Foucault and Neoliberal Post-democracy. Beyond “inflationary Critical State Theory”
by Ottavio Marzocca
pp. 40-59 Issue 3 (2,1) – January-June 2015 ISSN (online): 2539/2239 ISSN (print): 2389-8232
Abstract
Foucault does not recognize any privileged relationship between liberalism and democracy, even if the latter is considered as being generally associated to liberalism itself. In this sense, after 1979 lectures, he started to underline a profound gap emerging between economic rationality of liberal governmental practices and judicial rationality of human rights. In other terms, a clear Foucault’s refusal of “inflationary critique of state”, promoted by neoliberalism in the 20th century, can be grasped. Through recognizing an unprovable totalitarian danger with intervening in the market politically, neoliberalism throws a permanent suspect over democracy too, by deeply influencing and limiting it. These implications of Foucauldian research seem to partially agree with current researches on post-democracy theme. Nevertheless, the last ones do not focus on the ethical and political supremacy of “enterprise man”, highlighted by Foucault instead, which today corresponds to requests for ‘other subjectivation’ that still lacks of proper thought.