The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979
The Birth of Biopolitics is Michel Foucault’s extended analysis of liberalism and neoliberalism as distinctive forms of governmentality, focusing on how economic rationality and market norms come to organize modern practices of governing individuals and populations. Through close readings of German ordoliberalism and American Chicago School neoliberalism, and by revisiting classical liberalism from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, Foucault examines how state power is transformed into a technology of conducting conduct through competition, human capital formation, and regulatory frameworks designed to secure the conditions of the market. The lectures connect these neoliberal forms of power with broader shifts in biopolitics, sovereignty, and subjectivity, asking how the modern subject is produced as an entrepreneur of the self within regimes of security, welfare, and risk management.
At a Glance
- Author
- Michel Foucault
- Composed
- 1978–1979 (delivered weekly from 10 January 1979 to 4 April 1979; preceded by late-1978 preparatory work)
- Language
- French
- Status
- reconstructed
- •Liberalism and neoliberalism are not mere economic doctrines but comprehensive governmental rationalities (forms of governmentality) that organize how the state, society, and individuals are to be governed. Foucault argues that liberalism defines a specific ‘art of government’ that takes the market as a site of veridiction (truth-telling) to judge and limit political power.
- •Neoliberalism, particularly in its German ordoliberal and American Chicago School forms, represents a transformation of classical liberalism: instead of calling for a minimal state, it requires an active, normative state that constructs and maintains the conditions for competitive markets and extends market rationality into non-economic domains such as family, crime, and education.
- •Biopolitics—power over populations, life processes, and biological existence—is reconfigured under neoliberalism: the focus shifts from disciplinary normalization within institutions toward managing the environment, incentives, and risk in ways that foster competitive, self-managing subjects conceived as human capital or entrepreneurs of themselves.
- •The concept of ‘homo oeconomicus’ is historically variable. Foucault maintains that neoliberalism redefines homo oeconomicus from a partner of exchange or a bearer of needs into a subject of interest and human capital whose entire conduct (health, sexuality, education, criminality) becomes calculable in terms of cost, investment, and return.
- •Foucault proposes that critique should be understood as the practice of questioning the limits and effects of governmental rationalities such as neoliberalism, rather than as an appeal to an external normative foundation. Genealogy reveals how contingent historical formations like neoliberal governmentality produce particular subjectivities and fields of possible experience.
The Birth of Biopolitics has become one of the most influential sources for understanding neoliberalism as a form of governmentality and not merely an economic doctrine. It decisively shaped critical accounts of neoliberalism across political theory, sociology, geography, and cultural studies, influencing thinkers such as Wendy Brown, Nikolas Rose, Thomas Lemke, and others. The course deepened and extended Foucault’s concepts of biopolitics, discipline, and governmentality, connecting them to late-twentieth-century transformations in statehood, welfare, and subjectivity. It also contributed to the re-evaluation of liberalism in Foucault’s oeuvre and opened new avenues for genealogical critiques of contemporary capitalism, welfare retrenchment, and the economization of social life.
1. Introduction
The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979 is a series of twelve lectures in which Michel Foucault analyzes liberalism and neoliberalism as distinctive ways of governing rather than as mere economic theories. The course belongs to Foucault’s late work on governmentality, extending the shift he had begun from studying institutions such as prisons and clinics to examining broader “arts of government” that shape modern political life.
Foucault approaches liberalism historically, treating it as a contingent formation that organizes how states, experts, and individuals understand the limits and purposes of political power. Within this frame, the lectures focus on how twentieth‑century neoliberal currents—especially German ordoliberalism and American Chicago School economics—reconfigure earlier liberal themes about the market, law, and the individual.
Rather than offering a policy critique or a defense of neoliberalism, the course investigates how these doctrines recast the figure of homo oeconomicus, transform the role of the state, and intersect with biopolitics, the management of life and populations. The published volume reproduces Foucault’s spoken style, including digressions and unfinished threads, and has been widely treated as a key entry point into his later political thought.
2. Historical Context and Aims of the Lectures
2.1 Intellectual and Political Context
Foucault delivered these lectures in early 1979, in the wake of the crises of Keynesianism, the rise of Thatcher and Reagan, and ongoing debates in France about socialism, planning, and human rights. The course directly follows his 1977–78 lectures, Security, Territory, Population, where he elaborated the notion of governmentality and began to analyze liberalism.
Scholars often note that the lectures coincide with intense public discussion of “neoliberal” reform, yet the term had not yet stabilized. Foucault draws mainly on German debates around the social market economy and on American economic theory rather than on British policy experiments that were only just beginning.
2.2 Stated Aims
Foucault explicitly frames the course as a study of liberalism as a form of political reason. His aims include:
- tracing how liberalism defines the limits of government through reference to the market;
- examining the specific features of German ordoliberalism and American neoliberalism;
- investigating how these rationalities reshape the relationship between state, civil society, and individual conduct.
He also signals an interest in biopolitics, although the course concentrates more heavily on liberal and neoliberal governmental rationalities than on a full account of biological regulation. Commentators differ on whether Foucault had originally intended a more extensive treatment of biopolitics that remained only partially realized here.
3. Author, Composition, and Textual History
3.1 Foucault as Collège de France Professor
Michel Foucault held the chair in “History of Systems of Thought” at the Collège de France from 1970 until his death in 1984. As was customary, he delivered an annual lecture series, free and open to the public, which formed an important part of his ongoing research.
3.2 Composition and Delivery
The course on The Birth of Biopolitics was delivered weekly from 10 January to 4 April 1979. Foucault worked with preparatory notes and dossiers on economic theory, German postwar politics, and American social science, but the lectures themselves were extemporaneous and responsive to the audience.
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Location | Collège de France, Paris |
| Frequency | Weekly lectures (approximately 12) |
| Working method | Oral delivery from notes; no final authorial revision |
| Relation to other work | Continuation of Security, Territory, Population (1977–78) |
3.3 Reconstruction and Editions
The text is based primarily on tape recordings, supplemented by surviving manuscripts and the annual course summary Foucault was required to submit. Editor Michel Senellart, under the direction of François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana, produced the critical French edition in 2004 as part of the Gallimard/Seuil series of Foucault’s Collège de France lectures.
The standard English translation by Graham Burchell appeared in 2008. Because Foucault did not prepare the lectures for publication, the volume retains repetitions, abrupt transitions, and occasional inaccuracies; commentators emphasize that it documents a research trajectory rather than a finalized treatise.
4. Structure and Organization of the Course
The published volume follows the chronological order of the twelve lectures, accompanied by an editor’s introduction and Foucault’s brief course synopsis. Despite some digressions, commentators generally identify a clear internal progression.
| Rough Lecture Grouping | Main Focus |
|---|---|
| Lectures 1–3 | Governmentality, liberalism, and the market as “site of veridiction” |
| Lectures 4–6 | Genealogy from classical liberalism to German ordoliberalism |
| Lectures 7–9 | Postwar German social market economy and neoliberal statecraft |
| Lectures 10–12 | American neoliberalism, human capital, and homo oeconomicus |
4.1 From Governmentality to Liberalism
The opening sessions restate the concept of governmentality and introduce liberalism as a self‑limiting art of government that appeals to the market to determine proper governmental conduct.
4.2 German Ordoliberalism and the Social Market
The middle lectures address the Freiburg School and ordoliberal thinkers (Eucken, Böhm, Röpke, Rüstow), then examine how their ideas informed West German economic reconstruction, focusing on competition law, monetary policy, and social policy.
4.3 American Neoliberalism and Human Capital
The final lectures turn to the Chicago School (Becker, Friedman, Stigler) and related approaches. Foucault analyzes how economic reasoning is extended to domains such as crime, family, and education, culminating in the figure of the individual as an entrepreneur of the self.
5. Central Arguments and Conceptual Innovations
5.1 Liberalism and Neoliberalism as Governmentality
A major argument is that liberalism and neoliberalism function as comprehensive governmental rationalities. They define how authorities should govern by taking the market as a model and a test of truth. Foucault maintains that, in liberal thought, the market’s “naturalness” becomes the criterion for limiting political power.
5.2 Transformation of the State
Contrary to portrayals of neoliberalism as simply “anti‑state,” Foucault argues that both German ordoliberalism and American neoliberalism call for an active state. In ordoliberalism, the state is tasked with constructing and safeguarding a competitive order through legal and institutional frameworks. In American neoliberalism, state action is evaluated in terms of incentive structures and the production of conditions under which individuals act as rational investors in their own human capital.
5.3 Redefinition of Homo Oeconomicus
Foucault introduces a historically shifting concept of homo oeconomicus. Classical liberalism casts the economic subject primarily as a partner in exchange; neoliberalism, by contrast, reconceives the subject as a bundle of human capital, making investment and optimization decisions across the life course.
5.4 Link to Biopolitics and Critique
The lectures also innovate by tentatively linking neoliberalism to biopolitics: economic rationality becomes a way of managing populations, risks, and life processes. Foucault presents critique not as appealing to external moral standards but as analyzing how such rationalities structure what can be done, thought, and experienced.
6. Key Concepts and Famous Passages
6.1 Governmentality and the Market as Veridiction
Foucault refines governmentality as the ensemble of institutions, analyses, and tactics through which conduct is directed. A pivotal passage describes the market as a “site of veridiction”—a place where the truth of governmental practices is tested by economic outcomes:
“The market must be that place of veridiction… which permits the formation of a governmental practice.”
— Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics (24 January 1979)
6.2 Ordoliberal Strong State
Discussing German ordoliberalism, Foucault emphasizes its advocacy of a strong juridical state:
The rule of law must “create a milieu of competition” rather than simply abstain from intervention.
— Paraphrasing Foucault’s account of Eucken and Böhm (31 January, 7 February 1979)
This challenges the view that liberalism invariably seeks a minimal state.
6.3 Homo Oeconomicus as Entrepreneur of Himself
A widely cited passage appears in the lecture of 14 March 1979, where Foucault characterizes the neoliberal subject:
“Homo oeconomicus is an entrepreneur of himself, being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer, being for himself the source of his earnings.”
— Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics (14 March 1979)
This formulation has become central for later analyses of subjectivity under neoliberalism.
6.4 Human Capital and Everyday Life
In his exposition of human capital theory, Foucault highlights how education, health, and even family decisions are cast as investments. Commentators frequently single out these passages for illustrating the extension of economic reasoning into non‑market spheres.
7. Legacy and Historical Significance
7.1 Influence on Scholarship
Since its publication, The Birth of Biopolitics has become a key reference for analyzing neoliberalism as governmentality. It has informed work in political theory, sociology, geography, anthropology, legal studies, and cultural analysis. Authors such as Wendy Brown, Nikolas Rose, and Thomas Lemke develop Foucault’s account to examine phenomena including welfare reform, managerialism, and the economization of citizenship.
| Field | Typical Use of the Lectures |
|---|---|
| Political theory | Conceptualizing neoliberal rationality and depoliticization |
| Sociology & anthropology | Studying subject formation and everyday practices of self‑management |
| Legal and policy studies | Analyzing regulatory frameworks and competition law |
| Cultural studies | Examining neoliberal impacts on identity, education, and media |
7.2 Reassessment of Liberalism in Foucault
The course has prompted a re‑evaluation of Foucault’s relation to liberalism. Some readers treat it as uncovering ambivalences in liberal governmentality—its production of freedoms and constraints—without endorsing or rejecting it. Others argue that Foucault’s relatively neutral reconstruction of neoliberal arguments complicates portrayals of him as straightforwardly anti‑liberal.
7.3 Debates and Critiques
The lectures have also generated substantial critical debate. Historians of economic thought question aspects of Foucault’s readings of ordoliberal and Chicago School authors. Marxist and materialist critics suggest that the focus on rationalities downplays class dynamics and capital accumulation. Still others argue that the connection to biopolitics remains only partially developed, encouraging subsequent attempts either to extend or to revise Foucault’s framework.
Despite these disagreements, there is broad acknowledgment that The Birth of Biopolitics significantly shaped contemporary understandings of neoliberalism and remains a central point of reference in discussions of modern forms of power.
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author = {Philopedia},
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