Biopower

This article is about Michel Foucault's social theory. For the Saab automobile engine of the same name, see Saab H engine. For transesterified lipids used as a fuel source, see Biodiesel.

Biopower (or biopouvoir in French) is a term coined by French scholar, historian, and social theorist Michel Foucault. It relates to the practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjects through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations".[1] Foucault first used the term in his lecture courses at the Collège de France,[2][3] but the term first appeared in print in The Will To Knowledge, Foucault's first volume of The History of Sexuality.[4] In Foucault's work, it has been used to refer to practices of public health, regulation of heredity, and risk regulation, among many other regulatory mechanisms often linked less directly with literal physical health. It is closely related to a term he uses much less frequently, but which subsequent thinkers have taken up independently, biopolitics.

Foucault's conception

Bio-power can be understood as the sole prerogative of the modern nation state to "make live and let die" which is distinct from the medieval system of rule by the singular sovereign an invention from the sovereign power derived from the ancient legal apparatus of Roman law Pater familias which would be "let live and make die" defined by the personal power of a monarch.[5][6] This kind of attitude of the state toward the lives of its social subjects, Foucault argues, is a way of understanding how the new formation of power dominates Western society today. However, as Foucault shows through his ‘archaeological’ uncovering of the social production and enforcement of knowledge and his ‘genealogical’ investigations into power and ethics, all social relations inherently involve relations of what he came to refer to as the composite term ‘power-knowledge’, from gift exchange to education to medicine to law, etc.[7]

For Foucault, biopower is a technology of power for managing people as a large group; the distinctive quality of this political technology is that it allows for the control of entire populations. It refers to the control of human bodies through state discipline. Initially imposed from outside who's source remains elusive to further investigation both by the social sciences and the humanities, modern power, according to Foucault's analysis, becomes encoded into social practices as well as human behavior as the human subject gradually acquiesces to subtle regulations and expectations for the social order. It is an integral feature and essential to the workings of—and makes possible—the emergence of the modern nation state and capitalism, etc.[8] Biopower is literally having power over bodies; it is "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation's of bodies and the control of populations".[9] Foucault elaborates further in his lecture courses on Biopower entitled Security, Territory, Population delivered at the Collège de France between January and April 1978:

“ By this I mean a number of phenomena that seem to me to be quite significant, namely, the set of mechanisms through which the basic biological features of the human species became the object of a political strategy, of a general strategy of power, or, in other words, how, starting from the 18th century, modern Western societies took on board the fundamental biological fact that human beings are a species. This is what I have called biopower.[10] ”

It relates to governmental concerns of fostering the life of the population, "an anatomo-politics of the human body a global mass that is affected by overall characteristics specific to life, like birth, death, production, illness, and so on.[11] It produces a generalized disciplinary society[12] and regulatory controls through biopolitics of the population".[13][14][15] In his lecture Society Must Be Defended, Foucault's tentative sojourner into biopolitical state racism, and its accomplished rationale of myth-making and narrative, he states the fundamental difference between biopolitics[16] and discipline:

“ Where discipline is the technology deployed to make individuals behave, to be efficient and productive workers, biopolitics is deployed to manage population; for example, to ensure a healthy workforce".[17] ”

Foucault claims that the previous Greco-Roman, Medieval rule of the emperors, the Divine right of kings and Absolute monarchy[18] model of power and social control over the body was an individualizing mode. However, after the emergence of the medieval metaphor body politic which meant society as a whole with the ruler, in this case the king, as the head of society with the so-called Estates of the realm next to the monarch with the majority of the peasant population or feudal serfs at the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid. This meaning of the metaphor was then codified into medieval law for the offence of high treason and if found guilty the sentence of Hanged, drawn and quartered was carried out.[19][20] However, this was drastically altered in 18th century Europe with the advent and realignment of modern political power as opposed to the ancient world and Medieval version of political power. The voting franchise; liberal democracy and Political parties; universal adult suffrage: exclusively male at this time, extended to women in Europe in 1929, and extending to people of African descent in America in 1964 (see Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965).

The emergence of the human sciences and its subsequent direction, primarily aimed at the modern western man and the society he inhabits, together with the development of Disciplinary institutions.[21][22][23] During the 16th and 18th centuries with the advent of anatomo-politics of the human body a biopolitics and bio-history of man.[24] A transition occurred through forcible removal of various European monarchs into a "scientific" state apparatus and the radical overhaul of judiciary practices coupled with the reinvention and division of those who were to be punished.[25]

A second mode for seizure of power was developed, while this type of power was stochastic and "massifying" rather than "individualizing". By "massifying" Foucault means transforming into a population ("population state"),[26] with an extra added impetus of a governing mechanism in the form of a scientific machinery and apparatus. This scientific mechanism which we now know as the State "governs less" of the population and concentrates more on administrating external devices. Foucault then reminds us that this anatomo-biopoltics of the body (and human life)and the population correlates with the new founded knowledge of sciences and the 'new' politics emerging in human society masquerading as liberalism and political democracy where life(biological life) itself became not only a deliberate political strategy but an economic, political and scientific problem both for the Mathematical sciences and the Biological sciences coupled together with the nation state.[27]

“ And I think that one of the greatest transformations political right underwent in the 19th century was precisely that, I wouldn't say exactly that sovereignty's old right-to take life or let live-was replaced, but it came to be complemented by a new right which does not erase the old right but which penetrate it, permeate. To say that power took possession of life in the nineteenth century, or to say that power at least takes life under its care in the nineteenth century, is to say that it has, thanks to the play of technologies of discipline on the one hand and technologies of regulation on the other, succeeded in covering the whole surface that lies between the organic and the biological, between body and population. We are, then, in a power that has taken control of both the body and life or that has, if you like, taken control of life in general – with the body as one pole and the population as the other. What we are dealing with in this new technology of power is not exactly society (or at least not the social body, as defined by the jurists), nor is it the individual body. It is a new body, a multiple body, a body with so many heads that, while they might not be infinite in number, cannot necessarily be counted. Biopolitics deals with the population, with the population as a political problem, as a problem that is at once scientific and political, as a biological problem and as power’s problem I would like in fact like to trace the transformation not at the level of political theory, but rather at the level of the mechanisms, techniques, and technologies of power. We saw the emergence of techniques of power that were essentially centered on the body, on the individual body. They included all devices that were used to ensure the spatial distribution of individuals bodies (their separation, their alignment, their serialization, and their surveillance)and the organization, around those individuals, of a whole field of visibility. They were also techniques that could be used to take control over bodies. Attempts were made to increase their productive force through exercise, drill, and so one. They were also techniques for rationalizing and strictly economizing on a power that had to be used in the least costly way possible, thanks to whole system of surveillance, hierarchies, inspections, book-keeping, and reports-all the technology of labor. It was established at the end of the seventeenth century, and in the course of the eighteenth century.[28] ”

Foucault argues that nation states, police, government, legal practices, human sciences and medical institutions have their own rationale, cause and effects, strategies, technologies, mechanisms and codes and have managed successfully in the past to obscure their workings by hiding behind observation and scrutiny. Foucault insists social institutions such as governments, laws, religion, politics, social administration, monetary institutions, military institutions cannot have the same rigorous practices and procedure with claims to independent knowledge like those of the human sciences; such as mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, physics, genetics, and the biological sciences.[29] Foucault saw these differences in techniques as nothing more than "behaviour control technologies", and modern biopower as nothing more than a series of webs and networks working its way around the societal body.

However, Foucault argues the exercise of power in the service of maximizing life carries a dark underside. When the state is invested in protecting the life of the population, when the stakes are life itself, anything can be justified. Groups identified as the threat to the existence of the life of the nation or of humanity can be eradicated with impunity.

“ If genocide is indeed the dream of modern power, this is not because of the recent return to the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of the population.[30] ”

Milieu intérieur

Foucault concentrates his attention on what he calls the major political and social project namely the Milieu intérieur (the environment within). How did the project milieu become interwoven into the political and social relations of men? Foucault takes as his starting point from the 16th century right up until the 18th century with the milieu culminating into the founding disciplines of science, mathematics,[31] political economy and statistics[32][33] Foucault makes an explicit point on the value of secrecy of government (arcana imperii from the Latin which means secrecy of power Secrets of the empire which goes back to the time of the Roman empire in the age of Tacitus) coined by Jean Bodin. Which, according to Foucault, had to be incorporated into a politics of truth (Foucault means public opinion he also mentions a group called The Ideologues)[34] through raison d'état.[35] Here the modern version of government is presented in the national media, both in the electronic medium-television and radio, especially in the written press as the modicum of efficiency, fiscal optimization, responsibility, a fiscal rigorousness and also a public discourse of government solidarity emerges and social consensus is emphasized on all these four points. What general components that were essential and necessary to make this consensus happen? Foucault traces the first dynamics, the first historical dimensions belonging to the early Middle Ages.

While Foucault does not mention him by name, one key note thinker which forms a parallel with Foucault’s own work, a Medieval historian from this period, Ernst Kantorowicz[36][37][38][39] gets a brief mention here. Kantorowicz mentions a Medieval device known as the Body politic (the king's two bodies). This Medieval device was so well received by legal theorists and lawyers of the day that it was incorporated and codified into Medieval society and institutions (Kantorowicz mentions the term Corporation which would later become known to us as Capitalism, an economic category).[40] Kantorowicz mentions the Glossator's belonging to a well-known branch of legal schools in medieval Europe, experts in jurisprudence and law science, appeal of treason, and The Lords Appellant and the commentaries of jurist Edmund Plowden[41] and his Plowden Reports.[42] In Kantorowicz analysis, a Medieval Political theology emerged right throughout the Middle Ages which provided the modern basis for the democratization of the hereditary succession for the modern political hierarchical order(Politicians) and their close association with the wealthy nobility[43] (in other words the democratization of Sovereignty, which is known in modern political terms as "Liberal democracy").According to Kantorowicz a Medieval triumvirate appears, a private enterprise of wealth and succession reserved exclusively for the nobility and their descendents and the monarchy and his heirs. Co-operation was needed by the three groups—the Monarchy, the Church, and the Nobility—in an uneasy Medieval alliance, though, at times, it appeared fractious and according to some historians the King wasn't the major land owner in medieval Christendom and according to evidence presented by historian Sidney Madge at least in one instance the king was only third in line, he had to share that right with others.[44][45] Throughout its history, it was never a smooth arrangement; see Barons war.

What is the reasoning behind the whole population subservience with the worshipping of state emblems, symbols and related mechanisms with their associates who represent the institutional mechanism (democratization of sovereignty); where fierce loyalty from the population is presented, in modern times as universal admiration for the president, the monarch, the Pope and the prime minister, one could argue is it irony or fierce logic that dictates this sort of behaviour. Well, which one is it? Foucault would argue that while all the cost benefits were met by the new founded urban population in the form of production and Political power that it is precisely this type of behaviour which keeps the well-oiled machine smoothly ticking over and ultimately giving the Nation state not only its rationale but its "governing less" impenetrable apparatus. In other words, it is dictated by our own inherited political rationality which gives the false impression and appearance of joint solidarity giving the machine (Foucault uses the term Dispositif) not only legitimacy but an air of invincibility from its main primary sources: reason, truth, freedom, and human existence.

Foucault makes special note on the biological "naturalness" of the human species and the new founded scientific interest that was developing around not only with the species interaction with milieu and technology, but most importantly, technology operating as system not as so often portrayed by the political and social sciences which insisted on technology operating as social improvement. Both milieu, natural sciences and technology, allied with the characteristics surrounding social organization and increasingly the categorization of the sciences to help deal with this "naturalness" of milieu and of the inscription of truth onto nature. Due to Foucault's discussions with Georges Canguilhem,[46] Foucault notices that not only was milieu now a newly discovered scientific biological naturalness ever-present in Lamarckian Biology the notion (biological naturalness) was actually invented and imported from Newtonian mechanics (Classical mechanics) via Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon due to Buffon mentorship and friendship with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and used by Biology in the middle of the 18th century borrowing from Newton the explanatory model of an organic reaction through the action of "milieu Newtonian" physics used by Isaac Newton and the Newtonians.[47] Humans (the species being mentioned in Marx) were now both the object of this newly discovered scientific and "natural" truth and new categorization, but subjected to it allied by laws, both scientific and Natural law (scientific Jurisprudence), the state's mode of governmental rationality to the will of its population. But, most importantly, interaction with the social environment and social interactions with others and the modern nation state's interest in the populations well-being and the destructive capability that the state possess in its armoury and it was with the group who called themselves the économistes[48] (Vincent de Gournay, François Quesnay, François Véron Duverger de Forbonnais, and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot)[49][50] who continued with the rationalization of this "naturalness". Foucault notices that this "naturalness" continues and is extended further with the advent of political society with the new founded implement "population" and their (political population) association with raison d'état.[51]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Michel Foucault The History of Sexuality Vol. 1 p. 140 (1976)
  2. ↑ Michel Foucault: Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978 pp. 1–4; see notes on p. 24, notes 1–4 (2007)
  3. ↑ Michel Foucault: Society Must Be Defended Lectures at the Collège de France 1975–1976 p. 243 (2003)
  4. ↑ Michel Foucault, (1998) The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin
  5. ↑ Foucault, Michel (1976). The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1. Penguin. pp. 135–161.
  6. ↑ Foucault, Michel (1976). The History Of Sexuality. Penguin. pp. 137–140.
  7. ↑ Michel Foucault Power/Knowledge 1980
  8. ↑ "Amedeo Policante. "War against Biopower: Timely Reflections on an Historicist Foucault", Theory & Event, 13. 1 March 2010". Muse.jhu.edu. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
  9. ↑ Michel Foucault The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin. p. 140 (1998)
  10. ↑ Security, Territory, Population p. 1 (2007)
  11. ↑ Nature Vol 490 p. 309, 2012
  12. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 377-378, 2007
  13. ↑ Security, Territory, Population p., 378 2007
  14. ↑ Security, Territory, Population’’, see also note 71, p. 397 2007
  15. ↑ The History Of Sexuality Vol 1 p. 139 1976
  16. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 363–91 2007
  17. ↑ Society Must Be Defended pp. 239–64 (2003)
  18. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 363–401 2007
  19. ↑ A declaration which offences shall be adjudged treason (25 Edw 3 St 5 c 2) 1351 "When a man does compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, or of our lady his Queen, or their eldest son and heir."
  20. ↑ For an excellent account of this legislation see John Barrell Imagining The Kings Death Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796 (2000)
  21. ↑ Security, Territory, Population p. 16 2007
  22. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 55–86 2007
  23. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 1–27, 2007
  24. ↑ Michel Foucault Bio-history and Biopolitics Foucault Studies, No. 18, pp. 128‐130, October 2014 Originally published in Le Monde October 1976 It was written as a review essay in response to Arthur Jensen overt racism to Foucault's great friend Jacques Ruffié, De la biologie à la culture [From biology to culture]
  25. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 163–90 2007
  26. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp.55-86 2007
  27. ↑ Security, Territory, Population 2007
  28. ↑ Michel Foucault Society Must Be Defended pp.242-244 and p.252 1975
  29. ↑ Serge Lang Challenges pp. 1–222 See Chapter Academia, Journalism, and Politics: A Case Study: The Huntington Case (Serge Lang refers to his dispute with Samuel P. Huntington at the National Academy of Sciences) (1998)
  30. ↑ The History of Sexuality Volume 1 p. 137
  31. ↑ Security, Territory, Population p. 296 p. 308 Note 14 2007
  32. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 29-49 2007
  33. ↑ Security, Territory, Population, pp. 55–86 2007
  34. ↑ Security, Territory, Population, pp. 55–86, pp. 83–84, note 27, 2007
  35. ↑ Security, Territory, Population pp. 275–78, p. 283, notes 63–64 2007
  36. ↑ Foucault does mention Kantorowicz by name this is reflected in the following references Michel Foucault Discipline and Punish pp. 25–29 1977
  37. ↑ Parrhesia:A Journal of Critical Philosophy 5 pp. 9–18 2008
  38. ↑ Discipline and Punish p. 330 1977
  39. ↑ Artur Golczewski Sovereign Right, Democracy and the Rule of Law Universitas 2006
  40. ↑ Ernst Kantorowicz The King's Two Bodies A Study In Mediaeval Political Theology pp. 273–313 1956
  41. ↑ The commentaries, or Reports of Edmund Plowden 1561
  42. ↑ Duchy Of Lancaster (1561) 1 Plowden 212,213
  43. ↑ The King's Two Bodies A Study In Mediaeval Political Theology pp. 42–78 and pp. 87–107 1956
  44. ↑ The King's Two Bodies A Study In Mediaeval Political Theology pp. 192–273 1956
  45. ↑ The British historian Madge places the barons majority ownership of all land at 50.5% in 1086 (in 1065 it was 50.7%) by the time of the Norman conquest the monarch of the day—according to Madge analysis of the published figures—wasn't, by all accounts, majority land owner, his percentage share was just 20.5% in 1065 before the conquest and dropped to 19.9% after the conquest in 1086, the monarch had to share that right with the powerful Roman Catholic church of the day (the church's share was 28.8% in 1065; at the end of the conquest in 1086 it was 29.6%). This necessitated an efficient accountancy, and auditing system based on the basic premise; what was the overall fiscal responsibility and liability of the Exchequer, Treasury and the whole kingdom of the realm (kingdom in this case means the Barons and the church who funded the King's expenditure) and its ruler the King? Known as the Barons of the exchequer, run, supervised and organized by the barons of the day. Sidney J Madge, The Domesday Of Crown Lands, pp. 20–21, 1930
  46. ↑ Security, Territory, Population, pp. 26-27, see notes 37–38, 2007
  47. ↑ Security, Territory, Population, p. 20, pp. 26–27, see notes 33 and 37, 2007
  48. ↑ officially known as the Physiocrats), see Security, Territory, Population, pp. 34–53, pp. 55-86, p. 52, note 17, 2007
  49. ↑ Foucault makes mention of Vincent de Gournay in Security, Territory, Population, p. 51, note 15, 2007
  50. ↑ Security, Territory, Population, pp. 333–61, pp. 348–49, 2007
  51. ↑ Security, Territory, Population, pp. 55–86, p. 81, note 19, and pp. 285–86 2007

Sources

Further reading

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