You remember that when last year we talked about raison d’État, I tried to show you that there was a kind of equilibrium, a system of counterweights between what could be called unlimited objectives within the state, on the one hand, and limited external objectives, on the other. The unlimited objectives within the state were pursued through the mechanism of the police state, that is to say, an always more emphatic, accentuated, fine, and subtle governmentality of regimentation with no predetermined limits. So, internally there were unlimited objectives, and then limited objectives externally inasmuch as at the same time as the formation of raison d’État and the organization of the police state was taking place there was also the pursuit and real organization of what is called European balance, the principle of which is the following: to see to it that no state prevails over the others so as to reconstitute imperial unity in Europe; to see to it, consequently, that no state dominates all the others, or prevails over its neighbors to such an extent that it can dominate them, etcetera. It is quite easy to see and understand the connection between these two mechanisms of unlimited objectives with the police state, and limited objectives with European balance, inasmuch as if the raison d’être, purpose, and objective of the police state, or of the internal mechanisms which endlessly organize and develop the police state, is the strengthening of the state itself, then the target of each state is to strengthen itself endlessly, that is to say its aim is an unlimited increase of its power in relation to the others. In clear terms, competition to be the best in this competitive game will introduce into Europe a number of inequalities, which will increase, which will be sanctioned by an imbalance in the population, and consequently in military strength, and you will end up with the well-known imperial situation from which European balance, since the Treaty of Westphalia, wished to free Europe. The balance was established to avoid this situation.
More precisely, in mercantilist calculation and in the way in which mercantilism organizes the economic-political calculation of forces, it is clear that a European equilibrium is actually unavoidable if you want to prevent the realization of a new imperial configuration. For mercantilism, competition between states assumes that everything by which one state is enriched can, and in truth must, be deducted from the wealth of other states. What one state acquires must be taken from the other; one can only enrich itself at the cost of the others. In other words, what I think is important is that for the mercantilists the economic game is a zero sum game. It is a zero sum game quite simply because of the monetarist conception and practice of mercantilism. There is a certain amount of gold in the world. Since gold defines, measures, and constitutes the wealth of each state, it is understood that whenever one state gets richer it will take from the common stock of gold and consequently impoverish the others. The monetarist character of mercantilist policy and calculation consequently entails that competition can only be conceived in the form of a zero sum game and so of the enrichment of some at the expense of others. To avoid the phenomenon of having one and only one winner in this zero sum game, to avoid this political consequence of competition thus defined, strict economic logic requires the establishment of something like an equilibrium which will allow the game to be interrupted, as it were, at a given moment. That is to say, the game will be halted when there is a danger of the difference between the players becoming too great, and it is precisely in this that European equilibrium consists. This is exactly—well, up to a point—Pascal’s problem: in a zero sum game, what happens when you interrupt the game and divide out the winnings between the players? Interrupting the game of competition with the diplomacy of European equilibrium is necessarily entailed by the monetarist conception and practice of the mercantilists. This is the starting point.--Michel Foucault, 24 January 1979, lecture 3 The Birth of Biopolitics. translated by Graham Burchell, 51-53
One major key theme of the Birth of Biopolitics lecture is introduced here at the start of the lecture: that within the art of governance, there are a subtle set of interactions between domestic and foreign affairs. And, as I have already noted before, Foucault shows that he can play that complex chess game no less than the great grandmasters Kautilya, Plato. and Kant. In addition, he explicitly adopts the liberal interpretation of mercantilism, which is crucial to liberalism's self-conception, that it is a zero-sum game. This is (recall) one of the main points of the second lecture. But today, I want to focus on a minor key, which is Foucault's more mundane, lesser mortal contribution to the history of ideas.
To simplify: [thesis] Foucault implies that the very idea of a liberal market economy is formally derived from the balance of power structure of European politics during the mercantile age. This notion of derived is not intended in the logical sense, but more akin (in structure, and, as it happens, in content) to the way in which Darwinian ideas are derived from Malthus' political economy.
That is to say, in its ideal form, intra-European politics is characterized by a competitive balance of power in which no power can dominate the rest. In structure this anticipates the ideal form of the market in which no participant is a monopolist or even price-setter and, thereby, tends toward equilibrium. And it also anticipates the normative role of Ordo-liberal anti-trust regulation* which halts "the game....when there is a danger of the difference between the players becoming too great."
You may worry I am being to clever by half here because Foucault does not assert [thesis]. But he hints at [thesis] in a truly marvelous way. For, Pascal's problem is central to the development of mathematical probability theory and, in particular, the development of the idea of an expected value. And, in particular, that in order to understand the fair application of probability, we should not look to the past of the game, but to the outcomes in its possible futures.**
And, Foucault's insinituation, which is historically creative, is that the shape of Pascal's problem, or to stay reflexively in the spirit of the solution to it, its solution was derived not from the gambling common among the nobility, but also from reflection on international diplomacy. And, of course, hidden here is the question -- where do the constellation of ideas that define utilitarianism come from, including why the past plays no role in decision problems, and why does it resonate so much in liberal thought, this despite the fact that utilitarianism lends itself to many illiberal ideas? And it turns out that a certain stylized image of mercantile balance of power can be taken to be some such source.
Now, you may say, look: this can't be right because mercantilism is a theory of zero-sum (as Foucault and the liberals agree), but the liberal conception of the market is not supposed to be zero-sum . And it is true, as Foucault emphasizes down the page (53), that transactions within the market are not zero sum according to liberalism. That's true, of course. But at the level of a market, the liberal does expect that some fail (or lose) relative to others. And that is very much like the balance of power (of which David Hume was one of the great theorists). And the equilibrium state itself is when the collective gain is greatest.
I could stop here. But it is worth noting that Hume thought, that ""however generally known and acknowledged among speculative reasoners, [the balance of power] has not, in practice, an authority much more extensive among those who govern the world."+ I mention it not because it undermines [thesis], it clearly supports it. But rather that, perhaps, the picture of mercantilism sketched by Foucault (which echoes that of liberliams) is more consistent in theory, than, as Hume notes, in practice.
*Unlike US antitrust, which aims at consumer welfare, for Ordos the aim of antitrust ought to be to maintain competition.
**It is notable that the editor's footnote (presumably by Michel Senellart) misses this. One wonders how many in Foucault's audience notice it.
+This is in the context of claiming that "the maxim of preserving the balance of power is founded so much on common sense and obvious reasoning, that it is impossible it could altogether have escaped antiquity, where we find, in other particulars, so many marks of deep penetration and discernment."
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