Michel Foucault's lecture at the Collège de France from January to April 1979, Naissance de la biopolitique, is a continuation of the previous year's lecture, Sécurité, Territoire, Population. After showing how political economy in the 18th century marked the birth of a new governmental rationale - govern less, for maximum efficiency, based on the naturalness of the phenomena we are dealing with - Michel Foucault undertakes an analysis of the forms of this liberal governmentality. The aim is to describe the political rationality within which the specific problems of life and population have been posed: "Study liberalism as the general framework of biopolitics."
What are the specific features of the liberal art of governing, as it took shape in the 18th century? What crisis of governmentality characterizes today's world, and what revisions of liberal government has it given rise to? The study of the two great neoliberal schools of the 20th century, German ordoliberalism and the neoliberalism of the Chicago School, responds to this diagnostic task- Michel Foucault's only foray into the field of contemporary history, throughout his lectures at the Collège de France.This analysis highlights the paradoxical role played by "society" in relation to government: a principle in the name of which the latter tends to self-limit, but also the target of permanent government intervention, to produce, multiply and guarantee the freedoms necessary for economic liberalism. Civil society, far from being opposed to the state, is therefore the correlative of the liberal technology of government.
This summary is published with the kind permission of Editions du Seuil. It is taken from the back cover of Naissance de la biopolitique. Cours au Collège de France (1978-1979) by Michel Foucault, published on October 1st, 2004.
The sound recordings of Michel Foucault 's lectures were made by his public, notably by Mr. Gilbert Burlet, and given at the Collège de France.