellbeing of its citizenry, which would view (and construct) the citizen not only through their judicial status but as working, trading, living beings. By the nineteenth century German universities taught Polizeiwissenschaft, which concerned itself with describing, defining and organizing the new technologies of state power. It was then that the happiness of individuals was seen as a requirement for the survival and development of the state and it also became axiomatic that positive intervention in the behaviour of individuals was the state’s task. It was within this context that the political rationality arose that, as the individual had an effect on society (either positively or negatively) it was beholden on the state to compile information about the wellbeing and aptitude of the individual. This political technology, Foucault argues, provides the basic reason for the existence of the modern state and is therefore more important than any arguments about ideology, because whichever government is in power, the needs of the state prevail. The state can govern directly, through legislation, or indirectly by formulating values of individuality that the individual will seek to preserve.[2] | ||
We now see the emergence of two seemingly contradictory values within modern society: the state produces the individual and the state sets itself the task to care for that individual. At the moment the individual is defined, however, he or she seeks autonomy from the state and, in order to foster their independence pays close attention to better self-management (forgetting perhaps that a well managed and efficient individual is precisely what the state desires). The state has to deal with a similar paradox to the individual, this is generated by the new forms of freedom liberalism produces (“freedom of the market, freedom to buy and sell, the free exercise of property rights, freedom of discussion, possible freedom of expression”). [3] Whilst the state produces these freedoms it must at the same time create regulative devices that describe limits to those freedoms. Neo-liberalism provides some accommodation of that paradox, because it is these freedoms that serve to construct the self-dependent neo-liberal subject – Homo-Economicus – who goes beyond the logic of the welfare state. | We now see the emergence of two seemingly contradictory values within modern society: the state produces the individual and the state sets itself the task to care for that individual. At the moment the individual is defined, however, he or she seeks autonomy from the state and, in order to foster their independence pays close attention to better self-management (forgetting perhaps that a well managed and efficient individual is precisely what the state desires). The state has to deal with a similar paradox to the individual, this is generated by the new forms of freedom liberalism produces (“freedom of the market, freedom to buy and sell, the free exercise of property rights, freedom of discussion, possible freedom of expression”). [3] Whilst the state produces these freedoms it must at the same time create regulative devices that describe limits to those freedoms. Neo-liberalism provides some accommodation of that paradox, because it is these freedoms that serve to construct the self-dependent neo-liberal subject – Homo-Economicus – who goes beyond the logic of the welfare state. | ||
Liberalism and Neo-liberalism share a fundamental political reasoning. This reasoning – echoing Adam Smith’s conviction that it is in man’s nature to ‘barter, truck, and exchange’ – holds that the economic man is the subject at the basis of politics.[4] The difference between the liberal and neo-liberal positions is characterized by the shift in emphasis from trade (in the liberal era) to competition (in the era of neo-liberalism). In the latter scheme the human subject comes to be understood, and to understand himself, as ‘human capital’.[5] | Liberalism and Neo-liberalism share a fundamental political reasoning. This reasoning – echoing Adam Smith’s conviction that it is in man’s nature to ‘barter, truck, and exchange’ – holds that the economic man is the subject at the basis of politics.[4] The difference between the liberal and neo-liberal positions is characterized by the shift in emphasis from trade (in the liberal era) to competition (in the era of neo-liberalism). In the latter scheme the human subject comes to be understood, and to understand himself, as ‘human capital’.[5] | ||
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At the heart of Foucault’s governmentatlity is the notion that everyone from the office cleaner to the director of the company has an investment in an understanding of themselves as economic units, and as producers of their own freedom. It is this belief in the self that allows for control through mechanisms of governmentality through the investment in the economic unit of the self. In the neo-liberal scheme rights and laws give way to an emphasis on (self)interest and (self)investment within a context of competition. This is when the economics of desire and affect become so important to the art of politics. Jason Read puts it succinctly: ‘The state channels flows of interest and desire by making desirable activities inexpensive and undesirable activities costly, counting on the fact that subjects calculate their interests.’[8] At the heart of governance is the production of the desire of the subject to improve, to calculate their own best interests, and to minimize risk to themselves." |
At the heart of Foucault’s governmentatlity is the notion that everyone from the office cleaner to the director of the company has an investment in an understanding of themselves as economic units, and as producers of their own freedom. It is this belief in the self that allows for control through mechanisms of governmentality through the investment in the economic unit of the self. In the neo-liberal scheme rights and laws give way to an emphasis on (self)interest and (self)investment within a context of competition. This is when the economics of desire and affect become so important to the art of politics. Jason Read puts it succinctly: ‘The state channels flows of interest and desire by making desirable activities inexpensive and undesirable activities costly, counting on the fact that subjects calculate their interests.’[8] At the heart of governance is the production of the desire of the subject to improve, to calculate their own best interests, and to minimize risk to themselves." | ||
From | From ''Masters Of Reality'', p 105-110, Sternberg Press, 2011 | ||
Revision as of 15:37, 26 September 2018
Synopsis and Abstract
Steve's synopsis
Writer: Michel Foucault
Title: The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France 1978-1979
Publisher and date: Picador, 2004
Abstract:
Synopsis: "Toward the end of his life Michel Foucault became fascinated with how, during the seventeenth century and after, the state became preoccupied with the care of the individual citizen. This is particularly curious because it was at times when the state was at its most violent that it made its greatest investment in the care of its citizenry (during the French Revolution and World War Two, for instance). It is almost as if a paradoxical contract had been agreed upon: if you are prepared to die for the state then the state owes you your wellbeing. The antinomy arises: as the state apparatus constructs large destructive mechanisms (land armies and weapons systems) it simultaneously constructs technologies of care (culminating in the social democratic welfare state in the twentieth century). Foucault characterizes the antinomy with the phrase: ‘Go get slaughtered and we promise you a long and pleasant life. Life insurance is connected with a death command.’[1] It was in this period that the state was formed as the state per se, that it made it its business to make a political object of human happiness.
It was in the seventeenth century that the state formulated the notion of police, not in the sense of a force that would fight and prevent crime, but as a form of statecraft that would oversee the wellbeing of its citizenry, which would view (and construct) the citizen not only through their judicial status but as working, trading, living beings. By the nineteenth century German universities taught Polizeiwissenschaft, which concerned itself with describing, defining and organizing the new technologies of state power. It was then that the happiness of individuals was seen as a requirement for the survival and development of the state and it also became axiomatic that positive intervention in the behaviour of individuals was the state’s task. It was within this context that the political rationality arose that, as the individual had an effect on society (either positively or negatively) it was beholden on the state to compile information about the wellbeing and aptitude of the individual. This political technology, Foucault argues, provides the basic reason for the existence of the modern state and is therefore more important than any arguments about ideology, because whichever government is in power, the needs of the state prevail. The state can govern directly, through legislation, or indirectly by formulating values of individuality that the individual will seek to preserve.[2]
We now see the emergence of two seemingly contradictory values within modern society: the state produces the individual and the state sets itself the task to care for that individual. At the moment the individual is defined, however, he or she seeks autonomy from the state and, in order to foster their independence pays close attention to better self-management (forgetting perhaps that a well managed and efficient individual is precisely what the state desires). The state has to deal with a similar paradox to the individual, this is generated by the new forms of freedom liberalism produces (“freedom of the market, freedom to buy and sell, the free exercise of property rights, freedom of discussion, possible freedom of expression”). [3] Whilst the state produces these freedoms it must at the same time create regulative devices that describe limits to those freedoms. Neo-liberalism provides some accommodation of that paradox, because it is these freedoms that serve to construct the self-dependent neo-liberal subject – Homo-Economicus – who goes beyond the logic of the welfare state.
Liberalism and Neo-liberalism share a fundamental political reasoning. This reasoning – echoing Adam Smith’s conviction that it is in man’s nature to ‘barter, truck, and exchange’ – holds that the economic man is the subject at the basis of politics.[4] The difference between the liberal and neo-liberal positions is characterized by the shift in emphasis from trade (in the liberal era) to competition (in the era of neo-liberalism). In the latter scheme the human subject comes to be understood, and to understand himself, as ‘human capital’.[5]
Given that the basic elements of the self are biologically determined (our body, intelligence, skin colour et cetera) we are beholden to make investment in the self in order to maximize its earning potential and compete in the market place. In this sense, Foucault suggests, ‘homo economicus is an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur of himself.’[6] In today’s labour market where the distinction between labour and leisure are blurred – the world of wofe (work-life) and prosumers (producer-consumers) – the production and care of the self become matters of urgency. Foucault:
The new governmental reason needs freedom; therefore, the new art of government consumes freedom. It produces freedom, which means it must produce it. It must produce it, it must organise it. The new art of government therefore appears as the management of freedom, not in the sense of the imperative: ‘be free’, with the immediate contradiction that this imperative may contain. (…) [T]he liberalism we can describe as the art of government formed in the eighteenth century entails at its heart a productive/destructive relationship with freedom. Liberalism must produce freedom, but this very act entails the establishment of limitations, controls, forms of coercion, and obligations relying on threats, et cetera.[7]
At the heart of Foucault’s governmentatlity is the notion that everyone from the office cleaner to the director of the company has an investment in an understanding of themselves as economic units, and as producers of their own freedom. It is this belief in the self that allows for control through mechanisms of governmentality through the investment in the economic unit of the self. In the neo-liberal scheme rights and laws give way to an emphasis on (self)interest and (self)investment within a context of competition. This is when the economics of desire and affect become so important to the art of politics. Jason Read puts it succinctly: ‘The state channels flows of interest and desire by making desirable activities inexpensive and undesirable activities costly, counting on the fact that subjects calculate their interests.’[8] At the heart of governance is the production of the desire of the subject to improve, to calculate their own best interests, and to minimize risk to themselves."
From Masters Of Reality, p 105-110, Sternberg Press, 2011
Pedro
Writer — Jamie Woodcock
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Publisher and date — Pervasive Labour Union Zine #11 - The Entreprecariat, September 10th, 2017
Abstract (150 words max)
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