Michel Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics and Contemporary NeoLiberalism Debates

Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communication, Creative
Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane,
Australia

ABSTRACT
Neo-liberalism has become one of the boom concepts of our time. From its original
reference point as a descriptor of the economics of the “Chicago School” or authors such
as Friedrich von Hayek, neo-liberalism has become an all-purpose descriptor, explanatory
device and basis for social critique. This presentation evaluates Michel Foucault’s 1978-
79 lectures, published as The Birth of Biopolitics, to consider how he used the term neoliberalism, and how this equates with its current uses in critical social and cultural theory.
It will be argued that Foucault did not understand neo-liberalism as a dominant ideology
in these lectures, but rather as marking a point of inflection in the historical evolution of
liberal political philosophies of government. It will also be argued that his interpretation
of neo-liberalism was more nuanced and more comparative than more recent
contributions, and points towards an attempt to theorise comparative historical models of
liberal capitalism.

KEYWORDS
Neo-liberalism; Foucault; governmentality; markets; enterprise.

WORD COUNT: 9,154 words (excluding front-matter, footnotes and bibliography).

PDF https://eprints.qut.edu.au/39575/3/39575.pdf