« Marx without Quotation-Marks » : Foucault, Governability, and the Critique of Neoliberalism. The « micro-physics of power » that Foucault proposed in the beginning of the 1970s for the analysis of power relations encountered two serious theoretical problems. It did not sufficiently explain processes of subjectivation and lacked an adequate concept of the state. The problematics of government that Foucault finally developed provides a solution to these problems. It offers a new theoretical perspective on power since it underlines that (...) power is foremost about guidance and conduct. Foucault’s work on governmentality parallels very similar endeavours and recent developments in Marxist theory and is also of great critical interest to analyse contemporary neoliberal forms of government. (shrink)

An anti-representationalist view of language and a deflationary view of truth, key themes in contemporary pragmatism and especially Richard Rorty, do not undermine the notion, in critical theory, of ideology as 'false consciousness'. Both Foucault and Marx were opposed to what Marxists call historical idealism and so they should be seen as objecting to forms of ideology-critique that do not sufficiently avoid such an 'Hegelian' perspective. Foucault's general views on the relations between truth and power can plausibly be construed in (...) a way that makes them compatible with a Marxian critical theory. (shrink)

« Marx without Quotation-Marks » : Foucault, Governability, and the Critique of Neoliberalism. The « micro-physics of power » that Foucault proposed in the beginning of the 1970s for the analysis of power relations encountered two serious theoretical problems. It did not sufficiently explain processes of subjectivation and lacked an adequate concept of the state. The problematics of government that Foucault finally developed provides a solution to these problems. It offers a new theoretical perspective on power since it underlines that (...) power is foremost about guidance and conduct. Foucault’s work on governmentality parallels very similar endeavours and recent developments in Marxist theory and is also of great critical interest to analyse contemporary neoliberal forms of government. (shrink)