Biopower replaces sovereignty’s power over death with power over life
Evidence
Beneath that great absolute power, beneath the dramatic and somber absolute power that was the power of sovereignty, and which consisted in the power to take life, we now have the emergence, with this technology of biopower, of this technology of power over “the” population as such, over men insofar as they are living beings. It 1s continuous, scientific, and it is the power to make live. Sovereignty took life and let live. And now we have the emergence of a power that I would call the power of regularization, and it, in contrast, consists in making live and letting die. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 262
Categorization
- DEFINE: Core of Foucault’s sovereign/biopower distinction — the ‘make live/let die’ formula that anchors the field’s vocabulary.
- XREF: Directly carries forward the scaffolding toolkit — this is the hinge between sovereign power and the biopolitical/necropolitical readings in the Islamophobia module. — connects to: Biopower takes control of life through the twin poles of body and population; Nineteenth-century power added ‘make live and let die’ alongside sovereign right to kill — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 256; Sovereign power over life is asymmetrical, always weighted toward killing — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255 (+6 more)
Related
- Biopower takes control of life through the twin poles of body and population (similarity 0.89)
- Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will (similarity 0.88)
- Nineteenth-century power added ‘make live and let die’ alongside sovereign right to kill (similarity 0.88)
- Atomic power exposes the paradox of a sovereign power that kills life itself (similarity 0.86)
- Sovereign power over life is asymmetrical, always weighted toward killing (similarity 0.86)
- Atomic power exposes biopower’s paradox of killing to preserve life. (similarity 0.82)
- Demographic explosion and industrialization forced power beyond sovereignty (similarity 0.82)
- Social contract theory posed life itself as the foundational stake of sovereignty (similarity 0.81)
- Demographic explosion and industrialization forced sovereignty to yield to biopower. (similarity 0.80)
- Mortality blocks property from becoming a true political principle. (similarity 0.79)
- War exercises sovereignty through the right to kill. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Atomic power exposes the paradox of a sovereign power that kills life itself
#complicates(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 268 - Demographic explosion and industrialization forced power beyond sovereignty
#expands(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 264 - Sovereignty power taxes goods while disciplinary power surveils bodies continuously
#qualifies(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 54 - Ritualized death faded because death escaped sovereign power’s reach
#corroborates(0.72) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 262 - Social contract theory posed life itself as the foundational stake of sovereignty
#complicates(0.72) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 256