Menu Expand

Foucault on Adam Smith’s Liberalism

  1. Journals
  2. Economics, Finance, Business & Management
  3. Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch
  4. Vol. Online First
  5. pp. 1–19

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Cite JOURNAL ARTICLE

Style
Salinas, A. Foucault on Adam Smith’s Liberalism. Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, 99999(), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.383298
Salinas, Alejandra M. "Foucault on Adam Smith’s Liberalism" Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch 99999., 2024, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.383298
Salinas, Alejandra M. (2024): Foucault on Adam Smith’s Liberalism, in: Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, vol. 99999, iss. , 1-19, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.383298
Format
Download

Foucault on Adam Smith’s Liberalism

Salinas, Alejandra M.

Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Vol. (2024), Online First : pp. 1–19

Read Now Download (PDF)

Additional Information

Article Details

Publisher Name
Duncker & Humblot
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.383298
Language
Multiple languages
Pages
19
Keywords

Author Details

Alejandra M. Salinas, Universidad del Cema; Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero; and Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Católica Argentina ,

References

  1. Audier, S. 2012. “Is There a French Neoliberalism?” In French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day, edited by H. Rosenblatt and R. Geenens, 208 – 29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Google Scholar
  2. Audier, S. and M. C. Behrent. 2015. “Neoliberalism through Foucault’s Eyes.” History and Theory 54 (3): 404 – 18.  Google Scholar
  3. Becker, G., F. Ewald, and B. E. Harcourt. 2012. “Becker on Ewald on Foucault on Becker: American Neoliberalism and Michel Foucault’s 1979 Birth of Biopolitics Lectures.” Accessed August 20, 2024. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2142163.  Google Scholar
  4. Behrent, M. C. 2009. “Liberalism without Humanism: Michel Foucault and the Free-Market Creed, 1976 – 1979.” Modern Intellectual History 6 (3): 539 – 68.  Google Scholar
  5. Berlin, I. 2014. Political Ideas in the Romantic Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press.  Google Scholar
  6. Borges, J. L. 1998. Selected Non-Fictions. New York: Penguin Books.  Google Scholar
  7. Brookes, K. 2017. “Un ‘libéralisme scientifique’ contre les gauches: La réception du néo-libéralisme américain en France dans les années 1970.” Raisons politiques 3 (67): 71 – 94.  Google Scholar
  8. Brown, W. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Brooklyn: Zone books.  Google Scholar
  9. Campbell, T. D. 1971. Adam Smith’s Science of Morals. New York and London: Routledge.  Google Scholar
  10. Chomsky, N. and M. Foucault. 1971. “Human Nature: Justice versus Power.” Accessed April 20, 2023. https://chomsky.info/1971xxxx/.  Google Scholar
  11. Denord, F. 2009. “French Neoliberalism and Its Divisions: From the Colloque Walter Lippmann to the Fifth Republic.” In The Road from Mont Pelerin: The Making of the Neo-Liberal Thought Collective, edited by P. Mirowski and D. Plehwe, 46 – 67. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  Google Scholar
  12. Elster, J. (1986) 1989. “The Market and the Forum.” In Foundations of Social Choice Theory, edited by J. Elster and A. Hylland, 103 – 32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Google Scholar
  13. Fanizza, D. and V. Tanzi. 1995. Fiscal Deficit and Public Debt in Industrial Countries, 1970 – 1994. IMF Working Papers no. 1995/049. Washington, DC, International Monetary Fund.  Google Scholar
  14. Ferguson, A. (1767) 1782. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. 5th edition. London: T. Cadell.  Google Scholar
  15. Foucault, M. (1969) 2002. Archaeology of Knowledge. New York and London: Routledge.  Google Scholar
  16. Foucault, M. 1979. “Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Criticism of ‘Political Reason’.” The Tanner Lectures On Human Values, Stanford University, October 10 and 16, 225 – 54.  Google Scholar
  17. Foucault, M. (1982) 1988. “Truth, Power, Self: An Interview with Michel Foucault.” In Technologies of the Self, edited by H. M. Luther, H. Gutman, and P. H. Hutton, 9 – 15. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.  Google Scholar
  18. Foucault, M. 1988. Politics, Philosophy, Culture, Interviews and Other Writings, 1977 – 1984. Accessed August 20, 2024. https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_resources/documents/a-to-z/f/foucault81.pdf.  Google Scholar
  19. Foucault, M. (1989) 2005. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, New York and London: Routledge. [Les mots et les choses: une archéologie des sciences humaines. Paris: Gallimard, 1966].  Google Scholar
  20. Foucault, M. (2004) 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978 – 1979, edited by M. Senellart. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. [Naissance de la biopolitique. Cours au collège de France (1978 – 1979). Ed. François Ewald, Alessandro Fontana, Michel Senellart. Collection Hautes Études. Paris: Seuil/Gallimard, 2004].  Google Scholar
  21. Foucault, M. (2007) 2009. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977 – 1978. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.  Google Scholar
  22. Freller, F. 2023. “Pierre Rosanvallon, from the Critique of Utopian Liberalism to the Critique of the Critique of Neoliberalism.” Brazilian Political Science Review 17 (2): 1 – 28.  Google Scholar
  23. Grampp, W. D. 2000. “What did Smith Mean by the Invisible Hand?” Journal of Political Economy 108 (3): 441 – 65.  Google Scholar
  24. Griswold, C. L. 1999. Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Google Scholar
  25. Hayek, F. 1979. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 3: The Political Order of a Free People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  Google Scholar
  26. Heath, E. 2023. “What’s Not to See? Foucault on Invisible Political Economy in Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 45 (2): 321 – 42.  Google Scholar
  27. Jay, M. 2009. “Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau.” Contemporary Political Theory 8: 113 – 5.  Google Scholar
  28. Lepage, H. (1978) 1981. Demain le Capitalisme, Paris: Pluriel, Le livre de poche. [Tomorrow, Capitalism: The Economics of Economic Freedom, Sheilagh C. Ogilvie (translator), Chicago: Open Court, 1982].  Google Scholar
  29. Marchart, O. 2007. Post-Foundational Political Thought. Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.  Google Scholar
  30. Merquior, J. G. (1985) 1997. Foucault. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.  Google Scholar
  31. Open Syllabus Project. 2023. “Search by author”. Accessed October 7, 2023. https://explorer.opensyllabus.org/results-list/authors?size=50.  Google Scholar
  32. Palacios, C. 2021. “A Truly Invisible Hand: The Critical Value of Foucauldian Irony.” Critical Times 4 (1): 48 – 72.  Google Scholar
  33. Raphael, D. D. 2007. The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.  Google Scholar
  34. Rawls, J. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  Google Scholar
  35. Ronge, B. 2015. Das Adam Smith Projekt: Zur Genealogie der liberalen Gouvernementalität. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.  Google Scholar
  36. Rosanvallon, P. 1979. Le capitalisme utopique: critique de l’idéologie économique. Paris: Éd. du Seuil.  Google Scholar
  37. Rosen, F. 2000. “The Idea of Utility in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” History of European Ideas 26: 79 – 103.  Google Scholar
  38. Salinas, A. 2021. “Readings of Smith by Contemporary Political Philosophers: Rawls.” Adam Smith Works. Accessed September 22, 2023. https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/alejandra-salinas-reading-adam-smith-john-rawls.  Google Scholar
  39. Salinas, A. 2022. “Readings of Smith by Contemporary Political Philosophers: Michael J. Sandel.” Adam Smith Works. Accessed August 17, 2023 https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/salinas-sandel-on-adam-smith#fnref2.  Google Scholar
  40. Sandel, M. 2020. The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.  Google Scholar
  41. Sartori, G. 1970. “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics.” The American Political Science Review 64 (4): 1033 – 53.  Google Scholar
  42. Schliesser, E. 2017. Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker. Oxford Scholarship Online.  Google Scholar
  43. Schliesser, E. 2022. “Foucault, Lepage, Anarcho-Capitalism and Anti-Marxism.” Personal blog entry. Accessed October 10, 2023. https://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2022/10/foucault-lepage-and-anarcho-capitalism.html.  Google Scholar
  44. Schwarze, M. 2023. “Adam Smith on Education as a Means to Political Judgment.” Adam Smith Works Paper Preview, March 29, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1eb5nkWyUk.  Google Scholar
  45. Smith, A. (1759) 1982. The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), Glasgow Edition. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.  Google Scholar
  46. Smith, A. (1776) 1981. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN), 2 vols., Glasgow Edition. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.  Google Scholar
  47. Smith, A. (1795) 1982. Essays on Philosophical Subjects (EPS), Glasgow Edition. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.  Google Scholar
  48. Smith, A. (1822) 1843. Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations, trad. du Comte Germain Garnier entièrement revue et corrigée; et précédée d’une notice biographique par M. Blanqui; avec les commentaires de Buchanan, G. Garnier, Mac Culloch [et al.]; augmentée de notes inédites de Jean-Baptiste Say; et d’éclaircissements historiques par M. Blanqui. 2 vols., Paris: Guillaumin.  Google Scholar
  49. Tribe, K. 2009. “The Political Economy of Modernity: Foucault’s College de France Lectures of 1978 and 1979.” Economy and Society 38 (4): 679 – 98.  Google Scholar
  50. Winch, D. 1978. Adam Smith’s Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revision. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Google Scholar
  51. Zamora, D. 2016. “Foucault, the Excluded, and the Neoliberal Erosion of the State.” In Foucault and Neoliberalism, edited by D. Zamora and M. C. Behrent, 75 – 95. Cambridge: Polity Press.  Google Scholar

Abstract

This article examines the interpretation of Adam Smith’s writings in The Birth of Biopolitics, where Foucault delves into market processes, the government’s role, the nature of economic knowledge, the dynamics of the “invisible hand,” and the complex relationship between society and the state. However, despite their shared interest in studying the forms of political power, the two authors differ significantly, since Smith espoused ideas that the French philosopher refused to endorse. It is the extensive readership of Foucault that justifies his inclusion in the study of contemporary receptions of Smith’s liberalism. We present Foucault’s lectures that deal with Smith’s ideas and evaluate the strengths and tensions in his analysis.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
By Alejandra M. Salinas: Foucault on Adam Smith’s Liberalism 1
Introduction 1
1. Liberal Governmentality and Smith 6
1.1 Lecture no. 2 (January 17th) 6
1.2 Lecture no. 3 (January 24th) 6
1.3 Lecture no. 11 (March 28th, 1979) 7
1.4 Lecture no.12 (April 4th, 1979) 8
2. The Reading of Smith in The Birth of Biopolitics 9
2.1. Of the Relation between Markets and Juridical Orders in the First and the Last Lectures 9
2.2 Of the Reconstruction of the “Invisible Hand” 10
2.2.1 The Order of the Market 11
2.2.2 The Causes of Wealth 13
2.3 Of the Public Good and the Disqualification of Political Reason 14
Conclusion 15
References 16

Contact

Duncker & Humblot GmbH Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg 9 12165 Berlin, Deutschland T: +49 30 790006-0

Quick Navigation

2024 Duncker & Humblot GmbH

Powered by CloudPublish

We use cookies to ensure that you get the best experience on our website. Learn more about how we use cookies.