Geoffroy de Lagasnerie summary: "Last Lesson Given by Foucault"

We are coming back and now we want to offer a little and brief summary about how was our meeting in order to discuss about the work about Foucault writen by this author. 

We discussed particularly about some key points:

-Differences between Liberalism - Neoliberalism

-Are we still in a "Homo Oeconomicus" rationalism?

-Was then, Foucault, a Neoliberal?

Foucault will say that there is a fundamental difference between liberalism and neoliberalism that Lagasnerie did not collect: labour. In Marxism theories, labour is a work force that you sell and other pays to you. Nonetheless, in Neoliberalism labour is not a work force: it is a truth with which the subject can understood itself.

Main differences Liberalism-Neoliberalism:

Laissez-faire, do not intervene.	Must intervene under the ground.
The homo economicus is a partner with whom you exchange.	Homo Oeconomicus is not a partner, is a businessman himself, he is his own capital, his own business.
Disciplinary Societies.	Control Societies.
Still believe in the totality and universality.	Charge against any principle of totality, backing the plurality.
It is still not as stressed the role of the experts (When the king is removed, we must to be governed by rules).	The role of experts is much more main in all fields.
Economics is a science of prices and resources.	Economics isa science of  rational decisions.

Economics is the space that offers a better veridiction ground. Neoliberalism is adjusted to control societies, it is the place par excellence of government, the structure is always in economic terms. This may not fit with the idea of Deleuze, because he does not see a predominance of one type of place. 

What would today replaced the entrerprise-form, the entrepreneur of itself? Is there a new diagram where the pre-eminence would not be economic, but biological, for instance? How would it be? 

Photo Credit: Karl-Ludwig Poggemann

New seminary: Geoffroy de Lagasnerie "The Last Lesson Given by Foucault"

As we are announcing along this week, next friday we will hold our first "big seminary" to the 2015-2016 course, and in this opportunity we have chosen this book in order to "close" the Foucault cycle started last year with the Deleuze course about Foucault.

This year, we want to read and to discuss about two main lines after read this book: classics authors from Social Studies of Science and Technology (Latour, Stengers, Woolgar...), and a review about the Michel Serres' work (Le Contrat Naturel, Atlas, Variations sur le Corps).

Having said this, Lagasnerie book is an important chance to understand some other interpretations about Foucault work (different to the deleuzian view, for instance), and also is a good opportunity to link it to current events and ideas we are working. 

In this vein, we think we can learn so much (regardless of whether we agree or not with Lagasnerie) about liberalism using the terms and vocabulary given by Foucault. Undoubtely, it would be an interesting option to add some question to our paper about State of Exception and Capitalism, but to future papers we can discuss it with our current vision and enrich the last one with new ideas. 

Next weekend we will publish the report about this seminary. As always, you are invited and you can tell it to anyone interested in our topics. Meeting we will in the Martín Baro's room, at Social Psychology Department on the Autonomous University of Barcelona (10-23, at 11:00 am). 

Next post we will be about the next EASST Conference which will take place at Barcelona in August-September 2016. POBICS we will participate as organizator and also as a "track" about biorisk and biosurveillance. 

Please,  share this and we would be very happy!

Photo Credit: Thierry Ehrmann