The Birth of Also in this series:

SOCIETY MUST BE DEFENDED (North America & Canada)

ABNORMAL (North America & Canada) HERMENEUTICS OF THE SUBJECT (North America & Canada) PSYCHIATRIC POWER SECURITY, TERRITORY, POPULATION

Forthcoming in this series:

THE WILL TO KNOW PENAL THEORIES AND INSTITUTIONS THE PUNITIVE SOCIETY ON THE OF THE LIVING SUBJECTIVITY AND TRUTH THE GOVERNMENT OF SELF AND OTHERS THE COURAGE OF TRUTH M ICHEL F OUCAULT

The Birth of Biopolitics L ECTURES AT THE C OLLÈGE DE F RANCE, 1978–79

Edited by Michel Senellart General Editors: François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana

English Series Editor: Arnold I. Davidson

TRANSLATED BY GRAHAM BURCHELL

This book is supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of the Burgess programme run by the Cultural Department of the French Embassy in London (www.frenchbooknews.com) © E´ditions du Seuil/Gallimard 2004, Edition established under the direction of François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana, by Michel Senellart. Translation © Graham Burchell, 2008. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in France by Éditions de Seuil / Gallimard under the title Naissance de la Biopolitique : Cours au Collège de France, 1978–1979. English translation published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.

ISBN 978-1-4039-8655-9 ISBN 978-0-230-59418-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230594180

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10987654321 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Contents

Foreword: François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana xiii one 10 January 1979 1 ف .Suppose universals do not exist ف .Questions of method Summary of the previous year’s lectures: the limited objective of the government of raison d’État (external politics) and unlimited Law as principle ف .(objective of the police (internal politics Perspective of this ف .of the external limitation of raison d’État year’s lectures: political economy as principle of the internal What is at stake in this ف .limitation of governmental reason research: the coupling of a set of practices and a regime of truth ?What is liberalism ف .and the effects of its inscription in reality two 17 January 1979 27 Liberalism and the implementation of a new art of government in Specific features of the liberal art of ف .the eighteenth century government (I): (1) The constitution of the market as site of ف .the formation of truth and not just as domain of jurisdiction Questions of method. The stakes of research undertaken around madness, the penal order, and sexuality: sketch of a history of The nature of a political critique of ف ”.regimes of veridiction“ The problem of limiting the exercise (2) ف .(knowledge (savoir of power by public authorities. Two types of solution: French The question ف .juridical radicalism and English utilitarianism of “utility” and limiting the exercise of power by public authorities. Comment on the status of heterogeneity in history: strategic ف vi contents

The notion of “interest” as operator ف .against dialectical logic (opérateur) of the new art of government. three 24 January 1979 51 Specific features of the liberal art of government (II): (3) The ف .problem of European balance and international relations Economic and political calculation in . The principle of the freedom of the market according to the physiocrats and Adam Appearance of a ف .Smith: birth of a new European model governmental rationality extended to a world scale. Examples: the question of maritime law; the projects of perpetual Principles of the new liberal ف .peace in the eighteenth century art of government: a “governmental naturalism”; the production :The problem of liberal arbitration. Its instruments ف .of freedom (1) the management of dangers and the implementation of mechanisms of security; (2) disciplinary controls (Bentham’s The management ف .panopticism); (3) interventionist policies of liberty and its crises. four 31 January 1979 75 Questions of method: sense and stakes ف .Phobia of the state of the bracketing off of a theory of the state in the analysis of :Neo-liberal governmental practices ف .mechanisms of power ف .German liberalism from 1948 to 1962; American neo-liberalism ف .Its political-economic context ف .(German neo-liberalism (I The scientific council brought together by Erhard in 1947. Its program: abolition of price controls and limitation of governmental The middle way defined by Erhard in 1948 ف .interventions :Its double meaning ف ”.between anarchy and the “termite state (a) respect for economic freedom as condition of the state’s political representativity; (b) the institution of economic freedom as basis for Fundamental characteristic ف .the formation of political sovereignty of contemporary German : economic freedom, the Economic ف .source of juridical legitimacy and political consensus growth, axis of a new historical consciousness enabling the break Rallying of Christian Democracy and the SPD ف .with the past Contents vii

The principles of liberal government and the ف .to liberal politics absence of a socialist governmental rationality. five 7 February 1979 101 Its problem: how can economic ف .(German neo-liberalism (II The ف ?freedom both found and limit the state at the same time neo-liberal theorists: W. Eucken, F. Böhm, A. Müller-Armack, Max Weber and the problem of the irrational ف .F. von Hayek rationality of . The answers of the Frankfurt School and as necessary field of adversity to the ف .the Freiburg School The obstacles to liberal ف .definition of the neo-liberal objective policy in Germany since the nineteenth century: (a) the protectionist economy according to List; (b) Bismarck’s state socialism; (c) the setting up of a planned economy during the First World War; (d) Keynesian interventionism; (e) the economic policy of National The neo-liberal critique of National Socialism on the ف .Socialism Theoretical ف .basis of these different elements of German history consequences: extension of this critique to the New Deal and to the Beveridge plans; interventionism and the growth of the power of the ف .state; massification and uniformization, effects of state control The stake of neo-liberalism: its novelty in comparison with classical liberalism. The theory of pure competition. six 14 February 1979 129 Usefulness of historical analyses ف .(German neo-liberalism (III How is neo-liberalism distinguished from ف .for the present Its specific stake: how to model the global ف ?classical liberalism exercise of political power on the principles of a market economy, The decoupling ف .and the transformations that derive from this The Walter ف .of the market economy and policies of laissez-faire The problem ف .(Lippmann colloquium (26 to 30 August 1938 of the style of governmental action. Three examples: (a) the question of monopolies; (b) the question of “conformable actions (actions conformes).” The bases of economic policy according to W. Eucken. Regulatory actions and organizing actions (actions ordonnatrices); (c) social policy. The ordoliberal critique of the viii contents

Society as the point of application of ف .welfare economy governmental interventions. The “policy of society” -First aspect of this policy: the formal ف .(Gesellschaftspolitik) Enterprise society ف .ization of society on the model of the enterprise and judicial society; two faces of a single phenomenon. seven 21 February 1979 159 Second aspect of the “policy of society” according to the neo-liberals: the problem of law in a society regulated according to the model of Return to the Walter Lippmann ف .the competitive market economy ف .Reflections based on a text by Louis Rougier ف .colloquium (1) The idea of a juridical-economic order. Reciprocity of relations Political ف .between economic processes and institutional framework -Two complemen ف .stake: the problem of the survival of capitalism tary problems: the theory of competition and the historical and The question of legal (2) ف .sociological analysis of capitalism Historical reminder: the Rule of law (l’État de ف .interventionism droit) in the eighteenth century, in opposition to despotism and the police state. Re-elaboration of the notion in the nineteenth century: the question of arbitration between citizens and public authorities. :The neo-liberal project ف .The problem of administrative courts to introduce the principles of the Rule of law into the economic ف .Rule of law and planning according to Hayek ف .order General conclusion: the ف .Growth of judicial demand (3) specificity of the neo-liberal art of government in Germany. faced with the pessimism of Schumpeter. eight 7 March 1979 185 General remarks: (1) The methodological scope of the analysis of micro-powers. (2) The inflationism of state phobia. Its links with Two theses on the totalitarian state and the ف .ordoliberalism Remarks ف .decline of state governmentality in the twentieth century on the spread of the German model, in France and in the United The German neo-liberal model and the French project of ف .States The French context of the transition ف ”.a “social market economy French social policy: the example of ف .to a neo-liberal economics Contents ix

The separation of the economic and the social ف .social security ”The project of a “negative tax ف .according to Giscard d’Estaing and its social and political stakes. “Relative” and “absolute” poverty. Abandonment of the policy of full employment. nine 14 March 1979 215 The difference between ف .American neo-liberalism (I). Its context American neo-liberalism ف .American and European neo-liberalism Aspects ف .as a global claim, utopian focus, and method of thought of this neo-liberalism: (1) The theory of human capital. The two processes that it represents: (a) an extension of economic analysis within its own domain: criticism of the classical analysis of labor in terms of the time factor; (b) an extension of economic analysis to -The epistemo ف .domains previously considered to be non-economic logical transformation produced by neo-liberal analysis: from the analysis of economic processes to the analysis of the internal ف .Work as economic conduct ف .rationality of human behavior The redefinition ف .Its division into capital, abilities, and income The notion of ف .of homo œconomicus as entrepreneur of himself “human capital.” Its constitutive elements: (a) innate elements and the question of the improvement of genetic human capital; (b) acquired elements and the problem of the formation of human -The interest of these analy ف .(capital (education, health, etcetera ses: resumption of the problem of social and economic innovation (Schumpeter). A new conception of the policy of growth. ten 21 March 1979 239 The application of the economic ف .(American neo-liberalism (II :Return to the ordoliberal problematic ف .grid to social phenomena the ambiguities of the Gesellschaftspolitik. The generalization of the “enterprise” form in the social field. Economic policy and ف .Vitalpolitik: a society for the market and against the market The unlimited generalization of the economic form of the market in American neo-liberalism: principle of the intelligibility of individual ف .behavior and critical principle of governmental interventions Aspects of American neo-liberalism: (2) Delinquency and penal x contents

Historical reminder: the problem of the reform of penal ف .policy law at the end of the eighteenth century. Economic calculation and principle of legality. The parasitic invasion of the law by the norm ف .in the nineteenth century and the birth of criminal anthropology The neo-liberal analysis: (1) the definition of crime; (2) the description of the criminal subject as homo œconomicus; (3) the status of the penalty as instrument of law “enforcement.” The :Consequences of this analysis ف .example of the drugs market (a) anthropological erasure of the criminal; (b) putting the disciplinary model out of play. eleven 28 March 1979 267 Its generalization to every ف .The model of homo œconomicus Economic analysis ف .form of behavior in American neo-liberalism Homo œconomicus as the basic ف .and behavioral techniques element of the new governmental reason appeared in the eighteenth -Elements for a history of the notion of homo œconomi ف .century The subject of interest in English ف .cus before Walras and Pareto The heterogeneity of the subject ف .(empiricist philosophy (Hume of interest and the legal subject: (1) The irreducible nature of interest in comparison with juridical will. (2) The contrasting logics of the Second innovation with regard to the ف .market and the contract juridical model: the economic subject’s relationship with political power. Condorcet. ’s “invisible hand”: invisibility of the link between the individual’s pursuit of profit and the growth of collective wealth. The non-totalizable nature of the economic world. Political economy as critique ف .The sovereign’s necessary ignorance of governmental reason: rejection of the possibility of an economic Political ف .sovereign in its two, mercantilist and physiocratic, forms economy as a science lateral to the art of government. twelve 4 April 1979 291 Elements for a history of the notion of homo œconomicus Return to the problem of the limitation of sovereign power by ف .(II) The emergence of a new field, the correlate of the ف .economic activity Homo œconomicus and ف .liberal art of government: Contents xi

civil society: inseparable elements of liberal governmental technology. Analysis of the notion of “civil society”: its evolution from Locke ف to Ferguson. Ferguson’s An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1787). The four essential characteristics of civil society according to Ferguson: (1) it is an historical-natural constant; (2) it assures the spontaneous synthesis of individuals. Paradox of the economic bond; (3) it is a permanent matrix of political power; Appearance of a new system of ف .it is the motor of history (4) Theoretical consequences: (a) the question of ف .political thought the relations between state and society. The German, English, and French problematics; (b) the regulation of political power: from the ف .wisdom of the prince to the rational calculations of the governed General conclusion.

Course Summary 317

Course Context 327

Index of Names 333

Index of Concepts and Notions 339 FOREWORD

MICHEL TAUGHT AT the Collège de France from January 1971 until his death in June 1984 (with the exception of 1977 when he took a sabbatical year). The title of his chair was “The History of Systems of Thought.” On the proposal of Jules Vuillemin, the chair was created on 30 November 1969 by the general assembly of the professors of the Collège de France and replaced that of “The History of Philosophical Thought” held by Jean Hyppolite until his death. The same assembly elected to the new chair on 12 April 1970.1 He was 43 years old. Michel Foucault’s inaugural lecture was delivered on 2 December 1970.2 Teaching at the Collège de France is governed by particular rules. Professors must provide 26 hours of teaching a year (with the possibil- ity of a maximum of half this total being given in the form of seminars3). Each year they must present their original research and this obliges them to change the content of their teaching for each course. Courses and seminars are completely open; no enrolment or qualification is required and the professors do not award any qualifications.4 In the ter- minology of the Collège de France, the professors do not have students but only auditors. Michel Foucault’s courses were held every Wednesday from January to March. The huge audience made up of students, teachers, researchers and the curious, including many who came from outside France, required two amphitheaters of the Collège de France. Foucault often complained about the distance between himself and his “public” and of how few exchanges the course made possible.5 He would have liked a seminar in which real collective work could take place and made a xiv foreword number of attempts to bring this about. In the final years he devoted a long period to answering his auditors’ questions at the end of each course. This is how Gérard Petitjean, a journalist from Le Nouvel Observateur, described the atmosphere at Foucault’s lectures in 1975:

When Foucault enters the amphitheater, brisk and dynamic like someone who plunges into the water, he steps over bodies to reach his chair, pushes away the cassette recorders so he can put down his papers, removes his jacket, lights a lamp and sets off at full speed. His voice is strong and effective, amplified by loudspeakers that are the only concession to modernism in a hall that is barely lit by light spread from stucco bowls. The hall has three hundred places and there are five hundred people packed together, filling the smallest free space … There is no oratorical effect. It is clear and terribly effective. There is absolutely no concession to improvisa- tion. Foucault has twelve hours each year to explain in a public course the direction taken by his research in the year just ended. So everything is concentrated and he fills the margins like corre- spondents who have too much to say for the space available to them. At 19.15 Foucault stops. The students rush towards his desk; not to speak to him, but to stop their cassette recorders. There are no questions. In the pushing and shoving Foucault is alone. Foucault remarks: “It should be possible to discuss what I have put forward. Sometimes, when it has not been a good lecture, it would need very little, just one question, to put everything straight. However, this question never comes. The group effect in France makes any genuine discussion impossible. And as there is no feedback, the course is theatricalized. My relationship with the people there is like that of an actor or an acrobat. And when I have finished speaking, a sensation of total solitude … ”6

Foucault approached his teaching as a researcher: explorations for a future book as well as the opening up of fields of problematization were formulated as an invitation to possible future researchers. This is why the courses at the Collège de France do not duplicate the published books. They are not sketches for the books even though both books and Foreword xv courses share certain themes. They have their own status. They arise from a specific discursive regime within the set of Foucault’s “philo- sophical activities.” In particular they set out the programme for a of knowledge/power relations, which are the terms in which he thinks of his work from the beginning of the 1970s, as opposed to the program of an archeology of discursive formations that previously orientated his work.7 The courses also performed a role in contemporary reality. Those who followed his courses were not only held in thrall by the narrative that unfolded week by week and seduced by the rigorous exposition, they also found a perspective on contemporary reality. Michel Foucault’s art con- sisted in using history to cut diagonally through contemporary reality. He could speak of Nietzsche or Aristotle, of expert psychiatric opinion or the Christian pastoral, but those who attended his lectures always took from what he said a perspective on the present and contemporary events. Foucault’s specific strength in his courses was the subtle interplay between learned erudition, personal commitment, and work on the event.

With their development and refinement in the 1970s, Foucault’s desk was quickly invaded by cassette recorders. The courses—and some seminars—have thus been preserved. This edition is based on the words delivered in public by Foucault. It gives a transcription of these words that is as literal as possible.8 We would have liked to present it as such. However, the transition from an oral to a written presentation calls for editorial intervention: at the very least it requires the introduction of punctuation and division into para- graphs. Our principle has been always to remain as close as possible to the course actually delivered. Summaries and repetitions have been removed whenever it seemed to be absolutely necessary. Interrupted sentences have been restored and faulty constructions corrected. Suspension points indicate that the recording is inaudible. When a sentence is obscure there is a conjectural integration or an addition between square brackets. An asterisk direct- ing the reader to the bottom of the page indicates a significant diver- gence between the notes used by Foucault and the words actually xvi foreword uttered. Quotations have been checked and references to the texts used are indicated. The critical apparatus is limited to the elucidation of obscure points, the explanation of some allusions and the clarification of critical points. To make the lectures easier to read, each lecture is pre- ceded by a brief summary that indicates its principal articulations. The text of the course is followed by the summary published by the Annuaire du Collège de France. Foucault usually wrote these in June, some time after the end of the course. It was an opportunity for him to pick out retrospectively the intention and objectives of the course. It consti- tutes the best introduction to the course. Each volume ends with a “context” for which the course editors are responsible. It seeks to provide the reader with elements of the bio- graphical, ideological, and political context, situating the course within the published work and providing indications concerning its place within the corpus used in order to facilitate understanding and to avoid misinterpretations that might arise from a neglect of the circumstances in which each course was developed and delivered. The Birth of Biopolitics, the course delivered in 1979, is edited by Michel Senellart.

A new aspect of Michel Foucault’s “œuvre” is published with this edition of the Collège de France courses. Strictly speaking it is not a matter of unpublished work, since this edition reproduces words uttered publicly by Foucault, excluding the often highly developed written material he used to support his lectures. possesses Michel Foucault’s notes and he is to be warmly thanked for allowing the editors to consult them. This edition of the Collège de France courses was authorized by Michel Foucault’s heirs who wanted to be able to satisfy the strong demand for their publication, in France as elsewhere, and to do this under indisputably responsible conditions. The editors have tried to be equal to the degree of confidence placed in them.

FRANÇOIS EWALD AND ALESSANDRO FONTANA Foreword xvii

1. Michel Foucault concluded a short document drawn up in support of his candidacy with these words: “We should undertake the history of systems of thought.” “Titres et travaux,” in Dits et Écrits, 1954–1988, four volumes, eds. Daniel Defert and François Ewald (Paris: Gallimard, 1994) vol. 1, p. 846; English translation by Robert Hurley, “Candidacy Presentation: Collège de France” in The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984, vol. 1: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. (New York: The New Press, 1997) p. 9. 2. It was published by Gallimard in May 1971 with the title L’Ordre du discours, Paris, 1971. English translation by Rupert Swyer, “The Order of Discourse,” appendix to M. Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon, 1972). 3. This was Foucault’s practice until the start of the 1980s. 4. Within the framework of the Collège de France. 5. In 1976, in the vain hope of reducing the size of the audience, Michel Foucault changed the time of his course from 17.45 to 9.00. See the beginning of the first lecture (7 January 1976) of “Il faut défendre la société”. Cours au Collège de France, 1976 (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 1997); English translation by David Macey, “Society Must be Defended.” Lectures at the Collège de France 1975–1976 (New York: Picador, 2003). 6. Gérard Petitjean, “Les Grands Prêtres de l’université française,” Le Nouvel Observateur, 7 April 1975. 7. See especially, “Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire,” in Dits et Écrits, vol. 2, p. 137. English translation by Donald F. Brouchard and Sherry Simon, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” in The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984, vol. 2: Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, ed. James Faubion (New York: The New Press, 1998) pp. 369–392. 8. We have made use of the recordings made by Gilbert Burlet and Jacques Lagrange in partic- ular. These are deposited in the Collège de France and the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine.