FoucaultEffect
The Foucault Effect
Preface
In the book the Foucault effect (which is compared with effects in nature) will be explained in the hope that we can think critically about government, since it is not only a matter of authority and legalisation for authority, but something more...
Governmental rationality
Governmentality is a combination of "govermental rationality" @p1
Government means the managing or having influence on the behavior of others. This can be the self governmenting the self, a state governmenting another state or anything in between. @p2
Rationality of government is interchangeable with art of government meaning the act of governing, to govern and that this is a difficult task. But also thinking (philosophy) about government and how this was done through history. @p3
It goes from paternal in ancient times, to police state in midevil times to liberalisation and neo-liberalisation. The worrying part is that there is a tendency to let everybody be ruled by the same government and at the same time a movement of individualisation. @p3
By studying 'techniques of power' one can say a lot about society as a whole (critisized) @p4 Some critique: no study relation government/individual, no freedom, nihilis Foucault responds that it is impossible to study a government only practises and that these can be used to study the government on other levels.
Biopolitics are a new kind of politics where power is executed over the very personal (even sexual). And that this leads to a new form of resistance or counter-behavior (conduct) @p5 This sort of power is only possible when people have some degree of freedom and can act as stand-alone agents
Foucault lived in times of Tatcher. He is neutral in his observations, even saying that neo-liberalism is original in its govermentality, with no answer from left. @p6
Foucault sees a relationship between government and the truth where people can govern in the name of the truth. @p8
Early Modern
Impossible to combine totality with parental care @p8
In the 18th century governing for the sake of government became a fact (used to be for religious things) @p9 That makes it rational
To make decisions in specific cases, the state would ideally know about each and every subject. @p10 Police state comes from policy state The individual strengthens the state. "Police, sees to living" first of all to make everybody happy, but it also exerts control
Police state is also the first where economy becomes an important rationality. A police state functions as a mechanic, as a clockwork (or nowadays we would say computer). @p11
Police government (different than state) is a paternal government of and for all, to rally for economy @p12 The state does not sacrefice itself for the individual, but sometimes the individual most sacrefise itself. The state is a herder as well as a husband (German joke) or a leader. This new form of government is filling up a religious void.
If any technique of power can be studied to say something about the present society, then I think the techniques used by Cesar Milan are very much like both paternal and full control @self
Educating or "coaching" the people to deal with modern society became important. Of influence were Roman Stoics. @p13 "Man is not fitted for society by nature but by discipline", but this was not seen as slavery, rather as "helping to cope with society"
Doubts about polizeistaat and police state being the same. @p14
Real liberarism
With liberalism Adam Smith comes into the picture. He and his contempory thinkers thing there is a union between social, political and economical. Also Marx goes out of the window. Foucault sees liberalism as a school of thought being occupied with governmentallity. @p14
Liberalism is a critique on police state! @p15 Society follows the rules of human nature and policy must follow these rules ... it is human nature to make profit??? Once upon a time there was the idea for a "Table", with information about the state of the state, through which politics could make decisions. Adam Smith dismissed this idea, because such a Table could never be complete.
Governing from a state of knowing is dismissed by both Kant and Smith. The rest of history is dealing with this problem of non-knowing. @p16 Cheapness of commodities, public security and cleanliness were named as being important in liberalism and thus there was need of governmental police.
The trade off between letting the markets go and fascilitating a free market through government is a difficult question. @p17
Subquentially the theory and practice of liberalism are two different thinks and it is the question whether the framework of liberalism is not self-exclusive. @p18
The aim of liberalism is to provide security, security that will ensure that the natural forces can play out well. @p19
Liberalism has three aspects. 1) it deals with possible and probable events 2) it evaluates through calculations of comparative cost 3) it does not prescribe by absolute values, but a bandwidth in which things are ok. @p20 Government has become about security.
The French try to get empathy into the equation, and want to measure how much empathy is possible between civilians @p24 Liberalism is out to cut down government costs as much as possible, even to let the empathy take over the hospitalization costs
They bring us back to the level of the beast @self
By using natural peer pressure in the panopticon they are regulating the prissoners in a cost effective manner! @p25
Because it is impossible to regulate all the industries cost effectivelly it is left to the industry to regulate themselves. They will then in turn regulate the workers. This has led to high influence of employers unto their employees. @p25
Leaving the discipline of prisoners is another way of cutting costs and leaving the governmenting to private undertakings. More and more privatisations have taken place. @p26
If the government is geared to ensure good economy and the economy takes over part of government, then we have a cirqualar structure @self/@p26
Liberalism has inherited the relation of and emphasis upon economical and public order @p27 Benthams principle of "inspectability" has gone to public and semi-public officials.
The government action of liberalism are constrained by the performance of the economy. And economy was not able to provide security for the growing urban population. Also even though everybody has property you are dependent upon the mediation of that property (the ones who can afford production). @p28 Already in 1845 it was clear that the government was asked to foresee in economic existence (the left) and economic autonomy (the right) In the 19th century there were class struggles to get a civil society on the terms of the masses excluded from production.
Out of liberalism comes socialism (communism) to counter the growing divide of classes, because of the inability to provide security for the masses, which leads to an unstable society. @p31
A new kind of law is emerging @p32 Law becomes an expression of society (how?) The autonomous individual is seen as problematic Maurice Hauriou is saying that institutions are the foundation of civil society (awful!) Rights are only given through institutions and government is an institution of public service
For a government to go against the rights of an individual, the state can now pay a price @p33 On the other hand, private space is seen as space where some public laws must be upheld, like work safety regulations. In return for this organizing of the workspace, workers are no longer allowed to protest, since they are represented by institutions.
This new kind of state is seen as continuation of the liberal state, but the state has become more versatile and is more like a police state. @p34 In a way it tries to liberate the social emotions and it becomes a question whether does feelings can be managed.
With Taylor the workers get improved conditions and higher wages. @p35 The struggle moves towards that which the government can't and can control. Where play does or doesn't happen.
Fading of the line between government and society is happening. The government is taking on more and more tasks, while there are cross-vertalizations like criminal anthropology. As well as the construction of 'social partners'. Liberalism has come to be about molding the interface between state and society to a market like mechanism of governmental goods and services. Neo-liberalism wants this new kind of citizen as new player and partner on this market.
Passages from civil society into the social market
According to social economists it is impossible to implement the virtues of "the economic man" upon the social danger zone of the poor, accept if wrapped in a construction called the social man. @p38 The text is saying that unable to cope with and act in modern society makes you a criminal, for which the society needs protection in the form of discipline system.
Risk is an important concept in 19th century society. It used to be that man was responsible himself which is good for the bourgeois. @p39
Criminals became "criminal risks", which allowed for insurence companies to act in the social domain. @p40 Welfare got reduced to things we can insure and proletarian savings are disappearing into capitalist institutions.
Insurance is an insurance against revolution, it is a compromise from the government. @p41
Versions of neo-liberalism
After the war neo-liberalism came up as a political current. Foucault discusses the French, West-German and USA version.
For the Ordoliberalen from Germany, the problem is not anti-social effects of the market, but a lack of competition. Furthermore the economy has to be broadend to include more realms like law. @p42 Everything has to be organized as an enterprise and instead of intervening as little as possible (liberalism), this form of governmentality paves the way for more intrusive enterprisation.
American neo-liberals think that he social needs to be re-thought as an economic activity. Economics became everything! @p43 It becomes a matter of scarcity, efficiency as the justifier for policy @self
What if we follow the reverse of neo liberal thinking and we say that specialists are only allowed to explain phenomena from their own metaphors? @self
Instead of the government leaving people alone the new "homo economicus is manipulable man, man who is perpetually responsive to modifications in his environment. Economic government here joins hands with behaviorism." @p43
We have become the entrepeneurs of ourselves! The human capital is two fold. The genetic compound and the modifications done through culture, education etc. It is the job of any human to get money out of this capital. @p44 You can see with the growing amount of ZZP, that we embraced this idea of being your own enterprise and taking value out of the self "Learning your whole life" is also part of this "you are the capital" retoric.
The citizen is encouraged to follow risk lowering activities such as preventive disease programs: "it's better to prevent than to heal" @p45 Government takes on the role of referee where one party (laborer) wants to be as valuable as can be, while the other party (employers) want cost effectiveness. Because of computers it is possible for the first time to calculate which part of the population is forming a "thread to interests"
The writers suggest that it is possible that a spacial devide will take place to spread or localize statistically flagged risk individuals.
Foucault writes about being resistive on some fronts while being cooperative on others.