Michel Foucault’s ‘apology’ for neoliberalism

Abstract

This lecture evaluates the claim made by one of his closest followers, François Ewald, that Foucault offered an apology for neoliberalism, particularly of the American school represented by Gary Becker. It draws on exchanges between Ewald and Becker in 2012 and 2013 at the University of Chicago shortly before the latter’s death. It places Foucault in relation to the then emergent Second Left in France, the critique of the welfare state, and, more broadly, the late-twentieth-century social-democratic take-up of neoliberal thought. It indicates three limitations of his thought: the problem of state ‘veridiction’; the question of inequality; and the concept of the economy. It also indicates how these might be addressed within a general appreciation of his thought.

Keywords:

• Foucault
• Ewald
• Becker
• neoliberalism
• Second Left
• economy
• state

Notes

Lecture delivered at ‘Remembering Foucault’ event, Department of Law, London School of Economics. The event was associated with the conference ‘Governing Academic Life’. I must thank Anne Barron and Mary Evans for organising the event and for the invitation to present this lecture, and to my colleagues, Sverre Raffnsøe, Marius Gudmand-Høyer and Kaspar Villadsen for their moderation of a draft of this lecture.

1. I am thinking here of the work of Jeffrey Minson, Ian Hunter and David Saunders. For examples of their work that orient Foucault’s ethics to notions of ‘office’ in more positively statist direction, see Hunter (1990) and Minson (1998).