Aleš Rubáš

Foucault and the Concept of the Power

And Concept of the Biopower

Introduction

In the first part of my essay, I will try to summarize Foucault's outlook on enlightenment and
to see, how the French thinker himself views it, because it is necessary to mention this for
further understanding of Foucault's conception of rationality along with the theory of power. In
the next part, I will focus particularly on the theory of power and on one of the most discussed
Foucault's concept - biopower. In conclusion I will try to show the concept of biopower in a
relation with phenomenon of the state racism.

Enlightenment and Rationality by Foucault

The perspective of Michel Foucault on the enlightenment worldview, how it's captured in his
selection from articles called Dits et écrits1, where he primarily deals with the enlightenment's
attempts to expand and multiply political power over human subjects. He comes from an
analysis of a certain relationship between rationalization and the political power. He values the
rational way of thinking more, as a tool, which serves in the society for a more efficient control
and whose origin we distinguish with the coming of the enlightenment in the modern western
culture. For avoiding the conflict between the decisive positions of the rationalist and
irrationalist, there is no place for coming up with an imagination about the human sense as it
is, being an opposite essence of the no-reason (non-raison). In other words, it is not possible to
put into opposites the rationality and irrationality, because rationality is always co-created by
the concept of the rational – both of the phenomenon are a creation of the human subject.

Foucault2, in three points, gives a way on how to look at the relationship between power and
rationalization. The first key point of this relation is the fact, that it is not appropriate to observe
rationalization of society only in its global dimension (globalement). But it is necessary to trace

1
FOUCAULT, Michel. Myšlení vnějšku, Hermann a Synové, 1996. ISBN 80-238-0471 p. 154, translated from
the French original Dits et écrits 1954-1988 par Michel Foucault
2
Ibid. 154-156
and evaluate the intellectual process in particular circles determined by social and biological
experiences, which, according to Foucault, are for example illness, sexuality or different forms
of social deviations, etc. With the second point, he tries to demonstrate the fact, that it is not
possible to see rationalization of a certain phenomenon only as an aspect, which tries to examine
something; to subordinate or not to subordinate the phenomenons to the patterns of rationality,
however it is necessary to search for what kind of rationality we are dealing with, and with
which rationality it tends to identify with. Even though Foucault looks onto enlightenment as a
key period of time in the historical development and in the development of methods in politics,
he also founds an important understanding for those processes, which are dated way earlier that
the enlightenment itself. With that, it is possible to avoid the trap, which for us is our own
history. In this way, he managed to break down the previously mentioned biological and social
experiences, however another problem, which becomes important for Foucault and arises to the
top as the third point of a stand towards the relationship between rationalization and power, is
so called 'individualizing power'. In the moment when the state focuses to one organizational
center of power, power mechanisms oriented to the individual, subordinated to the permanence
of these controlling mechanisms, evolve along with that.

Now I would like to demonstrate some intertwining of of power and rationality. According to
Foucault, power is not an unchanging basis, nor does it has any inherent attribute to look for. It
is only a kind of a relationship between individuals. What is characteristic of these individual
relationships is the association with the aspects of exchange, communication and production,
but this association is everything, what they have in common. The character in which power
makes difference lies in the ability of some individuals to define the behavior of others, but not
absolutely through a direct action – in that case, it would not be a power in Foucault’s sense,
but it would be a coercive forces having a direct causal relationship to particular individuals.3

Rationality is not homogenous unit in his view: it always takes on a special contextually colored
forms. The rationality of economic structures is not identical to the rationality of scientific
discourse or rationality of means of communication, etc. It simply means, that the particular
force founding the power of ones above others is depending on the type of the rationality; on
the context in which those relationships are made.4

3
Ibid. 192
4
Ibid.
 Marking guilty a rationality guilty as such is useless. According to Foucault we have to always
recognize just that one particular form of rationality and criticize it. For example, criticism of
institutional violence against deviant individuals cannot be limited to the criticism of
psychiatric institutions. We have to ask the question: how are the given power relations
rationalized within individual institutions?5 As Foucault points out to the case of the state power
with regard to the political rationality:

“Political rationality has evolved and enforced throughout the history of Western societies. At
first, it has rooted in the idea of the pastoral power, then in the idea of the state interest. An
individualization and a totalization are its inevitable consequences. Liberation can arise only
from the attack not on one or the other of these consequences, but on the very roots of the
political rationality.”6

This reflection on the rationality is most noticeable when Foucault talks about the state form of
the power, which is a traditionally discussed subject across social science. The state is typically
referred to as a totalizing mechanism that emphasizes the principles of individualization. This
is why Foucault holds on this definition, because he thinks that these factors are essential
components of the state power with regard to the political rationality. 7

Theory of Power and Biopower

Foucault, as it is recorded from his lectures in the book Society Must Be Defended, follows a
change in the conception of power and political law in the 19th century. With the evolution of
the western society, it came to a different perception of the biological, along with that it also
happened, that the ruling power took the responsibility to guarantee life. The difference in
perception of this 'biological' is in its nationalization. The primary thought, from which the
author's reflections come, is the theory of sovereignty, which presumes the right over life and
death of a person, as a fundamental right. In reality, this right happens in an extensively uneven
way, because it applies only in the case of a murder, as the power sovereignty is fulfilled only

5
Ibid. 193
6
Ibid. 194, This and all other quotations are my own translations from Czech versions of the authors literatue.
7
Ibid 193
when the person who it belongs to, can kill. In the final result, the right to kill sublimes said
law over the life and death of a person.8 As Foucault says:

"Right in that moment, when the sovereign can kill, he performs his right over life. It is, in a
sense, the right of the sword. In the right over life and dead therefore doesn't exist any real
symmetry. It is not a right to give life or give death. It also is not a right to let live and let die.
It is a right to give death or let live. Which understandably rises an obvious asymmetry.“9

The aforementioned change in the political law in the 19th century is, according to Foucault,
determined by this right to make die and let live, accordingly the right of sovereignty. It is now
a new right that has evolved in overturned authority to make live and let die. The author tries
whole of this transformation to critically trace the level of power that provides certain
techniques and mechanisms of a control. Foucault has in mind, with these techniques, discipline
techniques based on the theory of sovereignty. 10

He comes to the phenomenon that occurs already during the 18th century, to the concept of
biopower and biopolitics. Foucault sees during this period the emergence of new a technology
that belongs to the power. The power that sublimates these techniques – discipline techniques
and control mechanisms – gets into the process of a certain change, a modification if you want,
and at the same time it integrates these techniques. According to the author a difference in new
forms of control is in using of different tools. The main difference is seen in a focusing on the
techniques of power especially on man as a human species – a living being. So we are speaking
about a newly developed kind of technique that no longer fulfills a disciplinary character, but
this character is still contained in it.11 More specifically, Foucault sees this difference as
follows:

“(…) discipline attempts to control a large number of people so long as this quantity can and
must be dismantled in an individual body to watch, exercise, exploit, eventually punish. The
new technology, which comes later, turns to a lot of people, but not as a sum of individual

8
FOUCAULT, Michel. Je třeba bránit společnost: Kurs na Collège de France 1975-1976, Nakladatelství
Filozofického ústavu AV ČR, 2005. ISBN 80-7007-221-0. p. 215-216
9
Ibid. 216
10
Ibid. 216-217
11
Ibid. 217
bodies, but rather, on the contrary it is a global mass that is affected by the collective processes
that are inherent in the life, such as a birth, death, production, illness etc.” 12

It is at this point where Foucault sees the birth of biopower and biopolitics – as its technology
perceiving man as a species. Foucault’s idea of the birth of biopolitics focuses on various
processes, more precisely on biological processes that result in the setting of goals under the
control of biopolitics, as well as the establishment of the first subjects of knowledge for this
political and social power over the life. If I should be more specific, this is a whole set of
biological processes, such as birth rates, mortality, reproductive relationships; these are the
processes related to the length of life.13

We can say that a new modified form of the technique is introduced, with the aim of which is
not only to discipline, but to regulate as well. Regulatory techniques which take man as a human
species and whose purpose is the scope of complex mechanisms (when man is not taken as a
detail) to achieve the aggregate states of a certain settlement; it is basically about the regulation
of biological processes. As it has been pointed out above, it is now a power that is opposite to
previous sovereignty; power which let die and makes live – regulating biopower. Together with
ubiquitous scientific power and biopolitical technology, it fills its power over the population,
over the life of the individual, its living being.14

According to Foucault, what is becoming important to the concept of biopower are two kinds
of disciplinary approach to the body. On the one hand it is an approach that perceives man and
specifically his body as a machine, as an object of manipulation with a focus on increasing his
performance, obedience, skill and usefulness. This approach focuses on the body training for a
better control. On the other hand, Foucault presents a life-oriented discipline approach that takes
the body as the starting point for biological processes (birth, mortality, life expectancy, health)
that are subject to regulatory control, biopolitic of population. It tries to control or to balance
the consequences of these random biological processes. 15

12
Ibid. 218
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid. 221
15
FOUCAULT, Michel. Dějiny Sexuality I. Vůle k vědění, Hermann a Synové, 1999. ISBN 80-238-5090-3. p.
162
These two approaches can firstly seem to be divided, but by the gradual development since the
18th century have become the opposite and they are giving to create together an abstract
discourse, in which we can observe introduce to the reciprocal accordance of these regulatory
and disciplinary techniques. This discourse is transferred to concrete and practical forms of
different measures, which are subjected to the big techniques of the power.16 Foucault is
catching the history of this process as follows:

“During the classical age there was a rapid development of various disciplines – schools,
dormitories, barracks, workshops; problems of the birth, longevity, public health, housing,
migration in the field of practical politics and economic observation have arisen; there has
been an explosion of multiple and numerous techniques to ensure subjection of body and a
control of population. This opens the era of the “biopower”.”17

A characteristic feature of this transformation of the power is a difference in the perceiving of

death. The death is excluded in the relation to the power, it becomes a taboo and it becomes a
part of the human’s private sphere. The death becomes only a general, statistical and globally
perceived element for the power. According to Foucault, what is now affecting the power is a
mortality. 18

Foucault sees this upsetting of death in the connection with a developing of a new knowledge
about human life. As a consequence, this is what was the change for the attitude towards the
threat of the death. In a moment of a such growing knowledge about human life, its role is taken
up by the power and knowledge which adapts and controls the processes of a human life.19 As
Foucault specifies:

“The western man is gradually learning what it means to be a living species in the living world,
having a body, living conditions, the probability of life, an individual and collective health, the
forces which can be changed and a space where they can be optimally deployed. Undoubtedly,
for the first time in history, biology has reflected in politics; the fact of life is no longer an

16
Ibid. 163
17
Ibid. 162-163
18
FOUCAULT, Michel. Je třeba bránit společnost: Kurs na Collège de France 1975-1976, Nakladatelství
Filozofického ústavu AV ČR, 2005. ISBN 80-7007-221-0. p. 221-222
19
FOUCAULT, Michel. Dějiny Sexuality I. Vůle k vědění, Hermann a Synové, 1999. ISBN 80-238-5090-3. p.
165
inaccessible basis that emerges only from time to time on the chance of death and in its fatality;
it partially enters the field of control of the knowledge and intervention of the power.”20

On a more general level (considering the development of the transformation of two power
techniques), Foucault talks about the process of normalizing of the society, when two types of
norms essentially meet: disciplinary and regulatory. According to Foucault, in a more general
sense, the norm is what can be tied to a disciplined body and a regulated population.21

Foucault’s intention is, however, to point out the inherently present paradox within the
biopolitical schedule. According to him it is a power that is concerned not only in the human
body, but in a human life as such. On the one hand, its activities directly affect concrete
individuals and on the other hand its potential impact on life as a whole. 22

Foucault gives an example of the invention of the atomic energy. Power, which manifests itself
through the destructive force of the atomic energy is then potentially capable of destroying life
itself. This means that the mechanisms and processes that create the power (atomic energy) can
be destroyed by the same force, which is a strong paradox. According to Foucault, if follows
that:

"Power is either sovereign and will use a nuclear bomb, but with that it stops being a biopower,
which assures life, as it is since the 19th century. But there is also the second limit, which on
the contrary is represented by the predominance of biopower above sovereign right. This
superiority arises when to a human is given a technical predominance and political ability to
not only make life better, but also to multiply it, make living beings, make monsters, make – in
the extreme case – uncontrollable and generally destructive viruses."23

Biopower is also associated by Foucault to the development of the capitalist society. According
to him, the body here is controllably incorporated to the system of production, when individuals
adapt to certain processes of economy. Capitalism in itself requires strengthening of this
controllable incorporation and adapting the population to the economical processes, requires an

20
Ibid.
21
FOUCAULT, Michel. Je třeba bránit společnost: Kurs na Collège de France 1975-1976, Nakladatelství
Filozofického ústavu AV ČR, 2005. ISBN 80-7007-221-0. p. 226
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid 226-227
obedient population, which can be used maximally. Biopolitics is a technology of power, which
participates in all the dimensions of the society, and is used by various different power
institutions, such as the family, army, educational institutions or collective management.
Biopower in the services of capitalism commodifies a human as a whole, including his body
and creative powers. Biopower serves to accumulate the capital, which will then lead to a
sufficient accumulation of human resources; these two relations then become inseparably
linked.24

Conclusion

In conclusion I would like to show Foucault’s conception of the biopower on the phenomenon
of state racism. Foucault was asking a question how it is becoming real, that the power is
making death against to let live. He is uncovering the state racism in this question. In this
question, he reveals the state racism, which is a reason for the right to kill in the system of
politics, focused particularly on biopower. Along with the development of biopower, racism
had become embodied in state systems and their technology of controlling. According to
Foucault, along with this, racism forms a steady system of means and actions of power, typical
for the modern western society. The modern state and it scope is therefore connected to racism;
especially in those cases, when racism serves as a certain instrument for setting the boundary
and defining who actually has the right to live. In a continuous biological environment of a
human, considered as a kind, power takes on a role of dividing the biological field by
categorizing as well as evaluating certain races; one will be noted as superior, and others as
inferior. It is about structuring a certain pyramid of superiority of one race over another, in the
name of power.25

We can also see racism as a demarcation principle for the relationship between the life of one
and the death of another, which is the biological relation. I tis not only a purely political matter
– from this perspective, others are something like a dangerous to a whole population, something
as the threat of degeneration of biological qualities. The gradual liquidation of members of the
society, who are perceived as inferior and who are standing lower in the pyramid of racial

24
FOUCAULT, Michel. Dějiny Sexuality I. Vůle k vědění, Hermann a Synové, 1999. ISBN 80-238-5090-3. p.
164
25
FOUCAULT, Michel. Je třeba bránit společnost: Kurs na Collège de France 1975-1976, Nakladatelství
Filozofického ústavu AV ČR, 2005. ISBN 80-7007-221-0. P. 227
superiority, is considered to be the normalization tendency, the loss of these members of the
society is perceived positively. Ostracized others die in the interest of biological cleansing, and
their death is the death of the second category, as if it were a different kind of life because it
does not reach the same qualities. So the racism is thus one of the main mechanisms legitimizing
the normalization effort dominating the sovereignty of power in the matter of an adequate
decision on the life and death of other members of society. However, it must not always be a
direct death sentence, but broadly all the circumstances that can also lead indirectly to death: it
can be just the increase in the probability of death of certain groups of people, but also in cases
where death is only dealt within a delegated sense i.e.: exclusion from the community or
political discredit. This phenomenon sees Foucault as an indirect murder.26

Another really interesting and important topic which I would like to touch in the end, for the
future research, is to use this Foucault’s approach of biopower and biopolitics in the case of
instrumental developed industry of the meat and milk production. As absolutely rationalized
power over the animal life and as the management over the life and the death.

26
Ibid. 228-229
Sources

FOUCAULT, Michel. Je třeba bránit společnost: Kurs na Collège de France 1975-1976,

Nakladatelství Filozofického ústavu AV ČR, 2005. ISBN 80-7007-221-0.

FOUCAULT, Michel. Myšlení vnějšku, Hermann a Synové, 1996. ISBN 80-238-0471.

FOUCAULT, Michel. Dějiny Sexuality I. Vůle k vědění, Hermann a Synové, 1999. ISBN 80-
238-5090-3.