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(2008) The birth of biopolitics, Dordrecht, Springer.
I WOULD LIKE TO assure you that, in spite of everything, I really did intend to talk about biopolitics, and then, things being what they are, I have ended up talking at length, and maybe for too long, about neoliberalism, and neo-liberalism in its German form. I must however explain a little this change to the direction I wanted to give these lectures. Obviously, I have not spoken at such length about neo-liberalism, and worse, about the German form of neo-liberalism, because I wanted to trace the historical or theoretical "background' of German Christian Democracy. Nor was it so as to denounce what is not socialist in the governments of Willy Brandt or Helmut Schmidt.1 I have dwelt so long on this problem of German neo-liberalism first of all for methodological reasons, because, continuing what I began to say last year, I wanted to see what concrete content could be given to the analysis of relations of power—it being understood, of course, and I repeat it once again, that power can in no way be considered either as a principle in itself, or as having explanatory value which functions from the outset.
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Full citation:
Senellart, M. , Ewald, F. , Fontana, A. (2008)., 7 march 1979, in M. Senellart, F. Ewald & A. Fontana (eds.), The birth of biopolitics, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 185-213.
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