8 Foucault and Reality

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Capital & Class
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DOI: 10.1177/030981680408200108
2004 28: 143 Capital & Class
Jonathan Joseph
Foucault and reality
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143 Foucault and reality
Introduction
T
his article looks at Foucault from the standpoint of
realist philosophy, in particular the critical realism
developed by Roy Bhaskar and others. So far little
has been said on this possible connection, although this article
examines some of the claims made by Richard Marsden in
his recent book, The Nature of Capital. The opening sections
concentrate on epistemological issues and in particular the
criticisms made of Foucaults conception of truth. These
sections also distinguish between Foucaults early, middle
and late works and take up the debate in relation to some of
the claims of postmodernism. Foucaults early works are
heavily inuenced by an anti-humanist structuralism which
is employed in the studies of madness and illness and
theoretically elaborated in The Order of Things and The
Archaeology of Knowledge. These works attempt to study social
history according to changes in discourse. The concept of
discourse becomes an overarching category that explains
the cohesion and unity of social practices. It is argued that
while there are problems with Foucaults notion of discourse,
his position should be distinguished from the postmodern
approach. The third section argues that Foucaults later work
moves away from discourse and concerns itself more with
practice and power. However, Foucault also moves away
from structure, leaving a social ontology that is fragmented,
pluralistic and dispersed. This is seen to be the main weakness
in Foucaults work on governmentality which is covered in
the fourth section. It is argued that critical realisms concep-
tion of a structured and stratied social world is necessary if
we are to conceive of traditional Marxist notions of state
power and underlying economic relations. However,
Foucault and reality
Jonathan Joseph
by Pepe Portillo on July 31, 2014 cnc.sagepub.com Downloaded from
Capital & Class #82 144
Foucaults work does add considerably to a Marxist
understanding of the way the social operates through
techniques of discipline and regulation and this is covered
in the nal section in relation to the production process.
Knowledge and the real world
On a spectrum that runs from realism to postmodernism
Foucault stands somewhere in the middle. Critical realism
is driven by the need to oer some explanatory power for
how we understand the world around us, while remaining
aware of the limitations of such an exercise. Ontologically
bold in recognising the need to oer an explanation, critical
realism is epistemically cautious in how it regards the status
of this explanation. Caution comes from the premise that
the real world is independent of the knowledge we have of it
and that the world itself and the knowledge we have of it are
not one and the same thing. Consequently, all knowledge is
necessarily fallible. The object of knowledge is intransitive,
the knowledge we have of it is transitive. This transitive
domain is subject to the kind of power-knowledge relations
discussed by Foucault. This does not, however, aect the
status of the knowledge-independent intransitive realm. As
Bhaskar writes: The intransitive objects of knowledge are
in general invariant to our knowledge of them; they are the
real things and structures, mechanisms and processes, events
and possibilities of the world; and for the most part they are
quite independent of us (Bhaskar 1;8: zz).
For the postmodernist, there is no such distinction
between the intransitive and the transitive, never mind any
comprehension of structures, mechanisms or processes.
Knowledge and reality are regarded as one and the same
thing, or at least reality outside of knowledge is declared
meaningless. Postmodern thought displays the clearest case
of what Bhaskar calls the epistemic fallacy, or the reduction
of the world to the knowledge that we have of it. For those
foolish enough to take Derrida at his (or his translators)
word, there is nothing beyond the text, no outside text, no
intransitive reality. Of course such a position can lead to the
kind of absurdities of which we are all too familiarBaudri-
llards hyper-real takes over from the real: It is a question
of substituting the signs of the real for the real. (Baudrillard
1(: z)so that everything becomes a media fabrication
and there are no real-world events like the Gulf War
(Baudrillard 11). Instead, events such as wars take place
among 1v audiences, the distinctions between truth and
falsehood and fact and ction are blurred and wars become
performative and rhetorical constructs (see Norris 1z).
Foucaults work does contain an irrealist impulse, which
is to stake his all on the transitive domain of knowledge,
and to dene reality according to the power of discourses or
the Nietzschean struggles of power-knowledge. There is a
tendency in Foucault to reduce truth-claims to rhetorical-
narrative strategies (Norris 1z: 8). Yet the power-
knowledge relation is tempting for a realist too. Against the
naivety of positivist inspired social science, it is important
to show that the transitive domain of human knowledge is
full of power relations and that knowledge develops, not
simply on the basis of trying to understand the world beyond
it, but according to the dynamics of its practical, institutional
and discursive context. Epistemic caution is necessary for
the transitive realm is full of dierent theories, knowledge
claims and views of the world. But this rearms the need to
uphold a knowledge independent intransitive realm, over
which such battles are fought, and which must be appealed
to when dierent theories make dierent claims. Firstly, for
there to be a dispute between competing descriptive discour-
ses, these discourses must have a common referent outside
of themselves, or else the contestation is meaningless.
Secondly, critical realism argues that the ordering of transitive
knowledge into dierent theories, practices and disciplines
indicates a wider ordering of the intransitive world that this
knowledge is about. Critical realism argues that the possi-
bility of knowledge and the forms that it takes (as practices
and disciplines) reects the fact that the world has an ordered,
intelligible and relatively enduring structure that is open to
scientic investigation. That knowledge is possible, albeit
disputable, presupposes that the world is a certain way and
that claims may be made about its nature. Critical realism
makes a transcendental argument along the lines that given
that knowledge is possible and is meaningful, this pre-
supposes that the world itself is a certain way. In place of
Kantian transcendental idealism that moves from the status
of knowledge to the necessary structure of the mind, critical
realism looks at what knowledge and human practice
presupposes 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 particular
way that is open to investigation.
Therefore, while Foucault is useful in highlighting the
dynamics of the transitive realm, his views may become
dangerous if the complexities of the transitive realm mean
that we can never get beyond it, if the search for knowledge
of the intransitive world becomes a lost cause. If this becomes
the case, then knowledge becomes knowledge of knowledge,
not of the real world. The danger in Foucault is if access to
the real world is cut o, if knowledge-conditions are inter-
nalised in discourse, or reduced to the will to truth, if
epistemic relativism becomes judgmental relativism so that
the diversity of truth claims means there are no grounds for
judging these discursive paradigms. Then we end up with
Lyotards postmodernist language-game position whereby:
All we can do is gaze in wonderment at the diversity of
discursive species (Lyotard: 18(: z6).
Foucaults archaeology looks at the rules of formation of
a group of statements; the a priori set of rules that allows
discourse to function. Discursive relations oer discourse
objects 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
18: 8). Even in this earlier work there is an understanding
that discourse, or the discursive formation within which it
develops, refers not only to knowledge and language, but
also to the bodies, institutions and material practices within
which or alongside which this knowledge develops. He writes
that even the discursive formation analysed in his early book
The Birth of the Clinic is much broader than medical
discourseit encompasses a whole series of political reec-
tions, reform programmes, legislative measures, admini-
strative settlements, and ethical considerations. (Foucault
18: z). Discourse must be understood as referring to an
array of social practices, institutions and projects. Then, in
The Archaeology of Knowledge, there is a further move away
from high structuralism towards the view that social unity is
secured by more than just discourse. Institutions and practices
are no longer included within discourse: Archaeology also
reveals relations between discursive formations and non-
discursive domains (institutions, political events, economic
practices and processes). (Foucault 18: 16z) 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 material
practices that support and interact with discourses.
A realist appraisal of these positions would therefore be
keen to highlight 1) that Foucaults notion of discursive
formation might be compatible with the critical realist
insistence on the kinds of underlying social structure that
will be mentioned below. 2) That contrary to the approach
of postmodernism, Foucault certainly does not reduce reality
to discourse. 3) That his work displays a materialist position
that examines the context in which discourses operate and
the other practices and institutions that interact with
discourse.
Epistemology and genealogy
The Archaeology of Knowledge is possibly the closest Foucault
gets to a critical realist-type position. It is the moment where
the insights of the structuralist positionan emphasis on
underlying structureintersects with a more materialist
recognition that discourse operates alongside other social
practices. However, as the former position gives way to the
latter, Foucaults work undergoes a transition from an
emphasis on archaeology to the Nietzschean inspired
genealogy that welcomes in the more diverse, fragmented
and less unied aspects of society. The next section will look
at what this means from the point of view of Foucaults
social ontology. As far as the status of knowledge is concerned,
Foucault moves from the unity and coherence of discourse
to its plurality, discontinuity and fragility. In Nietzschean
fashion, Foucault explores the connections between know-
ledge and power and how Nietzsches will to power might
be interpreted as a will to knowledge.
From this it would seem that Foucaults position is in
keeping with the main features of postmodernism, namely,
it criticises the idea of scientic rationality, opposes a unitary
notion of progress and establishes a critique of representation
and truth-claims. However, a postmodernist response to
Foucaults insight into the relation between knowledge and
power would be to give up on the idea of social science
since it cannot provide a truthful understanding of the world,
but is itself merely the expression of dominant groups or
powers. This is certainly the case with Lyotard, but also with
Foucauldian-inspired writers like Laclau and Moue who
reduce discourse to the process of its hegemonic articulation
through power relations. In fact their position goes further
than Foucaults for they reject his distinction between
discursive and non-discursive practices (Laclau and Moue
18: 1o;) so that everything is contained within discourse.
The articulation of discourse is a matter of power relations
and it is hegemonic status that determines validity.
But while postmodernists would consequently abandon
the idea that explanatory discourse has any special status,
there is no evidence that Foucault rejected the idea of social
science. On the contrary, much of his work takes the form
of a concrete historical enquiry. Foucaults work does not
remain at the abstract level of metatheory or discourse theory,
but applies itself to the social world and engages in historical
analysis. For Foucault to become a postmodernist, he would
have to renounce the riches of his own historical writings.
Foucaults Nietzschean genealogy leads him to criticise
the present by means of comparison with a past it tries to
claim superiority over. As can be seen, for example, with
Foucaults discussion of previous forms of punishment and
torture, his aim is not to pass judgement, but to make sense
of the past and to explain why in fact there is a coherence to
such practices and proceedings. So in highlighting how there
is a coherence and reason to these societies, Foucault would
seem to reject the irrationalism of postmodernism and its
idea that history and society are incoherent. Although
Foucault is questioning of reason, he does not reject it
altogether, but is concerned with its claims, limitations and
historical context. Such an approach is quite dierent to the
postmodern abandonment of reason and the idea that we
have no grounds to develop even a critique of a reason.
Although Foucaults early work is preoccupied with
discourse at the expense of other social relations, here it is
argued that discourses are unifying and cohesive, whereas
for postmodernism discourses are seen as multiple and
fragmented. Of course Foucault inuences postmodernism
with his own poststructural move towards a diverse and
pluralistic social world based on the operation of power.
But the big dierence is that Foucaults shift emphasises
various material practices, not just discursive ones. For all
its faults, Foucaults study of these diverse practices is useful
and insightful. By contrast, not only does postmodernism
not produce any such insights, but it is in fact forced to
denounce any attempt that might do so.
The problem with Foucault is that in arguing that the
production of knowledge is bound up with historical regimes
of power he displays a tendency to reduce truth claims to
power eects. Cognitive validity is relative to a particular
system of practices, discourses and power relations or what
he calls a regime of truth. If knowledge is relativised to
such a degree, then there can be no basis for objective
knowledge. All statements and accounts of the world disguise
hegemonic power relations and dominant discourses. This
simply invites a critical realist like Andrew Sayer to ask, if
this is the case, why it is then that we should we take
Foucaults own accounts seriously? He argues that in fact
Foucaults relativisation of truth involves a performative
contradiction which invites ridiculethere is no truth
beyond whatever anyone denes as the truthand thats the
truth! (Sayer zooo: ().
Sayers way of addressing the problem of relativism in
the concept of regimes of truth is to ask how this concept
ts in with Foucaults critical stance:
If all knowledge is the product of regimes of truth then
they can hardly be said to be a problem [this is simply
the way of things]. If, on the other hand, we are meant to
understand their existence as problematic, then this
implies 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 zooo:
()
The way out of this, then, would seem to be to bring back
reality in order to assess, not just truth but the regimes that
produce it. In other words, truth may take shape within
regimes of truth, but regimes of truth also take shape within
the wider world. Consequently, truth and knowledge are not
just internal to regimes of truth, but relate to the world beyond
and must be judged accordingly. If we do take a critical
attitude 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 dened in relation to
its explanatory adequacy.
This leads to a conception that truth is not only dened
by its relation to regimes of truth but also by its relation to
the world beyond. There is a need to move from the problems
of knowledge to the question of ontology and to examine
the real reason(s) for, or dialectical ground of, things as
distinct from propositions (Bhaskar 18: xxii). So whereas
for Foucault, the problems of truth are related to the transitive
domain of regimes of truth, for critical realism, the problems
of truth are a consequence of both the transitive domain,
and the intransitive reality that it tries to explain. Although
Foucault does not necessarily deny this intransitive domain,
his formulation of regimes of truth does not adequately take
this into account and in fact he succumbs to the idea that
because power-discourse is localised, his own critique should
operate at this localised level. Consequently, his critique is
deconstructive but not ontological. By contrast, critical
realism can break out of this delimiting situation quite
simply. For if we have problems getting to the truth, this is
not simply because of truths internal relation to discourse
or regime, but because truth is out there and beyond us.
Immediately the problem is ontologised.
As to Foucaults worth, this is often limited to the
deconstructive value of his work. In this deconstructive role,
his work sets out to question the status of narratives, truth
claims, practices and discourses. Like Derrida, he develops
a critique of the limits of reason, analyses its boundaries,
locates it in its socio-historical context and relates it to
power. His genealogical method attempts to uncover dierent
layers of epistemic organisation of knowledge and looks at
the history of its formation. All this is compatible with a
realist epistemology. The way that Foucault links his
critique of ideas to a study of institutions and hegemonic
power relations also brings his approach close to what
Bhaskar calls explanatory critique and emancipatory
axiology. The problem is that the power-knowledge insight
is not related to ontological realism. Of course, Foucault
does have an ontology, but as we shall go on to see, there
are problems with this ontology from a critical realist
standpoint.
Structure and power
It has been stated that Foucaults early work is more
concerned with structure whereas his more poststructuralist
late work is concerned with practice and power. For critical
realism all three need to be distinguished. For Bhaskar
structure is most signicant and he writes that:
All social structuresfor instance, the economy, the state,
the family, languagedepend upon or presuppose social
relationsThe relations into which people enter pre-exist
the individuals who enter into them, and whose activity
reproduces or transforms them; so they are themselves
structures. And it is to these structures of social relations
that realism directs our attention... (18: ()
Bhaskar argues that social structures are dierent from
natural structures in that they are praxis and concept depen-
dent. Social structures, unlike natural structures, depend both
on human activity and on some kind of human conception
of that activity. The fact that social structures are praxis and
concept dependent means that the objects of social science
are thus of a social and historical nature, far more specic
and context dependent than are the objects of natural science.
What is important about Bhaskars formulation is that it
maintains an account of structure and an account of agency
without the humanist or hermeneutic reduction of society
to human actions or understandings. First, it insists on the
primacy of social structure, but still leaves room for human
agency to have an inuence as shall later be seen. Although
Foucaults work does contain some conception of structure,
this is a) usually bound up with discourses and b) leaves
little room for agency in the sense understood by critical
realists. Second, critical realism insists on the relatively
enduring nature of social structures as continually reproduced
and occasionally transformed. By contrast, Foucaults work
gradually loses its conception of structure, and we are oered
instead a rather unclear account of social practices, apparatu-
ses and power relations. Foucaults social ontology is contin-
gent, fragmented, pluralistic and dispersed. And without a
conception of relatively enduring social structures, there is
little chance of an account of social transformation and
human emancipation.
Still, Foucaults work contains a number of insights that
should be incorporated into a realist account of society.
Discipline and Punish is important in examining the covert
and dispersed forms of authority, surveillance and judgment.
In particular, it sets out a theory of disciplinary power that
challenges traditional views that view power in terms of
legitimacy and consent. Foucaults notion of disciplinary
regulation can be seen as an alternative to the idea of
consensual agreement, although we have noted that this raises
problems about Foucaults lack of agency. For Foucault,
the point is not whether subjects consent to power, but how
power creates the subject. In this sense consent is not
necessary, for the subject has, from its inception, been created
as compliant. Nevertheless, the operation of disciplinary
power is a continuous process and discipline is achieved
through surveillance, delegation of supervision, hierarchic
observation, normalising judgment and examination. Such
processes of normalisation are related to social order in the
sense 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. Instead
of looking at where and from whom power comes, Foucault
is concerned only with its exercise and eects. He does not
link power it to a particular class, nor even to the state. It is
claimed that power is not something that is imposed upon
us, but is something that runs through us: In short this power
is exercised rather than possessed; it is not the privilege,
acquired or preserved, of the dominant class, but the overall
eect of its strategic positions (Foucault 1;: z6).
Because Foucault is a poststructuralist, he tends to avoid
the question of underlying social structures, concentrating
instead on the network of power-knowledge relations
operating at the level of their exercise. Because he is keen
to 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 structures
and essential social relations. This explains his criticism of
Marxism and its reliance on underlying categories of power
like class and mode of production. Foucault argues that the
political conditions themselves are the very ground on which
the subject, domains of knowledge and truth relations are
formed (Foucault 1;: z;). The Marxist notion of ideology
must also be abandoned, for it is no longer the case that
ideas are distorted by power relations, economic relations
or class relations but rather, power and knowledge always
act together so that the eects of truth are produced within
discourses that, in themselves, are neither true nor false
(Foucault zoo1b: 11). The trouble with Foucaults alter-
native is that it relies on the elision of power, structure and
knowledge whereas critical realism insists on their distinc-
tion. By making such a distinction, it is possible to say
something about the purpose of such social relations. By
denying the importance of classes or the state or underlying
economic relations, it is never clear exactly what power is
exercised for and, consequently, it cannot be clearly said what
it is that any possible resistance may be exercised against.
This problem of power, structure and agency clearly
causes serious tensions in Foucaults work and explains his
constantly changing position. It can be said that despite the
shift from structure to power, and despite the insistence that
resistance and struggle occurs, Foucaults work on discip-
linary power still overemphasises its monolithic and cohesive
nature. It seems to be everywhere, and it seems to be overly
eective in achieving conformity and regulation. There seems
to be little space for dierence, dissension, sub-culture or
alternative strategies. Foucaults work does introduce the
idea of social norms and meaningful agreement, but only in
the context of routinised behaviour, and making disciplinary
modes of power appear natural.
Foucaults late works start to move away from the more
negative view of power with its one-sided focus on the
institutional basis of power. There is a shift in focus towards
power in relation to the subject. There is an interplay between
power and freedom as individuals struggle against imposed
identities. Life is not totally integrated into techniques that
govern and administerit constantly escapes them (Foucault
181: 1(). In this less monolithic account of power, tech-
niques of domination are balanced with techniques of the
self. This is in keeping with the view that the human body
acts as the centre of dierent power struggles and allows
Foucault to place more emphasis on practical self-conscious-
ness, critical self-awareness and reexivity.
Foucault talks of the tactical polyvalence of discourses
where discourse is no longer monolithic but relational and
contested. Discourses become tactical elements, embodied
in dierent relations and strategies. As Foucault says, they
are multiple and mobile eld of force relations, wherein
far-reaching, but never completely stable, eects of domina-
tion are produced. (Foucault 181: 1oz)
This is important in showing that social power and social
cohesion is no longer monolithic or all-powerful. The explo-
ration of the relation between techniques of government and
techniques of the self opens up the question of consent and
therefore the possibility of opposing or challenging dominant
discourses and power relations. The problem though, as we
have stated, is that the shift towards rst power, and then the
subject, is achieved at the cost of a structural analysis. As
with the work of Nicos Poulantzas (1;6), there is an
abandonment of structuralism in favour of a relational view
of society, as if the two approaches cannot be combined.
Although the relational approach emphasises that all social
relations can be contested, without a notion of social struc-
ture, we must wonder what there is to contest. It is not a
surprise, therefore, that Foucault is unable to oer much in
the way of a counter-hegemonic strategy. One gets the feeling
in fact, that when a coherent counter-hegemonic movement
does emerge, Foucault would oppose it for the same reasons
he opposes the dominant hegemonic powerthat it expresses
power relations, coercion and so on. His view of power means
that at best, opposition nds expression through a politics
of the self.
Governmentality and the state
We have stated how for critical realism a Marxist view of
society may have an advantage over Foucault in that it
emphasises underlying structures and points to the causes
of power as well as its eects. However, Foucaults work on
governmentality is important in correcting those approaches,
including many Marxist ones, that tend to over-emphasise
the role of the economy or fetishise the power of the state. It
is argued here that Foucaults theory of governmentality
can be incorporated into an analysis of the social, but that
on its own it is a dangerous theory. The last section looked
at the lack of structure and lack of ontological depth in
Foucaults theory of power. We might claim that his theory
of power leads to a at ontology that remains at the level of
the surface play of power relations. This carries over into
Foucaults work on governmentality which is characterised
by a lack of a notion of social stratication and hierarchi-
sation of structures of power, as reected in Foucaults failure
to accept the importance of the state in ordering the social
domain (Foucault zoo1b ).
Foucaults theory of governmentality rejects a general view
of the modern state, and sees it not as a unied apparatus, but
as a network of dierent institutions and practices. Power
operates not from a single source but through a set of
procedures and techniques. Foucault is not concerned with
the possession of power but its exercise, application and eects,
and how it circulates through the social body. Instead of
looking at how groups or institutions exercise power, Foucault
looks at the processes by which subjects are constituted as the
eects of power. His study of governmentality proceeds from
the micro level where power is a part of our everyday routines
and practices. These are appropriated by macro powers and
interestssuch as the state or the ruling classbut this view
reverses 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 and
developing them for their own purposes. Therefore:
The state is superstructural in relation to a whole series
of power networks that invest the body, sexuality, the
family, kinship, knowledge, technology, and so forth. this
metapower with its prohibitions can only take hold and
secure its footing where it is rooted in a whole series of
multiple and indenite power relations that supply the
necessary basis for the great negative forms of power.
(Foucault zoo1b: 1z)
Government is about much more than the actions of the
stateit is about forms of regulation, discipline and conduct
through every aspect of social lifethat the state or other
macro powers may then be able to appropriate and use in
certain ways.
In presenting this alternative model, Foucault distin-
guishes between the practical rationality of government and
the normative basis of sovereignty. Modern governmentality
is based on the regulation and control of bodies where discip-
lines introduce the power of the norm. Because of these
techniques of normalisation, governmentality represents the
intersection of politics and ethics. Discipline relies on the
capacity for self-control and government runs right down to
the individual.
Foucaults work on governmentality focuses on power in
relation to people and populations. The operation of what is
called bio-power is more eective and subtler that the politics
of sovereignty, and, as it is exercised over life and the body, is
all encompassing. Bio-power is a form of politics concerned
with subjects as part of the population. Therefore Foucault is
concerned with issues like health, sexuality and reproduction
and how these relate to the administration of management of
populations. It can be seen that Foucault does relate the
development of these forms of bio-power to the sphere of
economic processes and we nd him arguing that:
This bio-power was without question an indispensable
element in the development of capitalism; the latter would
not have been possible without the controlled insertion
of bodies into the machinery of production and the
adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic
processes (Foucault 181: 1(o-(1) .
This is important in maintaining an economic focus, but it
adds to Marxism by emphasising that economics takes place
within a wider social context and that the development of
society is not exclusively economic, but that the economic
is interwoven with other social factors. In other words,
Foucaults work raises a combination of dierent issues and
problems that are highlighted by the terms governmentality
and bio-power.
Out of the problems of population, territory and wealth,
a new science of political economy emerges (Foucault zoo1a:
z1;). The science of political economy establishes itself by
separating out the state and civil society and the political
and legal order, and establishing the importance of the realm
of self-interested market-based activity. With the new liberal-
ism comes a critique of the excesses of state action, an
argument for the limiting of the state role and an emphasis
on the private sphere of economic activity. Liberalism is
actually about dening boundaries and spheres of regulation.
Society is still regulated and governed, but liberalism places
emphasis on the role of the market and the private sphere in
imposing a discipline that is legitimated as natural and
free from state interference. Liberalism and political econo-
my also constructs individual subjects as autonomous and
rational decision makers. These discourses construct empiri-
cal subjects with economic interests and preferences. Social
order comes not just from the state but from private micro-
structures. Foucault argues that liberalism is not so much a
coherent political ideology as a justication for the rationali-
sation of a style of government. It attempts to dene a non-
political private sphere of private interests beyond the
operation of the state and politics and subject to various
economic norms, standards and calculations.
This shows that there is still an important discursive aspect
to governmentality. The term itself implies a combination
of government and mentality. A mentality of government
might mean the dening of a eld of action, a discursive
eld. Before power can be exercised, its objects need to be
dened, boundaries need to be established. The world has to
be coded and articulated which, for the new liberalism meant
re-coding the politics of order, the nature of property and
the role of the state. Foucault writes of
The ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures,
analyses, and reections, the calculations and tactics that
allow the exercise of this very specic albeit complex
form of power, which has as its target population, as its
principal form of knowledge political economy and as its
essential technical means apparatuses of security
(Foucault zoo1a: z1-zo).
Security was now the cornerstone of liberal-bourgeois society
and concerns the freedom to pursue ones independent
interests. Liberty is seen as key to governing social life and
giving it a natural sense of order. As Mark Neocleous argues
(zooo), liberty and security become virtually synonymous,
the concept of police becomes crucial to understanding the
ideological power of law, order and security. Therefore, our
understanding of police needs to be given a wider, more
productive role akin to something like policy. The role of
police is related to social security which likewise is a broad
concept encompassing welfare and socio-economic policy.
For Foucault, the health and physical well-being of popula-
tions comes to gure as a political objective that the police
of the social body must ensure along with those of economic
regulation and the needs of order (Foucault zoo1c: ).
The latter means that as capitalism develops, so does the
role of police in mobilising the population, in particular the
workforce. The role of police is to put the idle to work and
the poor to labour, and in Neocleouss words, to contribute
to the fabrication of social order (Neocleous zooo).
These concepts are clearly useful in allowing us to under-
stand the wider role of government in shaping the social
world. The problem, as Neocleous points out, is that by
focussing on power in this wider sense, Foucaults theory
does not properly acknowledge the constitutive power of
the state. Foucault is right to stress the dispersal of power
and the focus on networks of administrative power that
contribute to the ordering of capitalist society, but these
insights are weakened because of Foucaults rejection of the
central role of the state. The state becomes no more than an
aggregate of various micro-powers. It is not so much that
these powers derive from the state but that they fall under
state control. Instead of being a leading social force, the
state concept is dissolved into the social body and the exercise
of power. The disciplinary power that runs through the social
body becomes deinstitutionalised with the state becoming
just one more locus of power among many (Neocleous 16:
;o). The state, lacking any unity of function, becomes no
more than a site of governmentality.
It is true that the state is not monolithic, but just because
governmentality utilises a multitude of regimes and institu-
tions, this does not make state power pluralistic. There is a
tendency in Foucaults work to dissolve the role of the state
and the realm of the political into power relations. The blurred
boundary between the state and institutions of civil society
means that Foucault is in danger of dissolving the political
into the social. Neocleous argues that without the state-civil
society distinction we have a catch-all category of the social.
He makes the insightful point that [w]hereas Althusser
conceptualises various aspects of civil society as part of the
state [Ideological State Apparatuses]in the writings of
Foucaultit is the various aspects of the state apparatus that
are collapsed into the social body (Neocleous 16: ;).
Mention of Ideological State Apparatuses recalls that their
counterpart is the Repressive State Apparatus. The problem
is that Foucaults analysis lacks the sense that government
and the police role have something to do with violence and
state power. In rightly resisting the crude Marxism that sees
the state merely as an armed body Foucaults approach to
state power and governmentality moves away from idea of
repressive state power almost entirely. Yet it is precisely this
repressive role that makes the state more than simply another
social relation among many.
It can be seen, therefore, that Foucault tends to give power
relations 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 is
correct to argue against the essentialist view (again prevalent
in many Marxist accounts) and maintain that power relations
cannot be reduced to the state or mode of production. But
in contrast to this the critical realist notion of emergence
argues that power can emerge out of the state or mode of
production without being reducible to it. The concept of
emergence argues that power relations develop according
to their own specic dynamics.
The concept of emergence indicates that critical realism
advocates a stratied conception of the social. Important social
dynamics such as might be indicated by power relations are
emergent out of lower orders without being reducible to
them. Likewise, although critical realism would be critical
of a Marxism that argues for the absolute primacy of the
mode of production or the state, arguing instead for a more
plural conception of dierent social structures, it still
maintains that these structures exist within some sort of
structured hierarchy with some structures and relations more
important or inuential than others.
The problem with the power concept is that it indicates a
lack of hierarchy in Foucaults understanding of social
relations. Because there is no single dominant social relation,
this does not mean there is no order at all. Using critical
realism, it is possible to argue for a social hierarchy of power
without reducing power to some essential basis. The argu-
ment that the state is a main source of power and not simply
an amalgam of micro-powers does not lead to the view that
there is an essential basis to the state. Rather, as Andrew
Collier has argued (18: 8), such structures have something
akin to a conatus or tendency to persist rather than fall apart.
According to this view, therefore, the state performs its
functions as best it can in an open and complex environment
where it needs to adapt as necessary.
For critical realism power exists within a structural
context. By contrast, Foucault tends to reduce power to its
exercise or eects. The trouble with the Foucauldian view is
not only that it lacks a developed notion of structure as argued
in the previous section, but also that it lacks an adequate
notion of social stratication and hierarchy. This is not to
say that Foucaults analysis of power and governmentality is
unimportant, 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 so
far. 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 done
in a dierent framework. So his concepts of governmentality,
discipline, bio-power and police require developing in the
context of a critical realist ontology that maintains a struc-
tured and stratied view of the social world.
Surprisingly then, Richard Marsden, in his book The
Nature of Capital, and Pearce and Woodiwiss in their article
Reading Foucault as a Realist do not make much of the
issue of structure and stratication when comparing Foucault
and critical realism. However, Marsden does point to an
important area where Foucault can make a contribution which
is the question of a non-postmodern theory of exible
production.
Such a view might be linked to the work of regulation
theorists like Bob Jessop who argue that production must
be seen it its wider social context. Jessop, who operates within
a critical realist framework can therefore utilise regulationist
concepts like industrial paradigm, accumulation regime and
mode of regulation to indicate the institutional context within
which capitalist production occurs, alongside more Foucaul-
dian concepts like discursive formation and hegemonic
strategy (Jessop zooz). Foucaults concept of governmentality
can therefore be seen as the intervention of the economy
into political practice and vice versa. Governmentality acts
to perfect and intensify the processes it directs.
This approach should not be seen as something intrinsic
to capitalism, but is established through particular power
relations, disciplinary techniques, discourses and so on. Such
an approach focuses on the particular historical and social
forms within which capitalist production and accumulation
occurs. Therefore, the matter of social and historical forms
might be related to Marsdens comment that Marx explains
the why of power and the law of motion of society and
Foucault explains the how of power and the microphysics
of society (Marsden 1: z6). For Marsden, the weakness
of Marxs account is that he does not say much about how
labour is organised or regulated, about how the organisation
of labour is achieved. Foucault, by contrast, does not explain
the why of capitalist production, but is better able to explain
how capital operates through mechanisms of power and
provides the detail of political economy (Marsden 1: 1().
Foucaults Discipline and Punish contains a number of
statements that apply to the production process. For example,
he writes that
At the emergence of large-scale industry, one nds, beneath
the division of the production process, the individualising
fragmentation of labour power; the distributions of the
disciplinary space often assured both (Foucault 1;: 1().
This disciplining and division of the body is relevant to
Taylorist and Fordist techniques of production and relates
to the importance of controlling the body, placing it under
constant supervision and controlling or manipulating its
operation. This involves breaking down the body, rearranging
it, establishing a political anatomy and mechanics of power
(Foucault 1;: 18). Elements are dened according to
the place they occupy in a system of classication. Foucault
mentions Marx who uses the analogy between the division
of labour and military tactics where forces are combined
under a precise system of command. Discipline is about the
creation of an ecient machine (Foucault 1;: 16-6().
Discipline arranges and hierarchises. So the production
process is linked to hierarchical observation, normalising
judgement, examination and prescription.
It is as a force of production that the body is invested
with relations of power and subjected. Therefore, disciplinary
techniques are a means to determine abstract labour of an
average 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
1;: 18). Labour becomes simple, uniform and homoge-
nous. So it is disciplinary power that organises labour into
a productive power or force (Marsden 1: 1;(). The two
processes go together, the accumulation of people and the
accumulation of capital. Bodies are rendered docile so they
can be organised as a productive force.
Writing generally, Foucault states,
Discipline may be identied neither with an institution
nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality
for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments,
techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is
a physics over an anatomy of power, a technology
(Foucault 1;: z1).
We have stated that Foucaults account of power and disci-
pline lacks a proper grounding. He is correct to suggest it
cannot be reduced to an institution or apparatus as some
instrumental or sovereign theory of power might claim. But
neither is discipline left up in the air. Let us rescue these
concepts, therefore, by suggesting that discipline might be
related to something like a mode of regulation or accumu-
lation regime. In critical realist-Marxist terms, such regimes
relate, on the one hand to the need to reproduce dominant
social structures and secure the unity of the social formation,
on the other, to actual hegemonic projects and state strategies
(Jessop zooz, Joseph 18).
Drawing on the work of David Harvey (1o), Marsden
argues that Foucaults work oers an explanation of the
postmodern as the accelerated turnover of capital, the com-
pression of time and space, exible accumulation strategies,
new waves of commodication and the hyper-mobility of
capital. As labour is organised, society is atomised, production
relations are materialised and fetishised and the state is
idealised and reied (Marsden 1: zoz). Although we must
be careful with the term postmodern, it would certainly make
sense to see the above features in terms of hegemonic
strategies, discursive formations, modes of regulation and
regimes of accumulation.
Conclusion: Foucault, realism and critique
It has been argued that in Foucaults early work there is
structural depth, but it is of a more discursive nature. His
later work on power, although mentioning how discipline
hierarchises, explicitly rejects the critical realist notion of
underlying structures and generative mechanismsas, for
example, in the case of the Marxist focus on relations of
production, or on the underlying conditions that generate
ideology. This rejection of underlying relations indicates a
lack of stratication in Foucaults social ontology which is
also reected in his refusal to see a hierarchy of social
institutions and in particular, his downplaying of the role of
the state. Generally, it can be said that the account of power
found in Foucaults work on discipline and governmentality
suers from a lack of structure and social stratication. It is
necessary to state that power is no substitute for structure.
Foucaults work on governmentality and the disciplinary
techniques of social life and the production process do oer
many insights that explain the how of socio-political power.
But these insights need a structural grounding.
Although Foucaults work is important in highlighting
the relation between power and knowledge, critical realism
is opposed to the reduction of knowledge to power relations,
arguing that we must understand social practice in relation
to the reproduction and transformation of social structures.
This restores the role of agency that is missing in much of
Foucaults work and argues that people are not merely docile
bodies or discursive constructs, but are active and dynamic
agents. Power relations can be challenged providing the
knowledge people have has an emancipatory aspect.
On this Bhaskar writes that
the critical role of the human sciences in human history
is not an optional extra: it is intrinsic to their explanatory
functionfor this depends indispensably on the iden-
tication and description, and proceeds naturally to the
explanation, of ideas (Bhaskar, 186: 1).
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. Bhaskar
links this critique to the question of human emancipation in
that a critique of ideas leads to a critique of that which
produces them which in turn poses the question of transfor-
ming that cause. It has been argued above that because
Foucault links his critique of ideas to a study of social institu-
tions, practices and hegemonic power relations, his theory
also comes close to explanatory critique and emancipatory
axiology. The problem, however, is that the power-knowledge
insight is not related to ontological realism and remains at
a deconstructive level. For all its critical insights, we are
left wondering as to the emancipatory potential of Foucaults
work. As an example, one well known collection on Foucault
begins with the argument:
The kinds of political analysis presented in this volume
are not liable or designed to inspire or guide new political
movements, transform the current agenda of political
debate or generate new plans for the organisation of
societies. Their claim would be, at most, to help political
thought to grasp certain present realities, then perhaps
providing a more informed basis for practical choice and
imagination (Gordon 11: (6).
First, it might be argued that oering a practical grasp of
present realities is hardly a radical strategy. To use Bhas-
kars words, emancipation depends on the transformation
of structures, not the amelioration of states of aairs (Bhaskar
18: 6). Second, it must be wondered if Foucaults argu-
ments are capable of oering a radical agenda or plans for a
new ordering of society. Critical realism conceives of the
ordering of society in terms of relatively enduring and
cohesive social relations and structures. Foucault, with his
emphasis on contingency, dierence and discontinuity is able
to provide a critique of these relations, but cannot develop
this in an ontological direction. His work cannot have trans-
formative potential if it does not have a developed conception
of the underlying structures that agents must transform.
Consequently his later writings are strategic without a
strategy, and his critique is that of the marginal outsider,
suspicious of all strategies and discourses including those
aiming for some sort of emancipation.
Critical realism, with its immanent critique of ideas, leads
to critique of the institutions and social structures that sustain
them. There is a danger that Foucault collapses this
distinction and thus oers little by way of transformatory
vision. In short, Foucaults work can oer a lot. But its
emancipatory potential will only be realised within a critical
realist ontology.
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Verso.
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Writings. London and New York: Routledge.
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