The choice of bio-political plane of immanence - the life and its productivity that is exposed to the capture but always escapes - is the strong point of Deleuze's revolution; it is also the point that Deleuze is forced to think again unceasingly, since it must mark the distance between the neoliberal and the libertarian differentialism he promotes. Deleuze's struggle (then current) is now outdated, against an evanescent fetish. The Oedipus, against which Deleuze moves his joyous war machine, is dissolved by the social explosion of differences, that the same Deleuzian thought invites to "letting be". Against the interpretation (Lazzarato) that leads capitalism to debt, the Value works differently by the Law and refers to the logic of not-All. The market scene, with its crossing of choices, desires, communication proposals, has common features with the Deleuzian ontology. The institutionalist choice of Deleuze engages the pragmatic plan of humean tradition, highlighting once again the relationship with the market.
This study examines Thatcherism as an attempt to change the values and the political culture of United Kingdom using economy as a tool. From the perspective of political theory this specific case arouse great interest and the different compounds that made this transformation possible, in particular the "battle of ideas" and the role of political leadership, should be examined with great care. Thatcherism offers a new perspectives to interpret conservatism and liberalism, and to reshape those political theories in order to cope with a series of new problems. In this analysis there are some observations about the relationship between political theory and ideology and between market and democratic theory. Finally Thatcherism is analysed using the concept of biopolitics elaborated by Foucault.
The paper develops an interpretation of neoliberalism through the analysis of the concept of «human capital». Following Michel Foucault's lectures on La naissance de la biopolitique, in order to put the matter in a clearer historical perspective, in the first part of the paper I explain the basic principles of classical political economy and the biopolitical role of the state in traditional liberal thinking. In the second part I analyse neoliberalism. The theory of «human capital», in particular, let me argue that neoliberalism is not only an economic view, but a theory that claims to explain every kind of human behaviour. Moreover, it emerges that this theory is rooted in a biological interpretation of human nature. In the last part, through the analysis of some historical examples, I examine some consequences of neoliberal biopower. In details, I clarify the new role of the state in such a system of power and the neoliberal strategy to manage human behaviour.
This paper will examine the Agambenian thesis of 'naked life' in relation to sovereign power. In particular, the article aims to compare the central thesis of Agamben's "Homo sacer" project with the notions of Biopolitics and Biopower proposed by Michel Foucault. In "Homo sacer" (the project and the book of Agamben) the exclusion/inclusion of bare life in politics represents, according to Agamben, a "correction" of Foucault. However, its development goes in the direction of an Ontology.
The current pandemics is not the wellspring of a single conflict between men and nature, but of manifold inter-human conflicts. The Covid-19 and the fight against it cannot overcome the conditionings and the spatial determinations which articulate our life on this planet, but rather are partially dependent on such determinations and to a certain extent intensify them. The pandemic cannot escape geopolitics and geoeconomics, nor does it allow us to escape these dimensions. The oxymoron «geo-pandemics», which combines a parceled spatiality with the world-wide spread of the infection, is the result of this dynamics, and suggests that the current pandemics is not a natural fact, but a social, political, economic and cultural one, which involves a confrontation between East and West, North and South, public and private realms. Space – understood as a system of spatially situated differences of political and economic power, scientific knowledge and organizational capacities – remains a crucial dimension for the fight against Covid-19. «Geo-healthcare» is the differentiated answer to this challenge. ; La pandémie n'est pas la source d'un seul conflit homme-nature, mais de nombreux conflits inte rhumains ; le Covid et la lutte contre celui-ci ne peu-vent surmonter les conditions et les déterminations spatiales dans lesquelles s'articule notre vie sur la planète : ils y sont en partie soumis, et en partie ils les intensifient. La pandémie n'échappe pas, et ne permet pas d'échapper, à la géopolitique et à la géoéconomie ; l'oxymore «géo-pandémie», qui réunit la spatialité parcellaire et l'universalité de la contagion, est le résultat de cette dynamique. Et cela signifie que la pandémie est un fait social, politique, économique, culturel, et non un fait naturel, dans lequel s'affrontent l'Est et l'Ouest, le Nord et le Sud, le public et le privé. L'espace - les différences spatialement disloquées en matière de pouvoir politique et économique, de connaissances scientifiques et de capacité d'organisation - est la dimension décisive des stratégies anti-Covid. La réponse sanitaire différenciée à cette situation est la «géo -sanité» ; The current pandemics is not the wellspring of a single conflict between men and nature, but of manifold inter-human conflicts. The Covid-19 and the fight against it cannot overcome the conditionings and the spatial determinations which articulate our life on this planet, but rather are partially dependent on such determinations and to a certain extent intensify them. The pandemic cannot escape geopolitics and geoeconomics, nor does it allow us to escape these dimensions. The oxymoron «geo-pandemics», which combines a parceled spatiality with the world-wide spread of the infection, is the result of this dynamics, and suggests that the current pandemics is not a natural fact, but a social, political, economic and cultural one, which involves a confrontation between East and West, North and South, public and private realms. Space – understood as a system of spatially situated differences of political and economic power, scientific knowledge and organizational capacities – remains a crucial dimension for the fight against Covid-19. «Geo-healthcare» is the differentiated answer to this challenge.
One of the core issues in Michel Foucault's and Georges Canguilhem's works is the study of the epistemological status and political functioning of biological discourse, explored in its fully heterogeneous, plural, and conflictual character. Starting from the relations and tensions between their theoretical orientations, the present work attempts a critical re-reading of their researchs, with the aim of integrating and mobilizing their analysis in light of contemporary political and epistemological debates. In this respect, Canguilhem's biological philosophy allows us to re-examine the foucauldian conceptions of history, society, subjectivity, technology, and environment; moreover, it enables a re-questioning about the spaces of intervention of biopolitical technologies from a socio-ecological and eco-historical perspective.
In my article, it is my intent to connect, from one part, the critical perspective of usual political philosophy with which Foucault erases the concept of sovereignty in favor of an analysis of power that finally takes him to biopolitics and governementality, and, from the other, the aesthetics of existence with which Foucualt is styling a care of self tipically ethical.
This article has two objectives. In the first place, it intends to show how the construction of the biomedical public discourse, shaped by the vision of virologists, doctors and epidemiologists, has become part of a broader governance device aimed at a radical restructuring of the social and productive relationships underlying our forms of life. Our central assumption intends to start from here: through a metaphor borrowed from urban geography studies we want to argue that both the Covid-19 epidemic and thepolitical management of the health emergency state are accelerating and favouring what can be called a further process of social, economic and racial gentrification of humanity. Secondly, the article intends to make a critique of the medical gaze starting from an analysis of the pandemic as a «total social fact». Attention will therefore be focused on the unequal material effects produced on the different segments of the population, not only by the social spread of the pandemic, but also by its purely medical management-codification. Particular attention will be paid here to the experience of the migrant population in Italy. The article therefore intends to highlight how the management and political governance of the pandemic in Italy do nothing but show, in other dimensions, the structural and institutional racism at the basis of what can be called «national social formation». ; Cet article a deux objectifs. En premier lieu, il entend montrer comment la construction du discours public biomédical, façonné par la vision des virologues, médecins et épidémiologistes, s'est inscrite dans un dispositif de gouvernance plus large visant une restructuration radicale des relations sociales et productives sous-jacentes à notre formes de vie. Notre principal clé de interrogation entend partir d'ici: à travers une métaphore empruntée aux études de géographie urbaine, nous voulons affirmer que l'épidémie de Covid -19 et la gestion politique de l'urgence sanitaire s'accélèrent et favorisent ce que l'on peut appeler un nouveau processus de gentrification sociale, économique et raciale de l'humanité. En second lieu, l'article entend mener une critique de la perspective médicale à partir d'une analyse de la pandémie comme « fait social total ». L'attention sera donc focalisée sur les effets matériels inégaux produits dans les différents segments de la population, non seulement par la propagation sociale de la pandémie, mais aussi par sa gestion -codification purement médicale. Une attention particu-lière sera accordée ici à l'expérience de la population migrante en Italie. L'article entend donc souligner comment la gestion et la gouvernance politique de la pandémie en Italie ne font que montrer, dans d'autres dimensions, le racisme structurel et institutionnel à la base de ce que l'on peut appeler la « formation sociale nationale ». ; Il brutale arresto della normale vita sociale imposto dalla vertiginosa diffusione globale del Covid, così come dai diversi e ambivalenti tentativi di controllo, gestione e contenimento del virus messi in pratica sia dagli stati-nazione sia dalle istituzioni globali, hanno avuto l'effetto di liberare dall'immaginario corrente i nostri interrogativi non solo sul presente, ma anche sul passato e sul futuro. Si può dire che la violenza della pandemia abbia strappato il velo del reale. Da una parte la congiuntura pandemica è un chiaro sintomo dell'insostenibilità sociale, economica, psico-ontologica ed eco-ambientale delle logiche di produzione e di accumulazione dell'attuale razionalità capitalistica globale, occorrerebbe prenderne atto; dall'altra, la stessa gestione politica del Covid, inesorabilmente investita dalla costituzione materiale e simbolica neoliberale dominante, ci sta già prefigurando, nei suoi modi di governare la crisi, ciò cui stiamo andando incontro: non una semplice restaurazione della norma pre-pandemia, bensì una sua formidabile accelerazione, un approfondimento radicale e, ci verrebbe da dire, purtroppo mortifero di buona parte dei suoi più insostenibili e distopici squilibri. Tra le molte considerazioni emerse, in modo quasi sincronico, durante il primo scoppio dello shock pandemico, Franco Berardi "Bifo" ci offre sicuramente una tra le più acute:
Simone Weil and the bio-pneumo-politic imaginary of The Need for Roots. During the Forties, Simone Weil was charged by France Libre with the task of rethinking the foundations of French society after the war. Weil summarised the metaphysical cause of the european disaster in the image of Uprootedness, to which she opposed a renewed attention to the Need for Roots. This proposal has often been interpreted as a conservative one; while not completely correct, this characterisation of Weil's last writings may be useful to highlight some ambiguities in a few of her specific suggestions. More specifically, in the Need for Roots, and in Weil's project of a new, non-oppressed working class, we may identify some traits of a bio-political project (Foucault). Our aim is to identify in a precise manner the most problematic propositions in a work that remains even today a very illuminating reading, both from an ethical and from a political point of view. In this way we hope to shed light on some contradictions that are not specific to Weil's work, but rather typical of a political climate that had its high moment after the end of World War II.
This study examines Thatcherism as an attempt to change the values and the political culture of the United Kingdom using economy as a tool. From the perspective of political theory this specific case arouses great interest and the different elements that made this transformation possible, in particular the "battle of ideas" and the role of political leadership, should be examined with great care. Thatcherism offers new perspectives to interpret conservatism and liberalism, and to reshape these political theories in order to address a series of new problems. This analysis presents some observations about the relationship between political theory and ideology and between market and democratic theory. Finally, Thatcherism is analysed using the concept of biopolitics elaborated by Foucault.
In one of his Treatises on Government, John Locke stated that «every Man has a Property in his own Person». The complex articulation of this apparently matter-of-fact argument has haunted the Western cultural imaginary, and has been transformed into numerous literary texts and figures. Ever since Mary Shelley started investigating an ante-litteram Foucauldian «unfolding»of life, the issues related to the «immortalization of the flesh and the amortization of the body»have become growingly relevant. In this paper, I shall aim at investigating the literary versions of the biopolitics of owning and disowning bodies, of ageing and dying offered by Kazuo Ishiguro, namely in his celebrated Never Let Me Go, and by Hanif Kureishi, who dedicated his novella "The Body" to an interrogation of the marketable value of human bodies and body parts.
At least until the beginning of the 1990s, when the paradigm of recognition seemed to supplant the paradigm of redistributive justice theories, all the biggest contemporary political theories attempted to single out injustice in some form of inequality and tried in various ways to make individuals equal within a particular space for interpersonal comparison: whether this be the space of fundamental freedoms, income, wealth, conditions for self-respect, well-being, chances of well-being or capabilities. The objective of this work is to rebuild the main notions of equality and justice which have emerged from the contemporary philosophical-political debate and, at the same time, account for the critical theories that they have inspired, from the theories in which the language of difference adds to or surpasses the language of equality, to the paradigms located radically beyond all those regulatory positions which more or less explicitly arise from the liberal tradition, such as the paradigm of biopolitics, and that of cognitive capitalism.
The reproduction of capitalist relationships is the real object of Foucault's genealogies of biopolitics. In the first European industrialization, capitalist power has fought an unbroken social war against proletarian workforce, spreading its hegemony through disciplinary devices. The latest applications of this discipline on proletarian bodies have been counterbalanced by several forms of popular antagonism (labor refusal, irregularity, waste, sexual disorder…), to combat which capitalism has spread its "microfisic powers" in modern society. Hindering bourgeois exploitation, class struggles also forced capitalism to manage workforce as a biopolitical matter. It's the phase of the hegemonic paradigm ("master's discourse"), overcome in the Seventies by a new neoliberal biopolitical discourse, whose aim is the reproduction of workforce through competition, systematic production of inequality, subjectivisation processes. This new mode of production, government, and reproduction of workforce ultimately leads to a transformation of class struggles, which nowadays appear as unforeseeable forms of resistance to neo-liberal biopolitical government and its compelling and objectivating power.Keyswords: Foucault; Workforce; Class struggle; Biopolitcs; Hegemony.
Le tattiche dell'accerchiamento (The tactics of encircling) are those mechanisms through which a social conflict is criminalized. The term is borrowed from Michel Foucault's concept of stratégie du pour tour, a process conducted by different agencies of control that consists of generating fear and constructing exemplar cases on the base of a commune dispositive: the defense of society. The work detects the micro-tactics of this strategy through an analysis of media discourse and an ethnography of the two major penal process against the opposition to the Turin-Lyon high-speed railway project (No Tav Movement). The main argument is that these tactics of encircling reveal a Positivistic legacy and a blend of that with the principle of the Reason of State. The counter-conducts to these tactics of encircling have been performed by the No Tav movement during the last 12 years to reaching the point of a resistance not only to a train but to an overall neoliberal governmentality, in which law mimes the market, is applied by a judicial field that functions as the manager of security and protection, and treats the population through an attempt of separating the good and the bad population.
The article discusses three issues, which are strictly interwoven to each other. Firstly, the relationship between the eyewitness memory for past events, their recording in institutionalized archives, and their reconstruction provided by historians is framed within a systematic perspective, in order to make clear in which sense the eyewitness constitutes the basic pillar of any historical work. Secondly, the role played by eyewitness of the Shoah is related to the "politics of memory". The social function of the latter is important not as a form of monumentalization of the past, rather as an attempt to improve a shared memory for an event –the Shoah− whose cultural and political meaning concerns above all the European heritage and not only the history of the Jewish people. Thirdly, the attempt to read the Shoah as an expression of biopolitics −in the foucauldian sense of the term− provides the frame for a discussion about contemporary forms of social and institutionalized violence, assuming that the compass of the Holocaust Studies and their methodology reach far beyond the phenomena related to the Shoah.
