Economics has replaced politics as the governing science of the state
Evidence
At the end of lecture 11, Foucault suggests that economics is a science “lateral to the art of governing,” that it cannot be “the science of government.” This seems importantly wrong today. The claim relates in part to his belief that economics is separated off from civil society, again, an implicit quarrel with Marx. It relates as well to his acceptance of the neoliberal claim that the economy constitutes the limit of government for liberalism and neo-liberalism, that it must not be touched because it cannot be known. But it also relates to the fact that he did not anticipate the ways that the sciences of economics, business, and politics would be merged through rational choice, formal modeling, and above all, the language of administrative governance. When the expressly and intentionally antipolitical language of governance, discussed at length in Chapter 4, becomes the lingua franca of the state, corporations, schools, nonprofits, indeed, of all public and private enterprise, economics has become the science of government. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 154
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: Foucault’s ‘lateral to governing’ claim being refuted by administrative governance language — economics is no longer a limit on government but literally its science — is a genuinely paradigm-shifting observation about how the state’s own grammar changed.
- XREF: The antipolitical language of governance is exactly the depoliticization thesis the reader should track across chapters; connects to Milgrom’s private-judge institutional analysis where governance substitutes for government. — connects to: The ‘pure economics’ rebrand removed democratic scrutiny from economic policy — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 31; Economists’ claim to transcendent knowledge collapses when they enter governance — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1597; Economics is lateral to governing, not its internal rationality — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1467 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- The economy functions as model, object, and project of neoliberal state rationality.
#expands(0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 107