When you talk about contemporary neoliberalism, whether German or any other kind, you generally get three types of response.
The first is that from the economic point of view neo-liberalism is no more than the reactivation of old, secondhand economic theories.
The second is that from the sociological point of view it is just a way of establishing strictly market relations in society.
And finally, the third response is that from a political point of view neo-liberalism is no more than a cover for a generalized administrative intervention by the state which is all the more profound for being insidious and hidden beneath the appearances of a neo-liberalism.
You can see that these three types of response ultimately make neoliberalism out to be nothing at all, or anyway, nothing but always the same thing, and always the same thing but worse. That is to say: it is just Adam Smith revived; second, it is the market society that was decoded and denounced in Book I of Capital; and third, it is the generalization of state power, that is to say, it is Solzhenitsyn on a world scale.
In lecture five, Foucault had identified Marcuse's criticism of capitalism with Sombart's. Foucault is disparaging about the line of argument ("confused"), and, more striking yet, had claimed that the Nazis had appropriated it; and "indeed in opposition to this destruction of society by the [capitalist]* economy and state that the Nazis proposed to do what they wished to do." (114) The claim is rather damning toward Marcuse because in his own voice, Foucault describes Sombart's voyage (not unfairly) from "quasi-Marxism to quasi-Nazism." (113) So, one way to understand Foucault's criticism of Marcuse, is not just that his criticism is old-fashioned, but the criticism is of a dangerous sort: in its diagnosis it contributes to the very problem it wishes to analyze.
So, lurking here (recall this post drawing on ideas by Niko Kolodny) are ideas about responsible speech and a polemic -- calling somebody a fellow traveler of Nazism counts as polemic -- about how to criticize and engage with liberalism and neoliberalism. That is to say, in addition to the complex positive argument of Birth of Biopolitics, which I have argued is itself a contribution to the liberal art of government, there is lurking a polemic against a bad style of criticizing liberalism in virtue of this criticism contributing to a species of totalitarian thought. And so, the lectures ask us to consider it as an exemplary form of responsible speech.
At the start of lecture six, in the passage quoted above, he addresses what we might call the general culture of anti-liberalism in certain circles. I actually think Foucault reveals some of his irritation because while his sense is clear he literally contradicts himself (e.g, X is nothing and simultaneously X is bad). The three kinds of criticism he rejects all end up flattening liberalism, and turn 'neoliberalism' merely into a word of disapproval.
As an aside, it is a bit sad that these lectures were only published in 2004 (in French) and in translation in 2008. For, the problem he identifies is extremely visible, as I documented, in David Harvey's very influential (2005) A brief History of Neoliberalism. I am not suggesting Harvey would have felt obliged to take on board Foucault's reservations, but given the celebrity of Foucault he or his reviewers might have responded to them. Having said that, and this returns me to the fifth and sixth lectures, the enduringness of the anti-liberal tropes in a certain part of the 'Left' suggests it would have made little difference. Because we don't get Foucault's thoughts on why the tropes endure I leave it at that here.
With the critique of Marcuse in the background, we can discern that Foucault is making four critical claims about the three kinds purported critical analyses of liberalism. First, they are false. Liberalism "is really something else."* They fail to grasp liberalism in its historical specificity and its evolution. The whole Birth of Biopolitics is meant to support this claim. Second, the criticisms are intellectually lazy because merely repetition. And again, the lectures show what would be required to begin to engage with the details of liberalism. (As regular readers know, I am trying to keep track critically of this feature of the lectures in these digressions.) Third, the standard criticisms of liberalisms contribute to a culture that makes Nazism if not possible, at least appear more legitimate. Here, Foucault comes extremely close to accepting (recall this post on the road to serfdom thesis as an ideal type) the ORDO interpretation of history. And it is, I think, among the best evidence for recent interpretations of Foucault as a kind of fellow-traveler of neoliberalism. Fourth, the standard criticisms are analytically useless (because they flatten what needs to be explored in detail).
It is pretty clear that in addition to Marcuse, Foucault has his sights on the style of criticism of liberalism made popular (recall) by Karl Polanyi (recall also this post, in particular, on the Mises-Polanyi debate). Strikingly, Karl Polanyi is never mentioned in the lectures, while his brother is. This Foucault-ian criticism of Polanyi has recently been articulated in impressive fashion by Melinda Cooper in (2017) Family Values, itself an impressive contribution to the critical study of neoliberalism. She is a lot more critical than Foucault is (recall here; and with modest criticism here). The not naming, other than Marcuse, of targets -- undoubtedly lots of bien-pensant French intellectuals are included -- makes this feature of the lectures a bit frustrating to the later historian.+
One final point on the third criticism. In the fourth lecture, Foucault had (recall) already offered a searing criticism of Marxism as lacking an art of government. What he adds here, is that in its modern guise, it inspires an insipid and dangerous criticism of liberalism in which neoliberalism is just a cover, a masquerade, for a kind of totalitarian form of oppression (cf. Harvey). Rather than being informative this makes it impossible to make important distinctions.** And, if I understand Foucault correctly, the failure to make such distinctions contributes to making a Nazi culture possible. We might say that Ernst Thälmann's tendency to treat the Social Democrats as the real enemy is illustrative of the dangers of such a failure in thought. I am pretty sure -- and this is speculative -- that this is why Foucault doesn't even mention Pinochet (then fresh in memory). And treats the dangers of liberalism's flirtation with benevolent despots (recall for example lecture 3) in terms of the (more distant) physiocrats.
The question is whether Foucault's point generalizes. As noted above, and as he rightly notes ORDO-liberal thought embraces, as an ideal type, a road to serfdom thesis in which lots of social phenomena are symptoms of, and simultaneously with "internal necessity" (111) contribute to, the rise of Nazism. If Foucault thinks the criticism generalizes, then this, too, is one of his targets. (I think this only gets addressed in the final lecture(s)--stay tuned!) And what is at stake here, is the general utility of the manner in which Weberian ideal types are deployed in (German) social science of the twentieth century.++
*There are interesting questions here about Foucault's regime of truth (recall) that he is presupposing here.
+Give the celebrity of these lectures in the moment, Foucault prorightly felt he did not need to add a round of distracting polemics that would distract from his achievement. (In addition, he clearly feels pressed for time throughout the lectures; he had more material than time.)
**We see something similar today in the use of 'fascist.'
++If so, Freiburg and Frankfurt are in the grip of a bad social science schema.
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