Bidet suggest that Foucault puts to light a different aspect of the class structure, of the class relation. Whereas Marx focused on the ownership of the means of production as the central aspect of class relation, Bidet argues that Foucault offers a different axis--one focusing on control over knowledge. Power-knowledge is a different aspect of the class relation, one that comes into increasingly prominence in the twentieth century as money-bags, the owners of the means of production, are increasingly mediated by an entire managerial class of engineers. Knowledge and expertise become as important as property relations. While it might be interesting to think of Foucaults entire project as being an oblique contribution to what used to be called the division of mental and manual labor, it is difficult to sustain such a connection. As Bidet argues the closer that Foucault comes to the twentieth century in the lectures of the late seventies, the further he departs from the Marxist division of structure and metastructure. Governmentality, and the idea of a particular neoliberal governmentality, is predicated on the destruction of a division between liberties and disciplines--that is one way to understand neoliberalism. Of course the question remains if Foucaults departure from any division between politics and economics, base and superstructure, is a theoretical or historical departure, a rupture of perspective or a change in social relations.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 12:30:26 +0000
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