The Birth of Biopolitics by Michel Foucault, ISBN-13: 978-1403986542

The Birth of Biopolitics by Michel Foucault, ISBN-13: 978-1403986542

[PDF eBook eTextbook]

• Publisher: ‎ Palgrave Macmillan; 0 edition (June 10, 2008)
• Language: ‎ English
• 368 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 1403986541
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1403986542

The Birth of Biopolitics continues to pursue the themes of Foucault’s lectures from Security, Territory, Population. Having shown how eighteenth-century political economy marks the birth of a new governmental rationality–seeking maximum effectiveness by governing less and in accordance with the naturalness of the phenomena to be governed–Michel Foucault undertakes a detailed analysis of the forms of this liberal governmentality. In a direct and conversational tone, this book raises questions of political philosophy and social policy that are at the heart of current debates about the role and status of neo-liberalism in twentieth century politics.

What are the specific features of the liberal art of government as they were outlined in the Eighteenth century? What crisis of governmentality characterises the present world and what revisions of liberal government has it given rise to? This is the diagnostic task addressed by Foucault’s study of the two major twentieth century schools of neo-liberalism: German ordo-liberalism and the neo-liberalism of the Chicago School.  In the years he taught at the Collège de France, this was Michel Foucault’s sole foray into the field of contemporary history. This course thus raises questions of political philosophy and social policy that are at the heart of current debates about the role and status of neo-liberalism in twentieth century politics. A remarkable feature of these lectures is their discussion of contemporary economic theory and practice, culminating in an analysis of the model of homo oeconomicus.

Foucault’s analysis also highlights the paradoxical role played by “society” in relation to government. “Society” is both that in the name of which government strives to limit itself, but it is also the target for permanent governmental intervention to produce, multiply, and guarantee the freedoms required by economic liberalism. Far from being opposed to the State, civil society is thus shown to be the correlate of a liberal technology of government.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was acknowledged as the preeminent philosopher of France in the 1970s and 1980s, and continues to have enormous impact throughout the world in many disciplines. His books include The Government of Self and Others, The Courage of Truth, The Birth of Biopolitics, and The Punitive Society.

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