8 foucault and reality

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2004 28: 143Capital & ClassJonathan Joseph

Foucault and reality

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143Foucault and reality

Introduction

This article looks at Foucault from the standpoint ofrealist philosophy, in particular the critical realismdeveloped by Roy Bhaskar and others. So far little

has been said on this possible connection, although this articleexamines some of the claims made by Richard Marsden inhis recent book, The Nature of Capital. The opening sectionsconcentrate on epistemological issues and in particular thecriticisms made of Foucault’s conception of truth. Thesesections also distinguish between Foucault’s early, middleand late works and take up the debate in relation to some ofthe claims of postmodernism. Foucault’s early works areheavily influenced by an anti-humanist structuralism whichis employed in the studies of madness and illness andtheoretically elaborated in The Order of Things and TheArchaeology of Knowledge. These works attempt to study socialhistory according to changes in discourse. The concept ofdiscourse becomes an overarching category that explainsthe cohesion and unity of social practices. It is argued thatwhile there are problems with Foucault’s notion of discourse,his position should be distinguished from the postmodernapproach. The third section argues that Foucault’s later workmoves away from discourse and concerns itself more withpractice and power. However, Foucault also moves awayfrom structure, leaving a social ontology that is fragmented,pluralistic and dispersed. This is seen to be the main weaknessin Foucault’s work on governmentality which is covered inthe fourth section. It is argued that critical realism’s concep-tion of a structured and stratified social world is necessary ifwe are to conceive of traditional Marxist notions of statepower and underlying economic relations. However,

Foucault and realityJonathan Joseph

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Capital & Class #82144

Foucault’s work does add considerably to a Marxistunderstanding of the way the social operates throughtechniques of discipline and regulation and this is coveredin the final section in relation to the production process.

Knowledge and the real world

On a spectrum that runs from realism to postmodernismFoucault stands somewhere in the middle. Critical realismis driven by the need to offer some explanatory power forhow we understand the world around us, while remainingaware of the limitations of such an exercise. Ontologicallybold in recognising the need to offer an explanation, criticalrealism is epistemically cautious in how it regards the statusof this explanation. Caution comes from the premise thatthe real world is independent of the knowledge we have of itand that the world itself and the knowledge we have of it arenot one and the same thing. Consequently, all knowledge isnecessarily fallible. The object of knowledge is intransitive,the knowledge we have of it is transitive. This transitivedomain is subject to the kind of power-knowledge relationsdiscussed by Foucault. This does not, however, affect thestatus of the knowledge-independent intransitive realm. AsBhaskar writes: ‘The intransitive objects of knowledge arein general invariant to our knowledge of them; they are thereal things and structures, mechanisms and processes, eventsand possibilities of the world; and for the most part they arequite independent of us’ (Bhaskar : ).

For the postmodernist, there is no such distinctionbetween the intransitive and the transitive, never mind anycomprehension of structures, mechanisms or processes.Knowledge and reality are regarded as one and the samething, or at least reality outside of knowledge is declaredmeaningless. Postmodern thought displays the clearest caseof what Bhaskar calls the epistemic fallacy, or the reductionof the world to the knowledge that we have of it. For thosefoolish enough to take Derrida at his (or his translator’s)word, there is nothing beyond the text, no outside text, nointransitive reality. Of course such a position can lead to thekind of absurdities of which we are all too familiar—Baudri-llard’s hyper-real takes over from the real: ‘It is a questionof substituting the signs of the real for the real.’ (Baudrillard: )—so that everything becomes a media fabrication




and there are no real-world events like the Gulf War(Baudrillard ). Instead, events such as wars take placeamong audiences, the distinctions between truth andfalsehood and fact and fiction are blurred and wars becomeperformative and rhetorical constructs (see Norris ).

Foucault’s work does contain an irrealist impulse, whichis to stake his all on the transitive domain of knowledge,and to define reality according to the power of discourses orthe Nietzschean struggles of power-knowledge. There is atendency in Foucault to reduce truth-claims to rhetorical-narrative strategies (Norris : ). Yet the power-knowledge relation is tempting for a realist too. Against thenaivety of positivist inspired social science, it is importantto show that the transitive domain of human knowledge isfull of power relations and that knowledge develops, notsimply on the basis of trying to understand the world beyondit, but according to the dynamics of its practical, institutionaland discursive context. Epistemic caution is necessary forthe transitive realm is full of different theories, knowledgeclaims and views of the world. But this reaffirms the need touphold a knowledge independent intransitive realm, overwhich such battles are fought, and which must be appealedto when different theories make different claims. Firstly, forthere to be a dispute between competing descriptive discour-ses, these discourses must have a common referent outsideof themselves, or else the contestation is meaningless.Secondly, critical realism argues that the ordering of transitiveknowledge into different theories, practices and disciplinesindicates a wider ordering of the intransitive world that thisknowledge is about. Critical realism argues that the possi-bility of knowledge and the forms that it takes (as practicesand disciplines) reflects the fact that the world has an ordered,intelligible and relatively enduring structure that is open toscientific investigation. That knowledge is possible, albeitdisputable, presupposes that the world is a certain way andthat claims may be made about its nature. Critical realismmakes a transcendental argument along the lines that giventhat knowledge is possible and is meaningful, this pre-supposes that the world itself is a certain way. In place ofKantian transcendental idealism that moves from the statusof knowledge to the necessary structure of the mind, criticalrealism looks at what knowledge and human practicepresupposes about the world itself. Given that certain things,or even certain debates, are intelligible to us, this pre-




supposes that the world is ordered or structured in a particularway that is open to investigation.

Therefore, while Foucault is useful in highlighting thedynamics of the transitive realm, his views may becomedangerous if the complexities of the transitive realm meanthat we can never get beyond it, if the search for knowledgeof the intransitive world becomes a lost cause. If this becomesthe case, then knowledge becomes knowledge of knowledge,not of the real world. The danger in Foucault is if access tothe real world is cut off, if knowledge-conditions are inter-nalised in discourse, or reduced to the will to truth, ifepistemic relativism becomes judgmental relativism so thatthe diversity of truth claims means there are no grounds forjudging these discursive paradigms. Then we end up withLyotard’s postmodernist language-game position whereby:‘All we can do is gaze in wonderment at the diversity ofdiscursive species’ (Lyotard: : ).

Foucault’s archaeology looks at the rules of formation ofa group of statements; the a priori set of rules that allowsdiscourse to function. Discursive relations offer discourseobjects of which it can speak and they determine what dis-course must establish in order to speak of this or that object.Foucault calls this system a discursive formation (Foucault: ). Even in this earlier work there is an understandingthat discourse, or the discursive formation within which itdevelops, refers not only to knowledge and language, butalso to the bodies, institutions and material practices withinwhich or alongside which this knowledge develops. He writesthat even the discursive formation analysed in his early bookThe Birth of the Clinic ‘is much broader than medicaldiscourse…it encompasses a whole series of political reflec-tions, reform programmes, legislative measures, admini-strative settlements, and ethical considerations.’ (Foucault: ). Discourse must be understood as referring to anarray of social practices, institutions and projects. Then, inThe Archaeology of Knowledge, there is a further move awayfrom high structuralism towards the view that social unity issecured by more than just discourse. Institutions and practicesare no longer included within discourse: ‘Archaeology alsoreveals relations between discursive formations and non-discursive domains (institutions, political events, economicpractices and processes).’ (Foucault : ) These non-discursive elements are no longer subsumed within discourse,but exist alongside it. It is necessary to do more than just




uncover discourse, but to look at context and the materialpractices that support and interact with discourses.

A realist appraisal of these positions would therefore bekeen to highlight 1) that Foucault’s notion of discursiveformation might be compatible with the critical realistinsistence on the kinds of underlying social structure thatwill be mentioned below. 2) That contrary to the approachof postmodernism, Foucault certainly does not reduce realityto discourse. 3) That his work displays a materialist positionthat examines the context in which discourses operate andthe other practices and institutions that interact withdiscourse.

Epistemology and genealogy

The Archaeology of Knowledge is possibly the closest Foucaultgets to a critical realist-type position. It is the moment wherethe insights of the structuralist position—an emphasis onunderlying structure—intersects with a more materialistrecognition that discourse operates alongside other socialpractices. However, as the former position gives way to thelatter, Foucault’s work undergoes a transition from anemphasis on archaeology to the Nietzschean inspiredgenealogy that welcomes in the more diverse, fragmentedand less unified aspects of society. The next section will lookat what this means from the point of view of Foucault’ssocial ontology. As far as the status of knowledge is concerned,Foucault moves from the unity and coherence of discourseto its plurality, discontinuity and fragility. In Nietzscheanfashion, Foucault explores the connections between know-ledge and power and how Nietzsche’s will to power mightbe interpreted as a will to knowledge.

From this it would seem that Foucault’s position is inkeeping with the main features of postmodernism, namely,it criticises the idea of scientific rationality, opposes a unitarynotion of progress and establishes a critique of representationand truth-claims. However, a postmodernist response toFoucault’s insight into the relation between knowledge andpower would be to give up on the idea of social sciencesince it cannot provide a ‘truthful’ understanding of the world,but is itself merely the expression of dominant groups orpowers. This is certainly the case with Lyotard, but also withFoucauldian-inspired writers like Laclau and Mouffe who




reduce discourse to the process of its hegemonic articulationthrough power relations. In fact their position goes furtherthan Foucault’s for they reject his distinction betweendiscursive and non-discursive practices (Laclau and Mouffe: ) so that everything is contained within discourse.The articulation of discourse is a matter of power relationsand it is hegemonic status that determines validity.

But while postmodernists would consequently abandonthe idea that explanatory discourse has any special status,there is no evidence that Foucault rejected the idea of socialscience. On the contrary, much of his work takes the formof a concrete historical enquiry. Foucault’s work does notremain at the abstract level of metatheory or discourse theory,but applies itself to the social world and engages in historicalanalysis. For Foucault to become a postmodernist, he wouldhave to renounce the riches of his own historical writings.

Foucault’s Nietzschean genealogy leads him to criticisethe present by means of comparison with a past it tries toclaim superiority over. As can be seen, for example, withFoucault’s discussion of previous forms of punishment andtorture, his aim is not to pass judgement, but to make senseof the past and to explain why in fact there is a coherence tosuch practices and proceedings. So in highlighting how thereis a coherence and reason to these societies, Foucault wouldseem to reject the irrationalism of postmodernism and itsidea that history and society are incoherent. AlthoughFoucault is questioning of reason, he does not reject italtogether, but is concerned with its claims, limitations andhistorical context. Such an approach is quite different to thepostmodern abandonment of reason and the idea that wehave no grounds to develop even a critique of a reason.

Although Foucault’s early work is preoccupied withdiscourse at the expense of other social relations, here it isargued that discourses are unifying and cohesive, whereasfor postmodernism discourses are seen as multiple andfragmented. Of course Foucault influences postmodernismwith his own ‘poststructural’ move towards a diverse andpluralistic social world based on the operation of power.But the big difference is that Foucault’s shift emphasisesvarious material practices, not just discursive ones. For allits faults, Foucault’s study of these diverse practices is usefuland insightful. By contrast, not only does postmodernismnot produce any such insights, but it is in fact forced todenounce any attempt that might do so.




The problem with Foucault is that in arguing that theproduction of knowledge is bound up with historical regimesof power he displays a tendency to reduce truth claims topower effects. Cognitive validity is relative to a particularsystem of practices, discourses and power relations or whathe calls a ‘regime of truth’. If knowledge is relativised tosuch a degree, then there can be no basis for objectiveknowledge. All statements and accounts of the world disguisehegemonic power relations and dominant discourses. Thissimply invites a critical realist like Andrew Sayer to ask, ifthis is the case, why it is then that we should we takeFoucault’s own accounts seriously? He argues that in factFoucault’s relativisation of truth ‘involves a performativecontradiction which invites ridicule—“there is no truthbeyond whatever anyone defines as the truth—and that’s thetruth!”’ (Sayer : ).

Sayer’s way of addressing the problem of relativism inthe concept of ‘regimes of truth’ is to ask how this conceptfits in with Foucault’s critical stance:

If all knowledge is the product of regimes of truth thenthey can hardly be said to be a problem [this is simplythe way of things]. If, on the other hand, we are meant tounderstand their existence as problematic, then thisimplies that they are in some sense regimes of either un-truths or else unacceptable truths insofar as the construc-tions of the regimes have bad consequences. (Sayer :

)

The way out of this, then, would seem to be to bring backreality in order to assess, not just ‘truth’ but the regimes that‘produce’ it. In other words, truth may take shape withinregimes of truth, but regimes of truth also take shape withinthe wider world. Consequently, truth and knowledge are notjust internal to regimes of truth, but relate to the world beyondand must be judged accordingly. If we do take a criticalattitude towards truth claims, then we must do so by criti-cising the adequacy of regimes of truth to explain the real,intransitive world. Truth can now be defined in relation toits explanatory adequacy.

This leads to a conception that truth is not only definedby its relation to ‘regimes of truth’ but also by its relation tothe world beyond. There is a need to move from the problemsof knowledge to the question of ontology and to examine




the ‘real reason(s) for, or dialectical ground of, things asdistinct from propositions’ (Bhaskar : xxii). So whereasfor Foucault, the problems of truth are related to the transitivedomain of regimes of truth, for critical realism, the problemsof truth are a consequence of both the transitive domain,and the intransitive reality that it tries to explain. AlthoughFoucault does not necessarily deny this intransitive domain,his formulation of regimes of truth does not adequately takethis into account and in fact he succumbs to the idea thatbecause power-discourse is localised, his own critique shouldoperate at this localised level. Consequently, his critique isdeconstructive but not ontological. By contrast, criticalrealism can break out of this delimiting situation quitesimply. For if we have problems getting to the truth, this isnot simply because of truth’s internal relation to discourseor regime, but because truth is out there and beyond us.Immediately the problem is ontologised.

As to Foucault’s worth, this is often limited to thedeconstructive value of his work. In this deconstructive role,his work sets out to question the status of narratives, truthclaims, practices and discourses. Like Derrida, he developsa critique of the limits of reason, analyses its boundaries,locates it in its socio-historical context and relates it topower. His genealogical method attempts to uncover differentlayers of epistemic organisation of knowledge and looks atthe history of its formation. All this is compatible with arealist epistemology. The way that Foucault links hiscritique of ideas to a study of institutions and hegemonicpower relations also brings his approach close to whatBhaskar calls explanatory critique and emancipatoryaxiology. The problem is that the power-knowledge insightis not related to ontological realism. Of course, Foucaultdoes have an ontology, but as we shall go on to see, thereare problems with this ontology from a critical realiststandpoint.

Structure and power

It has been stated that Foucault’s early work is moreconcerned with structure whereas his more poststructuralistlate work is concerned with practice and power. For criticalrealism all three need to be distinguished. For Bhaskarstructure is most significant and he writes that:




All social structures—for instance, the economy, the state,the family, language—depend upon or presuppose socialrelations…The relations into which people enter pre-existthe individuals who enter into them, and whose activityreproduces or transforms them; so they are themselvesstructures. And it is to these structures of social relationsthat realism directs our attention... (: )

Bhaskar argues that social structures are different fromnatural structures in that they are praxis and concept depen-dent. Social structures, unlike natural structures, depend bothon human activity and on some kind of human conceptionof that activity. The fact that social structures are praxis andconcept dependent means that the objects of social scienceare thus of a social and historical nature, far more specificand context dependent than are the objects of natural science.

What is important about Bhaskar’s formulation is that itmaintains an account of structure and an account of agencywithout the humanist or hermeneutic reduction of societyto human actions or understandings. First, it insists on theprimacy of social structure, but still leaves room for humanagency to have an influence as shall later be seen. AlthoughFoucault’s work does contain some conception of structure,this is a) usually bound up with discourses and b) leaveslittle room for agency in the sense understood by criticalrealists. Second, critical realism insists on the relativelyenduring nature of social structures as continually reproducedand occasionally transformed. By contrast, Foucault’s workgradually loses its conception of structure, and we are offeredinstead a rather unclear account of social practices, apparatu-ses and power relations. Foucault’s social ontology is contin-gent, fragmented, pluralistic and dispersed. And without aconception of relatively enduring social structures, there islittle chance of an account of social transformation andhuman emancipation.

Still, Foucault’s work contains a number of insights thatshould be incorporated into a realist account of society.Discipline and Punish is important in examining the covertand dispersed forms of authority, surveillance and judgment.In particular, it sets out a theory of disciplinary power thatchallenges traditional views that view power in terms oflegitimacy and consent. Foucault’s notion of disciplinaryregulation can be seen as an alternative to the idea ofconsensual agreement, although we have noted that this raises




problems about Foucault’s lack of agency. For Foucault,the point is not whether subjects consent to power, but howpower creates the subject. In this sense consent is notnecessary, for the subject has, from its inception, been createdas compliant. Nevertheless, the operation of disciplinarypower is a continuous process and discipline is achievedthrough surveillance, delegation of supervision, hierarchicobservation, normalising judgment and examination. Suchprocesses of normalisation are related to social order in thesense of imposing homogeneity and uniformity of thought,action and behaviour.

If subjectivity is no longer present at the receiving end,then it is also no longer present at the exercising end. Insteadof looking at where and from whom power comes, Foucaultis concerned only with its exercise and effects. He does notlink power it to a particular class, nor even to the state. It isclaimed that power is not something that is imposed uponus, but is something that runs through us: ‘In short this poweris exercised rather than possessed; it is not the “privilege”,acquired or preserved, of the dominant class, but the overalleffect of its strategic positions’ (Foucault : ).

Because Foucault is a poststructuralist, he tends to avoidthe question of underlying social structures, concentratinginstead on the network of power-knowledge relationsoperating at the level of their exercise. Because he is keento overcome the structuralist tendencies of his earlier work,Foucault attempts to rid his work of all forms of determinism,including what he sees as support for underlying structuresand essential social relations. This explains his criticism ofMarxism and its reliance on underlying categories of powerlike class and mode of production. Foucault argues that thepolitical conditions themselves are the very ground on whichthe subject, domains of knowledge and truth relations areformed (Foucault : ). The Marxist notion of ideologymust also be abandoned, for it is no longer the case thatideas are distorted by power relations, economic relationsor class relations but rather, power and knowledge alwaysact together so that the ‘effects of truth are produced withindiscourses that, in themselves, are neither true nor false’(Foucault b: ). The trouble with Foucault’s alter-native is that it relies on the elision of power, structure andknowledge whereas critical realism insists on their distinc-tion. By making such a distinction, it is possible to saysomething about the purpose of such social relations. By




denying the importance of classes or the state or underlyingeconomic relations, it is never clear exactly what power isexercised for and, consequently, it cannot be clearly said whatit is that any possible resistance may be exercised against.

This problem of power, structure and agency clearlycauses serious tensions in Foucault’s work and explains hisconstantly changing position. It can be said that despite theshift from structure to power, and despite the insistence thatresistance and struggle occurs, Foucault’s work on discip-linary power still overemphasises its monolithic and cohesivenature. It seems to be everywhere, and it seems to be overlyeffective in achieving conformity and regulation. There seemsto be little space for difference, dissension, sub-culture oralternative strategies. Foucault’s work does introduce theidea of social norms and meaningful agreement, but only inthe context of routinised behaviour, and making disciplinarymodes of power appear natural.

Foucault’s late works start to move away from the morenegative view of power with its one-sided focus on theinstitutional basis of power. There is a shift in focus towardspower in relation to the subject. There is an interplay betweenpower and freedom as individuals struggle against imposedidentities. Life is not totally integrated into techniques thatgovern and administer—it constantly escapes them (Foucault: ). In this less monolithic account of power, tech-niques of domination are balanced with techniques of theself. This is in keeping with the view that the human bodyacts as the centre of different power struggles and allowsFoucault to place more emphasis on practical self-conscious-ness, critical self-awareness and reflexivity.

Foucault talks of the tactical polyvalence of discourseswhere discourse is no longer monolithic but relational andcontested. Discourses become tactical elements, embodiedin different relations and strategies. As Foucault says, theyare ‘multiple and mobile field of force relations, whereinfar-reaching, but never completely stable, effects of domina-tion are produced.’ (Foucault : )

This is important in showing that social power and socialcohesion is no longer monolithic or all-powerful. The explo-ration of the relation between techniques of government andtechniques of the self opens up the question of consent andtherefore the possibility of opposing or challenging dominantdiscourses and power relations. The problem though, as wehave stated, is that the shift towards first power, and then the




subject, is achieved at the cost of a structural analysis. Aswith the work of Nicos Poulantzas (), there is anabandonment of structuralism in favour of a relational viewof society, as if the two approaches cannot be combined.Although the relational approach emphasises that all socialrelations can be contested, without a notion of social struc-ture, we must wonder what there is to contest. It is not asurprise, therefore, that Foucault is unable to offer much inthe way of a counter-hegemonic strategy. One gets the feelingin fact, that when a coherent counter-hegemonic movementdoes emerge, Foucault would oppose it for the same reasonshe opposes the dominant hegemonic power—that it expressespower relations, coercion and so on. His view of power meansthat at best, opposition finds expression through a politicsof the self.

Governmentality and the state

We have stated how for critical realism a Marxist view ofsociety may have an advantage over Foucault in that itemphasises underlying structures and points to the causesof power as well as its effects. However, Foucault’s work ongovernmentality is important in correcting those approaches,including many Marxist ones, that tend to over-emphasisethe role of the economy or fetishise the power of the state. Itis argued here that Foucault’s theory of governmentalitycan be incorporated into an analysis of the social, but thaton its own it is a dangerous theory. The last section lookedat the lack of structure and lack of ontological depth inFoucault’s theory of power. We might claim that his theoryof power leads to a flat ontology that remains at the level ofthe surface play of power relations. This carries over intoFoucault’s work on governmentality which is characterisedby a lack of a notion of social stratification and hierarchi-sation of structures of power, as reflected in Foucault’s failureto accept the importance of the state in ordering the socialdomain (Foucault b ).

Foucault’s theory of governmentality rejects a general viewof the modern state, and sees it not as a unified apparatus, butas a network of different institutions and practices. Poweroperates not from a single source but through a set ofprocedures and techniques. Foucault is not concerned withthe possession of power but its exercise, application and effects,




and how it circulates through the social body. Instead oflooking at how groups or institutions exercise power, Foucaultlooks at the processes by which subjects are constituted as theeffects of power. His study of governmentality proceeds fromthe micro level where power is a part of our everyday routinesand practices. These are appropriated by macro powers andinterests—such as the state or the ruling class—but this viewreverses the traditional understanding that power is top-down.These methods are not invented by the ruling groups, rather,they utilise what already exists, adopting, adapting anddeveloping them for their own purposes. Therefore:

The state is superstructural in relation to a whole seriesof power networks that invest the body, sexuality, thefamily, kinship, knowledge, technology, and so forth. …thismetapower with its prohibitions can only take hold andsecure its footing where it is rooted in a whole series ofmultiple and indefinite power relations that supply thenecessary basis for the great negative forms of power.(Foucault b: )

Government is about much more than the actions of thestate—it is about forms of regulation, discipline and conductthrough every aspect of social life—that the state or othermacro powers may then be able to appropriate and use incertain ways.

In presenting this alternative model, Foucault distin-guishes between the practical rationality of government andthe normative basis of sovereignty. Modern governmentalityis based on the regulation and control of bodies where discip-lines introduce the power of the norm. Because of thesetechniques of normalisation, governmentality represents theintersection of politics and ethics. Discipline relies on thecapacity for self-control and government runs right down tothe individual.

Foucault’s work on governmentality focuses on power inrelation to people and populations. The operation of what iscalled bio-power is more effective and subtler that the politicsof sovereignty, and, as it is exercised over life and the body, isall encompassing. Bio-power is a form of politics concernedwith subjects as part of the population. Therefore Foucault isconcerned with issues like health, sexuality and reproductionand how these relate to the administration of management ofpopulations. It can be seen that Foucault does relate the




development of these forms of bio-power to the sphere ofeconomic processes and we find him arguing that:

This bio-power was without question an indispensableelement in the development of capitalism; the latter wouldnot have been possible without the controlled insertionof bodies into the machinery of production and theadjustment of the phenomena of population to economicprocesses’ (Foucault : -) .

This is important in maintaining an economic focus, but itadds to Marxism by emphasising that economics takes placewithin a wider social context and that the development ofsociety is not exclusively economic, but that the economicis interwoven with other social factors. In other words,Foucault’s work raises a combination of different issues andproblems that are highlighted by the terms governmentalityand bio-power.

Out of the problems of population, territory and wealth,a new science of political economy emerges (Foucault a:). The science of political economy establishes itself byseparating out the state and civil society and the politicaland legal order, and establishing the importance of the realmof self-interested market-based activity. With the new liberal-ism comes a critique of the excesses of state action, anargument for the limiting of the state role and an emphasison the private sphere of economic activity. Liberalism isactually about defining boundaries and spheres of regulation.Society is still regulated and governed, but liberalism placesemphasis on the role of the market and the private sphere inimposing a discipline that is legitimated as ‘natural’ andfree from state interference. Liberalism and political econo-my also constructs individual subjects as autonomous andrational decision makers. These discourses construct empiri-cal subjects with economic interests and preferences. Socialorder comes not just from the state but from private micro-structures. Foucault argues that liberalism is not so much acoherent political ideology as a justification for the rationali-sation of a style of government. It attempts to define a non-political private sphere of private interests beyond theoperation of the state and politics and subject to variouseconomic norms, standards and calculations.

This shows that there is still an important discursive aspectto governmentality. The term itself implies a combination




of government and mentality. A mentality of governmentmight mean the defining of a field of action, a discursivefield. Before power can be exercised, its objects need to bedefined, boundaries need to be established. The world has tobe coded and articulated which, for the new liberalism meantre-coding the politics of order, the nature of property andthe role of the state. Foucault writes of

The ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures,analyses, and reflections, the calculations and tactics thatallow the exercise of this very specific albeit complexform of power, which has as its target population, as itsprincipal form of knowledge political economy and as itsessential technical means apparatuses of security(Foucault a: -).

Security was now the cornerstone of liberal-bourgeois societyand concerns the freedom to pursue one’s independentinterests. Liberty is seen as key to governing social life andgiving it a natural sense of order. As Mark Neocleous argues(), liberty and security become virtually synonymous,the concept of police becomes crucial to understanding theideological power of law, order and security. Therefore, ourunderstanding of police needs to be given a wider, moreproductive role akin to something like policy. The role ofpolice is related to social security which likewise is a broadconcept encompassing welfare and socio-economic policy.For Foucault, ‘the health and physical well-being of popula-tions comes to figure as a political objective that the “police”of the social body must ensure along with those of economicregulation and the needs of order’ (Foucault c: ).The latter means that as capitalism develops, so does therole of police in mobilising the population, in particular theworkforce. The role of police is to put the idle to work andthe poor to labour, and in Neocleous’s words, to contributeto the fabrication of social order (Neocleous ).

These concepts are clearly useful in allowing us to under-stand the wider role of government in shaping the socialworld. The problem, as Neocleous points out, is that byfocussing on power in this wider sense, Foucault’s theorydoes not properly acknowledge the constitutive power ofthe state. Foucault is right to stress the dispersal of powerand the focus on networks of administrative power thatcontribute to the ordering of capitalist society, but these




insights are weakened because of Foucault’s rejection of thecentral role of the state. The state becomes no more than anaggregate of various micro-powers. It is not so much thatthese powers derive from the state but that they fall understate control. Instead of being a leading social force, thestate concept is dissolved into the social body and the exerciseof power. The disciplinary power that runs through the socialbody becomes deinstitutionalised with the state becomingjust one more locus of power among many (Neocleous :

). The state, lacking any unity of function, becomes nomore than a site of governmentality.

It is true that the state is not monolithic, but just becausegovernmentality utilises a multitude of regimes and institu-tions, this does not make state power pluralistic. There is atendency in Foucault’s work to dissolve the role of the stateand the realm of the political into power relations. The blurredboundary between the state and institutions of civil societymeans that Foucault is in danger of dissolving the politicalinto the social. Neocleous argues that without the state-civilsociety distinction we have a catch-all category of the social.He makes the insightful point that ‘[w]hereas Althusserconceptualises various aspects of civil society as part of thestate [Ideological State Apparatuses]…in the writings ofFoucault…it is the various aspects of the state apparatus thatare collapsed into the social body’ (Neocleous : ).

Mention of Ideological State Apparatuses recalls that theircounterpart is the Repressive State Apparatus. The problemis that Foucault’s analysis lacks the sense that governmentand the police role have something to do with violence andstate power. In rightly resisting the crude Marxism that seesthe state merely as an ‘armed body’ Foucault’s approach tostate power and governmentality moves away from idea ofrepressive state power almost entirely. Yet it is precisely thisrepressive role that makes the state more than simply anothersocial relation among many.

It can be seen, therefore, that Foucault tends to give powerrelations primacy over that out of which they emerge—underlying structures like the mode of production and domi-nant social bodies or relations like the state. Foucault iscorrect to argue against the essentialist view (again prevalentin many Marxist accounts) and maintain that power relationscannot be reduced to the state or mode of production. Butin contrast to this the critical realist notion of emergenceargues that power can emerge out of the state or mode of




production without being reducible to it. The concept ofemergence argues that power relations develop accordingto their own specific dynamics.

The concept of emergence indicates that critical realismadvocates a stratified conception of the social. Important socialdynamics such as might be indicated by power relations areemergent out of lower orders without being reducible tothem. Likewise, although critical realism would be criticalof a Marxism that argues for the absolute primacy of themode of production or the state, arguing instead for a moreplural conception of different social structures, it stillmaintains that these structures exist within some sort ofstructured hierarchy with some structures and relations moreimportant or influential than others.

The problem with the power concept is that it indicates alack of hierarchy in Foucault’s understanding of socialrelations. Because there is no single dominant social relation,this does not mean there is no order at all. Using criticalrealism, it is possible to argue for a social hierarchy of powerwithout reducing power to some essential basis. The argu-ment that the state is a main source of power and not simplyan amalgam of micro-powers does not lead to the view thatthere is an essential basis to the state. Rather, as AndrewCollier has argued (: ), such structures have somethingakin to a conatus or tendency to persist rather than fall apart.According to this view, therefore, the state performs itsfunctions as best it can in an open and complex environmentwhere it needs to adapt as necessary.

For critical realism power exists within a structuralcontext. By contrast, Foucault tends to reduce power to itsexercise or effects. The trouble with the Foucauldian view isnot only that it lacks a developed notion of structure as arguedin the previous section, but also that it lacks an adequatenotion of social stratification and hierarchy. This is not tosay that Foucault’s analysis of power and governmentality isunimportant, but its insights, if they are to be developed,must be integrated into a structural framework.

Technology, production and the postmodern

It may seem that we have been rather harsh on Foucault sofar. This is not in order to rubbish his ideas, quite the oppo-site. We have been critical precisely because some of his




concepts are worth developing, but that this must be donein a different framework. So his concepts of governmentality,discipline, bio-power and police require developing in thecontext of a critical realist ontology that maintains a struc-tured and stratified view of the social world.

Surprisingly then, Richard Marsden, in his book TheNature of Capital, and Pearce and Woodiwiss in their article‘Reading Foucault as a Realist’ do not make much of theissue of structure and stratification when comparing Foucaultand critical realism. However, Marsden does point to animportant area where Foucault can make a contribution whichis the question of a non-postmodern theory of flexibleproduction.

Such a view might be linked to the work of regulationtheorists like Bob Jessop who argue that production mustbe seen it its wider social context. Jessop, who operates withina critical realist framework can therefore utilise regulationistconcepts like industrial paradigm, accumulation regime andmode of regulation to indicate the institutional context withinwhich capitalist production occurs, alongside more Foucaul-dian concepts like discursive formation and hegemonicstrategy (Jessop ). Foucault’s concept of governmentalitycan therefore be seen as the intervention of the economyinto political practice and vice versa. Governmentality actsto perfect and intensify the processes it directs.

This approach should not be seen as something intrinsicto capitalism, but is established through particular powerrelations, disciplinary techniques, discourses and so on. Suchan approach focuses on the particular historical and socialforms within which capitalist production and accumulationoccurs. Therefore, the matter of social and historical formsmight be related to Marsden’s comment that ‘Marx explainsthe “why” of power and the law of motion of society andFoucault explains the “how” of power and the microphysicsof society’ (Marsden : ). For Marsden, the weaknessof Marx’s account is that he does not say much about howlabour is organised or regulated, about how the organisationof labour is achieved. Foucault, by contrast, does not explainthe ‘why’ of capitalist production, but is better able to explain‘how’ capital operates through mechanisms of power andprovides the detail of political economy (Marsden : ).

Foucault’s Discipline and Punish contains a number ofstatements that apply to the production process. For example,he writes that




At the emergence of large-scale industry, one finds, beneaththe division of the production process, the individualisingfragmentation of labour power; the distributions of thedisciplinary space often assured both (Foucault : ).

This disciplining and division of the body is relevant toTaylorist and Fordist techniques of production and relatesto the importance of controlling the body, placing it underconstant supervision and controlling or manipulating itsoperation. This involves breaking down the body, rearrangingit, establishing a political anatomy and mechanics of power(Foucault : ). Elements are defined according tothe place they occupy in a system of classification. Foucaultmentions Marx who uses the analogy between the divisionof labour and military tactics where forces are combinedunder a precise system of command. Discipline is about thecreation of an efficient machine (Foucault : -).Discipline arranges and hierarchises. So the productionprocess is linked to hierarchical observation, normalisingjudgement, examination and prescription.

It is as a force of production that the body is investedwith relations of power and subjected. Therefore, disciplinarytechniques are a means to determine abstract labour of anaverage intensity, to achieve a quantitative standard. Rules‘function as a minimum threshold, as an average to be respec-ted or as an optimum towards one must move’ (Foucault: ). Labour becomes simple, uniform and homoge-nous. So it is disciplinary power that organises labour intoa productive power or force (Marsden : ). The twoprocesses go together, the accumulation of people and theaccumulation of capital. Bodies are rendered docile so theycan be organised as a productive force.

Writing generally, Foucault states,

‘Discipline’ may be identified neither with an institutionnor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modalityfor its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments,techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it isa ‘physics’ over an ‘anatomy’ of power, a technology(Foucault : ).

We have stated that Foucault’s account of power and disci-pline lacks a proper grounding. He is correct to suggest itcannot be reduced to an institution or apparatus as some




instrumental or sovereign theory of power might claim. Butneither is discipline left up in the air. Let us rescue theseconcepts, therefore, by suggesting that discipline might berelated to something like a mode of regulation or accumu-lation regime. In critical realist-Marxist terms, such regimesrelate, on the one hand to the need to reproduce dominantsocial structures and secure the unity of the social formation,on the other, to actual hegemonic projects and state strategies(Jessop , Joseph ).

Drawing on the work of David Harvey (), Marsdenargues that Foucault’s work offers an explanation of thepostmodern as the accelerated turnover of capital, the com-pression of time and space, flexible accumulation strategies,new waves of commodification and the hyper-mobility ofcapital. As labour is organised, society is atomised, productionrelations are materialised and fetishised and the state isidealised and reified (Marsden : ). Although we mustbe careful with the term postmodern, it would certainly makesense to see the above features in terms of hegemonicstrategies, discursive formations, modes of regulation andregimes of accumulation.

Conclusion: Foucault, realism and critique

It has been argued that in Foucault’s early work there isstructural depth, but it is of a more discursive nature. Hislater work on power, although mentioning how disciplinehierarchises, explicitly rejects the critical realist notion ofunderlying structures and generative mechanisms—as, forexample, in the case of the Marxist focus on relations ofproduction, or on the underlying conditions that generateideology. This rejection of underlying relations indicates alack of stratification in Foucault’s social ontology which isalso reflected in his refusal to see a hierarchy of socialinstitutions and in particular, his downplaying of the role ofthe state. Generally, it can be said that the account of powerfound in Foucault’s work on discipline and governmentalitysuffers from a lack of structure and social stratification. It isnecessary to state that power is no substitute for structure.Foucault’s work on governmentality and the disciplinarytechniques of social life and the production process do offermany insights that explain the ‘how’ of socio-political power.But these insights need a structural grounding.




Although Foucault’s work is important in highlightingthe relation between power and knowledge, critical realismis opposed to the reduction of knowledge to power relations,arguing that we must understand social practice in relationto the reproduction and transformation of social structures.This restores the role of agency that is missing in much ofFoucault’s work and argues that people are not merely docilebodies or discursive constructs, but are active and dynamicagents. Power relations can be challenged providing theknowledge people have has an emancipatory aspect.

On this Bhaskar writes that

the critical role of the human sciences in human historyis not an optional extra: it is intrinsic to their explanatoryfunction—for this depends indispensably on the iden-tification and description, and proceeds naturally to theexplanation, of ideas (Bhaskar, : ).

These ideas are explained by linking beliefs to their causes.Therefore, critical realism questions not only social ideas,but also the social processes that generate such ideas. Bhaskarlinks this critique to the question of human emancipation inthat a critique of ideas leads to a critique of that whichproduces them which in turn poses the question of transfor-ming that cause. It has been argued above that becauseFoucault links his critique of ideas to a study of social institu-tions, practices and hegemonic power relations, his theoryalso comes close to explanatory critique and emancipatoryaxiology. The problem, however, is that the power-knowledgeinsight is not related to ontological realism and remains ata deconstructive level. For all its critical insights, we areleft wondering as to the emancipatory potential of Foucault’swork. As an example, one well known collection on Foucaultbegins with the argument:

The kinds of political analysis presented in this volumeare not liable or designed to inspire or guide new politicalmovements, transform the current agenda of politicaldebate or generate new plans for the organisation ofsocieties. Their claim would be, at most, to help politicalthought to grasp certain present realities, then perhapsproviding a more informed basis for practical choice andimagination (Gordon : ).




First, it might be argued that offering a practical grasp ofpresent realities is hardly a radical strategy. To use Bhas-kar’s words, ‘emancipation depends on the transformationof structures, not the amelioration of states of affairs’ (Bhaskar: ). Second, it must be wondered if Foucault’s argu-ments are capable of offering a radical agenda or plans for anew ordering of society. Critical realism conceives of theordering of society in terms of relatively enduring andcohesive social relations and structures. Foucault, with hisemphasis on contingency, difference and discontinuity is ableto provide a critique of these relations, but cannot developthis in an ontological direction. His work cannot have trans-formative potential if it does not have a developed conceptionof the underlying structures that agents must transform.Consequently his later writings are strategic without astrategy, and his critique is that of the marginal outsider,suspicious of all strategies and discourses including thoseaiming for some sort of emancipation.

Critical realism, with its immanent critique of ideas, leadsto critique of the institutions and social structures that sustainthem. There is a danger that Foucault collapses thisdistinction and thus offers little by way of transformatoryvision. In short, Foucault’s work can offer a lot. But itsemancipatory potential will only be realised within a criticalrealist ontology.

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8 foucault and reality

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