eleven

17

MARCH

1976

From the power

of sovereignty

to power

over life. - Make

live

and let die. - From man as body to man as species: biopower. death, - Biopower's fields of application.

the birth of - Of

- Population. -

and of the death

of Franco workers'

in particular. housing, - Racism:

Articulations and the and

of discipline

and regulation:

sexuality, functions

norm. - Biopower * domains.

and racism.

~ Nazism. -

Socialism.

IT IS T I M E T O end then, to try to pull together w h a t I have been saying this year. I have been t r y i n g to raise the problem of w a r , seen as a g r i d for u n d e r s t a n d i n g historical processes. It seemed to me that war w a s r e g a r d e d , initially and throughout practically the whole of

the eighteenth century, as a w a r b e t w e e n races. It was that w a r b e tween races t h a t I w a n t e d to try to reconstruct. A n d l a s t t i m e , I tried to show you how the very notion of w a r w a s eventually e l i m i n a t e d from historical a n a l y s i s by the p r i n c i p l e of national universality.* I w o u l d now like to show you how, w h i l e the t h e m e of race does not disappear, it does become part of s o m e t h i n g very different, namely State racism. So today I w o u l d like to tell you a little about State racism, or at least situate it for you. It seems to me that one of the basic phenomena of the nineteenth century w a s w h a t m i g h t b e called p o w e r ' s hold over life. W h a t I m e a n is the acquisition of p o w e r over m a n insofar as man is a l i v i n g being,

*In the manuscript, the sentence continues: "at the time of the Revolution."

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that the biological came under State control, that there was at least a certain tendency that leads to what might be termed State control of the biological. And I think that in order to understand what was going on, it helps if we refer to what used to be the classical theory of sovereignty, which ultimately provided us with the backdrop toa picture ofall these analyses of war, races, and so on. You know that in the classical theory of sovereignty, the right of life and death was one of sovereignty's basic attributes. Now the right of life and death is a strange right. Even at the theoretical level, it is a strange right. What does having the right of life and death actually mean? In one sense, to say that the sovereign has a right of life and death means that he can, basically, either have people put to death or let them live, or in any case that life and death are not natural or immediate phenomena which are primal or radical, and which fall outside the field of power. If we take the argument a little further, or to the point where it becomes paradoxical, it means that in terms of his relation ship with the sovereign, the subject is, by rights, neither dead nor alive. From the point of view of life and death, the subject is neutral, and it is thanks to the sovereign that the subject has the right to be alive or, possibly, the right to be dead. In any case, the lives and deaths of subjects become rights only as a result of the will of the sovereign. That is, if you like, the theoretical paradox. And it is of course a theoretical paradox that must have as its corollary a sort of practical disequilibrium. What does the right of life and death actually mean? Obviously not that the sovereign can grant life in the same way that he can inflict death. The right of life and death is always exercised in an unbalanced way: the balance is always tipped in favor of death. Sovereign power's effect on life is exercised only when the sovereign can kill. The very essence of the right of life and death is actually the right to kill: it is at the moment when the sovereign can kill that he exercises his right over life. It is essentially the right of the sword. So there is no real symmetry in the right over life and death. It is not the right to put people to death or to grant them life. Nor is it the right to allow people to live or to leave them to die. It

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is the right to take lit e or let live. And this obviously introduces a startling dissymmetry. And I think that one of the greatest transformations political right underwent in the nineteenth century was precisely that, I wouldn't say exactly that sovereignty's old rightto take lite or let livewas replaced, but it came to be complemented by a new right which does not erase the old right but which does penetrate it, permeate it. This is the right, or rather precisely the opposite right. It is the power to "make" live and "let" die. The right of sovereignty was the right to take life or let live. And then this new right is established: the right to make live and to let die. This transformation obviously did not occur all at once. We can trace it in the theory of right ( b u t here, I will be extraordinarily rapid). The jurists of the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century were, you see, already asking this question about the right of life and death. The jurists ask: When we enter into a contract, what are individuals doing at the level of the social contract, when they come together to constitute a sovereign, to delegate absolute power over them to a sovereign? They do so because they are forced to by some threat or by need. They therefore do so in order to protect their lives. It is in order to live that they constitute a sovereign. To the extent that this is the case, can life actually become one of the rights of the sovereign? Isn't life the foundation ot the sovereign's right, and can the sovereign actually demand that his subjects grant him the right to exercise the power of lite and death over them, or in other words, simply the power to kill them? Mustn't life remain outside the contract to the extent that it was the tirst, initial, and foundational reason for the contract itselt? All this is a debate within political philosophy that we can leave on one side, but it clearly demonstrates how the problem of life began to be problematized in the field of political thought, of the analysis of political power. I would in fact like to trace the transformation not at the level of political theory, but rather at the level of the mechanisms, techniques, and technologies of power. And this brings us back to something familiar: in the sev-

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enteenth a n d eighteenth centuries, w e saw the emergence of tech n i q u e s of power that were essentially centered on the body, on the i n d i v i d u a l body. They i n c l u d e d all devices that w e r e used to ensure the spatial distribution of i n d i v i d u a l bodies ( t h e i r separation, their alignment, their serialization, a n d their s u r v e i l l a n c e ) a n d the orga nization, a r o u n d those i n d i v i d u a l s , of a w h o l e field of visibility. They were also t e c h n i q u e s that could be used to t a k e control over bodies. A t t e m p t s w e r e m a d e to increase their p r o d u c t i v e force through e x ercise, drill, a n d so on. They w e r e also t e c h n i q u e s for rationalizing and strictly economizing on a power that h a d to b e used in the least costly w a y possible, t h a n k s to a whole system of surveillance, h i e r archies, inspections, bookkeeping, and r e p o r t s a l l the technology that can be described as the d i s c i p l i n a r y technology of labor. It w a s established at the end of the seventeenth century, and in the course of the eighteenth.' N o w I t h i n k w e see s o m e t h i n g n e w e m e r g i n g in the second half of the e i g h t e e n t h century: a n e w technology of power, but this t i m e it is not disciplinary. This technology of p o w e r does not e x c l u d e the former, does not e x c l u d e d i s c i p l i n a r y technology, b u t it does dovetail into it, integrate it, modify it to some extent, and above all, use it by sort of infiltrating it, e m b e d d i n g itself in existing disciplinary tech niques. This n e w technique does not s i m p l y do a w a y w i t h the d i s c i p l i n a r y technique, because it exists at a different level, on a different scale, and because it has a different bearing area, and m a k e s use of very different i n s t r u m e n t s . U n l i k e discipline, w h i c h is a d d r e s s e d to bodies, the n e w n o n d i s c i p h n a r y p o w e r is applied not to m a n a s - b o d y b u t to the l i v i n g man, to m a n -as-hving-being; u l t i m a t e l y , if you like, to man-as-species. To be more specific, I w o u l d say that d i s c i p l i n e tries to r u l e a m u l t i p l i c i t y of men to the extent that their m u l t i p l i c i t y can a n d must b e dissolved into i n d i v i d u a l bodies that can b e kept under surveillance, trained, used, and, if need be, p u n i s h e d . A n d that the new technology that is b e i n g established is addressed to a m u l t i p l i c i t y of men, not to the extent that they are nothing more than their i n d i v i d u a l bodies, b u t to the extent that they form, on the contrary, a g l o b a l m a s s that is

7 7 March

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affected by overall processes characteristic of b i r t h , death, production, illness, a n d so on. So after a first s e i z u r e of power over the body in an i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g mode, w e h a v e a second s e i z u r e of power that is not i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g but, if you l i k e , massifying, t h a t is d i r e c t e d not at m a n - a s - b o d y b u t at m a n - a s - s p e c i e s . After the a n a t o m o - p o h t i c s of the h u m a n b o d y established in the course of t h e eighteenth century, w e have, at the end of t h a t century, t h e emergence of something t h a t is no l o n g e r an anatomo-pohtics of the h u m a n body, but w h a t I w o u l d call a " b i o p o h t i c s " of the h u m a n race. W h a t does this new technology of p o w e r , t h i s b i o p o h t i c s , t h i s b i o p o w e r t h a t is b e g i n n i n g to establish itself, i n v o l v e ? I told y o u v e r y briefly a m o m e n t ago; a set of processes such as the r a t i o of b i r t h s to deaths, the r a t e of reproduction, the fertility of a population, a n d so on. It is these processesthe b i r t h rate, the mortality rate, longevity, a n d so ontogether w i t h a w h o l e series of r e l a t e d economic a n d

political p r o b l e m s ( w h i c h I w i l l not come b a c k to for t h e m o m e n t ) w h i c h , in the second half of the e i g h t e e n t h century, become b i o p o l l t i c s ' first objects of k n o w l e d g e a n d t h e t a r g e t s it s e e k s to control. It is at any r a t e at this m o m e n t that the first d e m o g r a p h e r s b e g i n to m e a s u r e these p h e n o m e n a in statistical t e r m s . They b e g i n to observe the more or less spontaneous, more or less compulsory t e c h n i q u e s t h a t the population a c t u a l l y u s e d to control the b i r t h r a t e ; in a w o r d , if you l i k e , to identify the p h e n o m e n a of b i r t h - c o n t r o l p r a c t i c e s in the eighteenth c e n t u r y . W e also see the b e g i n n i n g s of a natahst policy, p l a n s to i n t e r v e n e in all p h e n o m e n a r e l a t i n g to the b i r t h r a t e . This biopohtics is not concerned w i t h fertility alone. It also deals w i t h the problem of m o r b i d i t y , b u t not s i m p l y , as h a d p r e v i o u s l y been the case, at the level of the famous e p i d e m i c s , the threat of w h i c h h a d h a u n t e d political p o w e r s ever since the early M i d d l e A g e s ( t h e s e famous e p i d e m i c s w e r e t e m p o r a r y disasters that caused m u l t i p l e

deaths, times w h e n e v e r y o n e seemed to b e in danger of i m m i n e n t d e a t h ) . At the end of the eighteenth century, it w a s not e p i d e m i c s that w e r e the issue, but s o m e t h i n g e l s e w h a t m i g h t b r o a d l y b e called endemics, or in other w o r d s , the form, n a t u r e , extension, d u r a t i o n , a n d intensity of the illnesses prevalent in a p o p u l a t i o n . These w e r e

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illnesses that w e r e difficult to eradicate a n d that w e r e not r e g a r d e d as e p i d e m i c s that caused more frequent deaths, but as permanent the

factors w h i c h a n d that is how they w e r e dealt w i t h s a p p e d

population's strength, shortened the w o r k i n g week, w a s t e d energy, and cost money, both because they led to a fall in production and

because treating them w a s expensive. In a word, illness a s phenomena affecting a population. D e a t h w a s no longer something that s u d d e n l y swooped d o w n on lifeas in an epidemic. D e a t h w a s now something permanent, something that slips into life, p e r p e t u a l l y g n a w s at it,

d i m i n i s h e s it a n d w e a k e n s it. These are the phenomena that begin to be t a k e n into account at the end of the eighteenth century, and they result in the development of a medicine w h o s e m a m function w i l l now be public hygiene, w i t h i n s t i t u t i o n s to coordinate medical care, centralize power, and nor m a l i z e k n o w l e d g e . A n d w h i c h also takes the form of c a m p a i g n s to teach hygiene and to m e d i c a h z e the population. So, problems of re production, the b i r t h rate, a n d the p r o b l e m of the mortality rate too. Biopohtics' other field of intervention w i l l be a set of phenomena

some of which are universal, and some of w h i c h are accidental but w h i c h can never be completely e r a d i c a t e d , even if they are accidental. They have s i m i l a r effects in that they incapacitate i n d i v i d u a l s , put them out of the circuit or neutralize them. This is the problem, and it w i l l become very i m p o r t a n t in the early nineteenth century ( t h e time of i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n ) , of old a g e , of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o , b e c a u s e of their age, fall out of the field of capacity, of activity. The field of biopohtics also i n c l u d e s accidents, infirmities, and various anomalies. A n d it is in order to deal w i t h these phenomena that this biopohtics w i l l establish not only c h a r i t a b l e i n s t i t u t i o n s ( w h i c h h a d been in existence for a v e r y long t i m e ) , but also much more s u b t l e mecha nisms that w e r e much more economically rational than an i n d i s c r i m inate charity w h i c h was at once w i d e s p r e a d and patchy, and w h i c h w a s essentially under church control. W e see the introduction of more subtle, more rational mechanisms: insurance, individual and collective savings, safety measures, and so on.
2

Biopolitics' last d o m a i n is, finallyI a m e n u m e r a t i n g the main

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ones, or at least those that a p p e a r e d in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; m a n y others w o u l d appear latercontrol over relations between the h u m a n race, or h u m a n b e i n g s insofar as they are a species, insofar as they are living beings, a n d their environment, the milieu in w h i c h they live. This i n c l u d e s the direct effects of the geographical, climatic, or h y d r o g r a p h i c environment: the problem, for instance, of s w a m p s , and of e p i d e m i c s l i n k e d to the existence of s w a m p s throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. A n d also the p r o b l e m of t h e environment to t h e extent that it is not a n a t u r a l environment, that it has been created by the population and therefore has effects on that population. This is, essentially, the urban problem. I am s i m p l y pointing out some of b i o p o h t i c s ' s t a r t i n g points, some of i t s practices, a n d t h e first of i t s d o m a i n s of intervention, k n o w l e d g e , a n d power: b i o p o h t i c s w i l l d e r i v e its k n o w l e d g e from, a n d define its p o w e r ' s field of i n t e r v e n t i o n in t e r m s of, the b i r t h rate, the m o r t a l i t y rate, v a r i o u s biological disabilities, a n d the effects of the e n v i r o n m e n t . In a l l this, a n u m b e r of t h i n g s are, I t h i n k , important. The first

a p p e a r s to b e this: the a p p e a r a n c e of a new elementI almost said a new characterof w h i c h both the theory of right a n d d i s c i p l i n a r y practice k n e w nothing. The theory of r i g h t basically k n e w only t h e i n d i v i d u a l a n d society: the contracting i n d i v i d u a l a n d the social b o d y constituted by the v o l u n t a r y or i m p l i c i t contract a m o n g i n d i v i d u a l s . Disciplines, for their part, dealt w i t h i n d i v i d u a l s a n d t h e i r b o d i e s in p r a c t i c a l t e r m s . W h a t w e are d e a l i n g w i t h in this n e w technology of p o w e r is not exactly society ( o r at least not t h e social b o d y , as defined by the j u r i s t s ) , nor is it the m d i v i d u a l - a s - b o d y . It is a n e w body, a m u l t i p l e body, a b o d y with so many heads that, w h i l e they might not be infinite in n u m b e r , cannot necessarily b e counted. Biopohtics d e a l s w i t h the p o p u l a t i o n , w i t h the p o p u l a t i o n as political problem, as a p r o b l e m that is at once scientific and political, as a biological p r o b l e m and a s p o w e r ' s problem. A n d I t h i n k t h a t biopohtics emerges at t h i s time. Second, the other important t h i n g q u i t e aside from the a p p e a r ance of the " p o p u l a t i o n " element itselfis the nature of the p h e n o m ena that are t a k e n into consideration. You can see t h a t they a r e

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collective phenomena w h i c h have their economic and political effects, and that they become pertinent only at the mass level. They are phe nomena that are a l e a t o r y and u n p r e d i c t a b l e w h e n taken in themselves or i n d i v i d u a l l y , but w h i c h , at the collective level, display constants that are easy, or at least possible, to establish. A n d they are, finally,

phenomena that occur over a period of time, w h i c h have to be studied over a certain period of time; they are serial phenomena. The phe nomena addressed by biopohtics are, essentially, aleatory events that occur w i t h i n a population that exists over a period of time. On this basisand this i s , I t h i n k , the t h i r d important pointthis

technology of power, this biopolitics, w i l l introduce mechanisms w i t h a certain number of functions that are very different from the func tions of d i s c i p l i n a r y mechanisms. The mechanisms introduced by b i o pohtics i n c l u d e forecasts, statistical estimates, and overall measures. And their purpose is not to modify any given phenomenon as such, or to modify a given individual insofar as he is an individual, but, essentially, to intervene at the level at w h i c h these general phenomena are determined, to intervene at the level of their generality. The mor tality rate has to be modified or lowered; life expectancy has to be increased; the b i r t h rate has to be stimulated. A n d most important of all, regulatory mechanisms m u s t be established to establish an e q u i l i b r i u m , m a i n t a i n an average, establish a sort of homeostasis, and com pensate for variations w i t h i n this general population and its aleatory field. In a w o r d , security mechanisms have to be installed a r o u n d the random element inherent in a population of living beings so a s to optimize a state of life. Like d i s c i p l i n a r y mechanisms, these mecha nisms are designed to m a x i m i z e and extract forces, but they w o r k in v e r y different w a y s . U n l i k e disciplines, they no longer train i n d i v i d u a l s by w o r k i n g at the level of the body itself. There is absolutely no question relating to an i n d i v i d u a l body, in the w a y that discipline does. It is therefore not a matter of t a k i n g the individual at the level of i n d i v i d u a l i t y but, on the contrary, of using overall mechanisms and acting in such a w a y as to achieve overall s t a t e s of e q u i l i b r a t i o n or regularity; it is, in a w o r d , a m a t t e r of t a k i n g control of life and the

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biological processes of man-as-species and of ensuring that they are not d i s c i p l i n e d , but r e g u l a r i z e d . ' Beneath that g r e a t absolute power, beneath the d r a m a t i c and som ber absolute p o w e r that w a s the power of sovereignty, and w h i c h consisted in the power to t a k e life, w e now have the emergence, w i t h this technology of biopower, of this technology of p o w e r over " t h e " population a s such, over m e n insofar a s they are living beings. It i s continuous, scientific, a n d it is the p o w e r to m a k e live. Sovereignty took life a n d let live. A n d now w e have the emergence of a power that I w o u l d call the power of regularization, and it, in consists in m a k i n g live and l e t t i n g d i e . I t h i n k that w e can see a concrete manifestation of t h i s p o w e r in the famous g r a d u a l disqualification of d e a t h , w h i c h sociologists a n d h i s t o r i a n s have discussed so often. E v e r y o n e k n o w s , t h a n k s in p a r t i c ular to a c e r t a i n n u m b e r of recent s t u d i e s , that the great p u b l i c ritu a h z a t i o n of death g r a d u a l l y began to disappear, or at least to fade away, in the late eighteenth century and that it is still doing so today. So m u c h so that d e a t h w h i c h has ceased to be one of those spectac ular ceremonies in w h i c h i n d i v i d u a l s , the family, the group, a n d p r a c tically the w h o l e of society took parthas become, in contrast, contrast,

something to be h i d d e n away. It has become the most private a n d shameful t h i n g of all ( a n d u l t i m a t e l y , it is now not so much s e x a s death that is the object of a t a b o o ) . N o w I t h i n k t h a t the reason w h y death h a d become something to be h i d d e n a w a y is not t h a t a n x i e t y h a s somehow been d i s p l a c e d or that repressive m e c h a n i s m s have been modified. W h a t once ( a n d until the end of the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y ) made death so spectacular and r i t u a l i z e d it so much w a s the fact that it w a s a manifestation of a transition from one p o w e r to Death w a s the moment another. one

w h e n w e made the transition from

powerthat of the sovereign of this w o r l d t o anotherthat

of the

sovereign of the next w o r l d . W e w e n t from one court of l a w to a n other, from a civil or p u b l i c right over life and death, to a right to either eternal life or eternal damnation. A transition from one power to another. Death also meant the transmission of the power of the

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dying, and that p o w e r w a s t r a n s m i t t e d to those w h o survived him: last w o r d s , last recommendations, last w i l l s and testaments, and so on. A l l these phenomena of p o w e r w e r e r i t u a l i z e d . N o w that p o w e r is decreasingly the power of the right to t a k e life, a n d increasingly the right to intervene to m a k e live, or once power b e g i n s to intervene mainly at this level in order to improve life by e l i m i n a t i n g accidents, the r a n d o m element, and deficiencies, death be comes, insofar as it is the end of life, the term, the limit, or the end of p o w e r too. D e a t h is outside the p o w e r relationship. Death is b e y o n d the reach of power, a n d p o w e r has a g r i p on it o n l y in general, overall, or statistical terms. Power has no control over death, but it can control mortality. A n d to that extent, it is only natural that death should now be privatized, and should become the most private thing of all. In the r i g h t of sovereignty, death w a s the moment of the most obvious a n d most spectacular manifestation of the absolute power of the sovereign; death now becomes, in contrast, the moment w h e n the individual escapes all power, falls b a c k on himself and retreats, so to speak, into his own privacy. Power no longer recognizes death. Power literally ignores death. To s y m b o l i z e all this, let's take, if you will, the death of Franco, w h i c h is after all a v e r y , very interesting event. It is very interesting because of the s y m b o l i c values it b r i n g s into play, because the man w h o d i e d had, as you k n o w , exercised the sovereign right of life and death with great savagery, w a s the bloodiest of all the dictators, w i e l d e d an absolute right of life a n d death for forty years, a n d at the moment when he himself w a s dying, he entered this sort of new field of p o w e r over life w h i c h consists not only in managing life, but in k e e p i n g i n d i v i d u a l s alive after they are dead. A n d t h a n k s to a power that is not s i m p l y scientific prowess, but the actual exercise of the political b i o p o w e r established in the eighteenth century, w e h a v e be come so good at k e e p i n g people alive that w e ' v e succeeded in k e e p i n g t h e m alive w h e n , in biological terms, they should have been dead long ago. And so the man w h o had exercised the absolute power of life and death over h u n d r e d s of thousands of people fell u n d e r the influ ence of a power that managed life so w e l l , that took so little heed of

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death, and he d i d n ' t even realize that he w a s dead and w a s b e i n g k e p t a l i v e after his death. I t h i n k that this minor but joyous event symbolizes the clash b e t w e e n two s y s t e m s of power: that of sover eignty over death, a n d that of the r e g u l a n z a t i o n of life. I w o u l d now l i k e to go b a c k to c o m p a r i n g the regulatory technol ogy of life a n d t h e d i s c i p l i n a r y technology of the b o d y I w a s t e l l i n g you about a moment ago. From the eighteenth century o n w a r d (or at least the end of the eighteenth century o n w a r d ) w e have, then, two technologies of power which w e r e established at different times and which w e r e superimposed. One t e c h n i q u e is d i s c i p l i n a r y ; it centers on t h e body, produces i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g effects, a n d m a n i p u l a t e s the body as a source of forces that have to b e rendered both useful and docile. A n d w e also have a second technology w h i c h is centered not upon the body but upon life: a technology w h i c h brings together the mass effects characteristic of a population, w h i c h tries to control the series of r a n d o m events that can occur in a l i v i n g mass, a technology w h i c h tries to predict the p r o b a b i l i t y of those events ( b y modifying it, if n e c e s s a r y ) , or at least to compensate for their effects. This is a technology w h i c h aims to establish a sort of homeostasis, not by t r a i n ing i n d i v i d u a l s , b u t b y a c h i e v i n g an overall e q u i l i b r i u m that protects the security of the w h o l e from i n t e r n a l dangers. So, a technology of drilling, as opposed to, as distinct from, a technology of s e c u r i t y ; a disciplinary technology, as distinct from a reassuring or regulatory technology. Both technologies are obviously technologies of the body, b u t one is a technology in w h i c h the body is i n d i v i d u a l i z e d as a n organism e n d o w e d with capacities, w h i l e the other is a technology in which bodies are replaced b y general biological processes. One might say this: It is as though power, w h i c h used to have sovereignty as its modality or organizing schema, found itself u n a b l e to g o v e r n the economic a n d political body of a society that w a s un dergoing both a d e m o g r a p h i c explosion and i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n . So

m u c h so that far too m a n y things w e r e escaping the old mechanism of the power of sovereignty, both at the top and at the bottom, both at the level of detail a n d at the mass level. A first adjustment w a s m a d e to t a k e care of t h e d e t a i l s . D i s c i p l i n e had meant adjusting p o w e r

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mechanisms to the i n d i v i d u a l body by using surveillance and training. That, of course, w a s the easier a n d more convenient thing to adjust. That is w h y it w a s the first to be introducedas early as the seven teenth century, or the b e g i n n i n g of the eighteenthat a local level, in i n t u i t i v e , empirical, a n d fragmented forms, a n d in the restricted framework of institutions such as schools, hospitals, b a r r a c k s , w o r k shops, and so on. A n d then at the end of the eighteenth century, you have a second adjustment; the mechanisms are adjusted to phenomena of population, to the biological or biosociological processes character istic of h u m a n masses. This adjustment w a s obviously much more difficult to m a k e because it i m p l i e d c o m p l e x systems of coordination a n d centralization. So w e have t w o series: the b o d y - o r g a n i s m - d i s c i p l i n e - i n s t i t u t i o n s series, a n d the population-biological processes-regulatory mechanismsState.* An organic institutional set, or the organo-discipline of the institution, if y o u like, and, on the other hand, a biological and Statist set, or b i o r e g u l a t i o n by the State. I a m not t r y i n g to introduce a complete dichotomy b e t w e e n State and institution, because disciplines in fact a l w a y s tend to escape the i n s t i t u t i o n a l or local framework in w h i c h they are trapped. W h a t is more, they easily take on a Statist dimension in a p p a r a t u s e s such as the police, for e x a m p l e , w h i c h is both a d i s c i p l i n a r y a p p a r a t u s and a State a p p a r a t u s ( w h i c h just goes to prove that discipline is not a l w a y s i n s t i t u t i o n a l ) . In similar fashion, the g r e a t overall regulations that proliferated throughout the nine teenth century are, obviously enough, found at the State level, but they are also found at the s u b - S t a t e level, in a whole series of subState i n s t i t u t i o n s such as m e d i c a l institutions, welfare funds, insur ance, a n d so on. That is the first r e m a r k I w o u l d like to m a k e . W h a t is more, the t w o sets of mechanismsone d i s c i p l i n a r y and the other r e g u l a t o r y d o not exist at the same level. W h i c h means of course that they are not m u t u a l l y exclusive and can be articulated w i t h each other. To take one or two e x a m p l e s . Take, if you l i k e , the e x a m p l e of the t o w n or, more specifically, the rationally planned lay-

*The manuscript has "assuring" in place of "regulatory."

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out of the model t o w n , the artificial town, the t o w n of Utopian reality that w a s not only d r e a m e d of b u t actually built in the nineteenth

century. W h a t w e r e w o r k i n g - c l a s s housing estates, as they existed in the nineteenth c e n t u r y ? One can easily see how the very g r i d pattern, the very layout, of the estate a r t i c u l a t e d , in a sort of p e r p e n d i c u l a r w a y , the d i s c i p l i n a r y m e c h a n i s m s that controlled the body, or bodies, b y l o c a l i z i n g familes ( o n e to a h o u s e ) a n d i n d i v i d u a l s ( o n e to a r o o m ) . The layout, the fact that i n d i v i d u a l s were made visible, a n d the normalization of b e h a v i o r m e a n t t h a t a sort of spontaneous p o licing or control w a s c a r r i e d out by the spatial layout of the t o w n itself. It i s e a s y to identify a w h o l e s e r i e s of d i s c i p l i n a r y m e c h a n i s m s in the w o r k i n g - c l a s s estate. A n d t h e n you have a w h o l e series of mechanisms w h i c h are, b y contrast, r e g u l a t o r y mechanisms, w h i c h a p p l y to the population as such and w h i c h a l l o w , w h i c h encourage patterns of saving related to housing, to the r e n t i n g of accommoda tions and, in some cases, their p u r c h a s e . H e a l t h - i n s u r a n c e systems, old-age pensions; rules on hygiene that guarantee the optimal

l o n g e v i t y of the population; the pressures that the very organization of the t o w n b r i n g s to bear on s e x u a l i t y a n d therefore procreation;

child care, education, et cetera, so you have [ c e r t a i n ] d i s c i p l i n a r y m e a s u r e s a n d [ c e r t a i n ] regulatory mechanisms. T a k e the v e r y differentthough it is not altogether that different t a k e a different axis, something like s e x u a l i t y . Basically, w h y did s e x uality become a field of vital strategic importance in the nineteenth

c e n t u r y ? I think that s e x u a l i t y w a s important for a w h o l e host of reasons, and for these reasons in particular. On the one h a n d , s e x u ality, being an eminently corporeal mode of behavior, is a m a t t e r for i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g d i s c i p l i n a r y controls that t a k e the form of permanent surveillance ( a n d the famous controls that w e r e , from the late e i g h teenth to the t w e n t i e t h century, placed both at home a n d at school on c h i l d r e n w h o m a s t u r b a t e d represent precisely this aspect of the disciplinary control of s e x u a l i t y . But because it also has procreative effects, s e x u a l i t y is also inscribed, takes effect, in broad biological processes that concern not the bodies of i n d i v i d u a l s but the element, the m u l t i p l e u n i t y of the population. S e x u a l i t y e x i s t s at the point

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w h e r e body and population meet. A n d so it is a matter for discipline, but also a matter for regularization. It is, I think, the p r i v i l e g e d position it occupies between organism and population, b e t w e e n t h e body and general phenomena, that e x plains the e x t r e m e emphasis placed upon s e x u a l i t y in the nineteenth century. Hence too the medical idea that w h e n it is undisciplined and irregular, s e x u a l i t y also has effects at two levels. A t the level of the body, of the u n d i s c i p l i n e d body that is immediately sanctioned by all the individual diseases that the s e x u a l debauchee brings d o w n upon himself. A c h i l d w h o masturbates too much w i l l be a lifelong invalid: disciplinary sanction at the level of the body. But at the same time, debauched, perverted s e x u a l i t y has effects at the level of the popu lation, as anyone w h o has been s e x u a l l y debauched is assumed to have a heredity. Their descendants also w i l l be affected for generations, unto the seventh generation and unto the seventh of the seventh and so on. This is the theory of degeneracy: given that it is the source of i n d i v i d u a l diseases and that it is the nucleus of degeneracy, sexuality represents the precise point where the d i s c i p l i n a r y and the regulatory, the body and the population, are articulated. Given these conditions, you can u n d e r s t a n d how and why a technical k n o w l e d g e such as
4

m e d i c i n e , or rather the combination of medicine and hygiene, is in the nineteenth century, if not the most i m p o r t a n t element, an element of considerable importance because of the l i n k it establishes between scientific k n o w l e d g e of both biological and organic processes ( o r in other words, the p o p u l a t i o n and the b o d y ) , and because, at the same time, medicine becomes a p o l i t i c a l intervention-technique w i t h spe cific power-effects. M e d i c i n e is a p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e that can be a p p l i e d to b o t h the body and the population, both the organism and biological processes, and it w i l l therefore have both disciplinary effects and regulatory effects. In more general terms still, w e can say that there is one element that w i l l circulate b e t w e e n the d i s c i p l i n a r y and the regulatory, which w i l l also be a p p l i e d to body and population alike, w h i c h will make it possible to control both the d i s c i p l i n a r y order of the body and the aleatory events that occur in the biological m u l t i p l i c i t y . The element

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that c i r c u l a t e s b e t w e e n the two is the norm. The norm is something that can be a p p l i e d to both a b o d y one w i s h e s to discipline and a population one w i s h e s to r e g u l a r i z e . The normalizing society is

therefore not, under these conditions, a sort of generalized d i s c i p l i n a r y society whose d i s c i p l i n a r y i n s t i t u t i o n s have s w a r m e d and finally t a k e n over everythingthat, I think, is no more than a first and i n a d e q u a t e interpretation of a normalizing society. The normalizing society is a society i n w h i c h the norm of d i s c i p l i n e and the norm of regulation intersect a l o n g an orthogonal a r t i c u l a t i o n . To say that p o w e r took possession of life in the n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y , or to say t h a t p o w e r at least t a k e s life u n d e r its care in the nineteenth century, is to say that it has, thanks to the play of technologies of discipline on the one h a n d a n d technologies of regulation on the other, succeeded in c o v e r i n g the w h o l e surface that lies b e t w e e n the o r g a n i c a n d the biological, b e t w e e n b o d y and population. W e are, then, in a power that has t a k e n control of both the b o d y and life or that h a s , if you l i k e , t a k e n control of life in g e n e r a l w i t h the body a s one pole a n d the p o p u l a t i o n a s the other. W e can therefore i m m e d i a t e l y identify the p a r a d o x e s that appear at the points w h e r e the exercise of this b i o p o w e r r e a c h e s its limits. The p a r a d o x e s become a p p a r e n t if we look, on the one hand, at atomic power, w h i c h is not s i m p l y the p o w e r to kill, in accordance w i t h the r i g h t s that are g r a n t e d to any sovereign, m i l l i o n s a n d h u n d r e d s of m i l l i o n s of people (after all, that is t r a d i t i o n a l ) . The w o r k i n g s of contemporary political p o w e r are such that atomic p o w e r represents a p a r a d o x that is difficult, if not impossible, to get around. The p o w e r to manufacture and use the atom bomb represents the d e p l o y m e n t of a sovereign p o w e r that kills, but it is also the p o w e r to k i l l life itself. So the p o w e r that is b e i n g exercised in this atomic p o w e r is e x e r c i s e d in such a w a y t h a t it is capable of s u p p r e s s i n g life itself. A n d , therefore, to s u p p r e s s itself insofar as it is the p o w e r that guarantees life. Either it is sovereign and uses the a t o m b o m b , and therefore cannot be power, biopower, or the power to guarantee life, a s it h a s been ever since the nineteenth century. Or, at the opposite extreme, you no longer have a sovereign right that is in excess of biopower, b u t a

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biopower that is in excess of sovereign right. This excess of biopower appears when it becomes technologically and politically possible for man not only to manage life but to m a k e it proliferate, to create living matter, to b u i l d the monster, and, u l t i m a t e l y , to build viruses that cannot be controlled and that are u n i v e r s a l l y destructive. This for m i d a b l e extension of biopower, u n l i k e w h a t I w a s just s a y i n g about atomic power, w i l l put it b e y o n d all human sovereignty. You must excuse this long digression into biopower, but I think that it does provide us w i t h a basic a r g u m e n t that w i l l allow us to get b a c k to the problem I w a s t r y i n g to raise. If it is true that the p o w e r of sovereignty is increasingly on the retreat and that d i s c i p l i n a r y or regulatory disciplinary power is on the advance, how w i l l t h e p o w e r to k i l l and the function of m u r d e r operate in this technology of power, w h i c h t a k e s life as both its object and its objective? How can a power such as this kill, if it is t r u e that its basic function is to improve life, to prolong its duration, to improve its chances, to avoid accidents, and to compensate for failings? How, u n d e r these conditions, is it possible for a political power to k i l l , to call for deaths, to d e m a n d deaths, to give the order to kill, and to expose not only its enemies but its o w n citizens to the r i s k of d e a t h ? Given that t h i s p o w e r ' s objective is essentially to m a k e live, how can it let d i e ? H o w can the power of death, the function of death, be exercised in a political system centered upon b i o p o w e r ? It is, I think, at this point that racism intervenes. I am certainly not saying that racism w a s invented at t h i s time. It had already been in existence for a v e r y long t i m e . But I t h i n k it functioned elsewhere. It is i n d e e d the emergence of this biopower that inscribes it in the mechanisms of the State. It is at t h i s moment that racism is inscribed as the basic mechanism of power, as it is exercised m modern States. As a result, the modern State can scarcely function w i t h o u t becoming involved w i t h racism at some point, w i t h i n certain l i m i t s a n d subject to certain conditions. W h a t in fact is r a c i s m ? It is p r i m a r i l y a w a y of i n t r o d u c i n g a break into the domain of life that is under power's control: the break be t w e e n what must live and what must die. The appearance w i t h i n the

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race of races, the

distinction

among races, the hierarchy of races, the fact that certain races are described as good a n d t h a t others, in contrast, are d e s c r i b e d as infe rior: all this is a w a y of fragmenting the field of the biological that p o w e r controls. It is a w a y of separating out the groups that exist w i t h i n a population. It is, m short, a w a y of establishing a biologicaltype caesura w i t h i n a population that appears to be a biological do main. This will allow power to treat that population as a m i x t u r e of races, or to be more accurate, to treat the species, to subdivide the species it controls, into the subspecies k n o w n , precisely, as races. That is the first function of racism: to fragment, to create caesuras w i t h i n the biological c o n t i n u u m addressed by biopower. Racism also has a second function. Its role i s , if you l i k e , to a l l o w the establishment of a p o s i t i v e r e l a t i o n of t h i s t y p e : "The more you kill, the more d e a t h s you w i l l c a u s e " or "The v e r y fact that you let more die w i l l a l l o w you to live more." I w o u l d s a y t h a t this relation ("If you w a n t to live, you must t a k e lives, you must be able to k i l l " ) w a s not invented b y either racism or the modern State. It i s the r e l a t i o n s h i p of w a r : "In order to live, you must destroy y o u r e n e m i e s . " But racism does m a k e the r e l a t i o n s h i p of war"If you want to live, the other m u s t die"function in a w a y t h a t is completely new a n d t h a t is q u i t e compatible w i t h the exercise of b i o p o w e r . On the one hand, racism m a k e s it possible to establish a relationship b e t w e e n m y life a n d the death of the o t h e r that is not a m i l i t a r y or w a r l i k e re lationship of confrontation, but a b i o l o g i c a l - t y p e r e l a t i o n s h i p : "The

more inferior species d i e out, the more abnormal i n d i v i d u a l s are e l i m inated, t h e fewer degenerates there will be in the species a s a w h o l e , a n d the more Ias species rather t h a n i n d i v i d u a l c a n live, the

stronger I w i l l be, the more vigorous I w i l l be. I w i l l be able to proliferate." The fact that the other dies does not mean s i m p l y that I live in the sense that his death g u a r a n t e e s my safety; the death of the other, the d e a t h of the b a d race, of the inferior race ( o r the degen erate, or the a b n o r m a l ) is something that will m a k e life in general healthier: healthier a n d purer. This is not, then, a m i l i t a r y , w a r l i k e , or political relationship, but

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a biological relationship. A n d the reason this mechanism can come into play is that the enemies w h o have to b e done away w i t h are not adversaries in the political sense of the term; they are threats, either external or internal, to the population a n d for the population. In the biopower system, in other w o r d s , k i l l i n g or the i m p e r a t i v e to k i l l is acceptable only if it results not in a victory over political adversaries, but in the elimination of the biological threat to and the improvement of the species or race. There is a direct connection b e t w e e n the two. In a n o r m a l i z i n g society, race or racism is the precondition that makes k i l l i n g acceptable. W h e n you have a n o r m a l i z i n g society, y o u have a power w h i c h is, at least superficially, in the first instance, or in the first line a biopower, a n d racism is the indispensable precondition that allows someone to be k i l l e d , that allows others to be killed. Once the State functions in the b i o p o w e r mode, racism alone can justify the m u r d e r o u s function of the State. So you can u n d e r s t a n d the importanceI almost said the vital

importanceof racism to the exercise of such a power: it is the pre condition for exercising the right to kill. If the power of normalization w i s h e d to exercise the old sovereign right to k i l l , it must become racist. A n d if, conversely, a p o w e r of sovereignty, or in other words, a p o w e r that has the right of life and death, w i s h e s to w o r k w i t h the i n s t r u m e n t s , mechanisms, and technology of normalization, it too must become racist. W h e n I say " k i l l i n g , " I obviously do not mean simply m u r d e r as such, b u t also every form of indirect murder: the fact of exposing someone to death, increasing the risk of death for some people, or, quite simply, political death, expulsion, rejection, a n d so on. I think that w e are now in a position to u n d e r s t a n d a number of things. W e can understand, first of all, the link that w a s quicklyI almost said i m m e d i a t e l y e s t a b l i s h e d b e t w e e n nineteenth-century bi ological theory and the discourse of power. Basically, evolutionism, understood in the broad senseor in other words, not so much Dar w i n ' s theory itself as a set, a b u n d l e , of notions ( s u c h as: the hierarchy of species that grow from a common evolutionary tree, the struggle for existence among species, the selection that e l i m i n a t e s the less fit)

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i naturally became w i t h i n a few years during the nineteenth century I not simply a w a y of t r a n s c r i b i n g a political discourse into biological terms, and not simplv a way of dressing up a political discourse in scientific clothing, but a real w a y of t h i n k i n g about the relations b e t w e e n colonization, the necessity for w a r s , criminality, the phenomena of madness and mental illness, the history of societies with their i different classes, a n d so on. W h e n e v e r , in other words, there w a s a a k i l l i n g or the r i s k of death, the nineteenth century

I confrontation,

j w a s quite literally obliged to t h i n k about them in the form of evo!

1

lutionism. A n d w e can also understand w h y racism s h o u l d h a v e developed in modern societies that function in the biopower mode; w e can u n d e r stand whv racism broke out at a number of p r i v i l e g e d moments, and w h y they w e r e precisely the moments w h e n the right to t a k e life w a s i m p e r a t i v e . Racism first develops w i t h colonization, or in other w o r d s , w i t h colonizing genocide. If you are functioning in the biopower

mode, how can you justify the need to k i l l people, to k i l l populations, a n d to kill c i v i l i z a t i o n s ? By using the themes of evolutionism, b y a p p e a l i n g to a racism. W a r . H o w can one not only w a g e w a r on one's adversaries but also expose one's o w n citizens to w a r , and let them be k i l l e d by the m i l lion ( a n d this is precisely w h a t h a s been going on since the nineteenth century, or since the second half of the nineteenth c e n t u r y ) , e x c e p t by activating the theme of r a c i s m ? From this point o n w a r d , w a r is about t w o t h i n g s : it is not s i m p l y a matter of d e s t r o y i n g a political adversary, but of destroying the enemy race, of destroying that [ s o r t ] of biological threat that those people over there represent to our race. In one sense, this is of course no more than a biological extrapolation from the theme of the political enemy. But there is more to it than that. In the nineteenth c e n t u r y a n d this is completely n e w w a r will be seen not only as a w a y of improving one's o w n race by e l i m i n a t i n g the enemy race ( i n accordance w i t h the themes of natural selection and the struggle for e x i s t e n c e ) , but also a s a w a y of regenerating one's own race. As more a n d more of our n u m b e r die, the race to w h i c h we belong will become all the p u r e r .

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A t the end of the n i n e t e e n t h century, w e have then a new racism m o d e l e d on war. It w a s , I think, r e q u i r e d because a b i o p o w e r that w i s h e d to w a g e w a r had to articulate the will to destroy the adversary w i t h the risk that it might kill those whose lives it had, by definition, to protect, manage, and m u l t i p l y . The same could be said of crimi nality. Once the m e c h a n i s m of b i o c r i m i n a l w a s called u p o n to make it possible to execute or b a n i s h criminals, c r i m i n a l i t y w a s conceptu alized in racist terms. The same applies to madness, and the same applies to v a r i o u s anomalies. I t h i n k that, b r o a d l y speaking, racism justifies the death-function

in the economy of b i o p o w e r b y a p p e a l i n g to the p r i n c i p l e that the death of others m a k e s one biologically stronger insofar as one is a m e m b e r of a race or a population, insofar as one is an element in a u n i t a r y l i v i n g p l u r a l i t y . You can see that, here, w e are far removed from the o r d i n a r y racism that takes the traditional form of mutual c o n t e m p t or h a t r e d b e t w e e n races. W e are also far removed from the racism that can be seen as a sort of ideological operation that allows States, or a class, to displace the hostility that is directed toward

[ t h e m ] , or w h i c h is tormenting the social body, onto a m y t h i c a l a d versary. I t h i n k that this is something much deeper than an old tra dition, m u c h deeper than a new ideology, that it is something else. The specificity of modern racism, or w h a t gives it its specificity, is not b o u n d up w i t h mentalities, ideologies, or the lies of power. It is bound up with the technique of power, w i t h the technology of power. It is bound up w i t h this, and that takes us as far a w a y as possible from the race w a r and the i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y of history. W e are dealing w i t h a mechanism that a l l o w s b i o p o w e r to w o r k . So racism is bound up w i t h the w o r k i n g s of a State that is obliged to use race, the elim ination of races and the purification of the race, to exercise its sov ereign power. The juxtaposition ofor the w a y b i o p o w e r throughthe old sovereign power of life and death functions

i m p l i e s the

w o r k i n g s , the introduction and activation, of racism. And it is, I think, here that we find the actual roots of racism. So you can understand how and why, given these conditions, the most m u r d e r o u s States are also, of necessity, the most racist. Here, of

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course, w e have to t a k e the e x a m p l e of N a z i s m . After all, Nazism w a s in fact the paroxysmal development of the new power mechanisms that h a d been established since the eighteenth century. Of course, no S t a t e c o u l d have more d i s c i p l i n a r y p o w e r than the N a z i regime. N o r w a s there any other State in w h i c h the biological w a s so tightly, so insistently, r e g u l a t e d . D i s c i p l i n a r y p o w e r a n d b i o p o w e r : all this p e r meated, u n d e r p i n n e d , N a z i society ( c o n t r o l over the biological, of procreation and of h e r e d i t y ; control over illness a n d accidents t o o ) . No society could be more d i s c i p l i n a r y or more concerned w i t h pro v i d i n g insurance than that established, or at least planned, by the N a z i s . Controlling the random element inherent in biological pro cesses w a s one of the r e g i m e ' s immediate objectives. But this society in w h i c h insurance a n d reassurance w e r e universal, this universally d i s c i p l i n a r y a n d r e g u l a t o r y society, w a s also a society w h i c h unleashed m u r d e r o u s power, or in other w o r d s , the old sov ereign right to t a k e life. This power to k i l l , w h i c h ran through e n t i r e social b o d y of N a z i society, w a s first manifested w h e n the the

p o w e r to t a k e life, the p o w e r of life and death, w a s g r a n t e d not only to the State b u t to a w h o l e series of i n d i v i d u a l s , to a considerable n u m b e r of people ( s u c h as the S A , the SS, and so o n ) . U l t i m a t e l y , e v e r y o n e in the N a z i State had the p o w e r of life a n d death over his or her n e i g h b o r s , if only because of the practice of informing, w h i c h effectively meant d o i n g a w a y w i t h the people n e x t d o o r , or h a v i n g them done a w a y w i t h . So m u r d e r o u s p o w e r a n d sovereign p o w e r a r e unleashed t h r o u g h out the entire social body. They w e r e also unleashed b y the fact that w a r w a s e x p l i c i t l y defined as a political objectiveand not s i m p l y as a basic political objective or as a means, but as a sort of u l t i m a t e a n d decisive phase in a l l political processespolitics h a d to lead to w a r , and w a r had to be the final decisive phase that would complete every thing. The objective of the N a z i r e g i m e w a s therefore not really the destruction of other r a c e s . The d e s t r u c t i o n of other races w a s one aspect of the project, the other being to e x p o s e its o w n race to the absolute and universal t h r e a t of d e a t h . R i s k i n g one's life, being e x posed to total destruction, w a s one of the p r i n c i p l e s inscribed in the

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basic duties of the obedient Nazi, a n d it w a s one of the essential objectives of N a z i s m ' s policies. It had to reach the point at w h i c h the e n t i r e population w a s exposed to death. Exposing the entire p o p u lation to universal death w a s the only w a y it could truly constitute itself as a superior race and bring about its definitive regeneration once other races had been either e x t e r m i n a t e d or enslaved forever. W e have, then, in Nazi society something that is really quite e x t r a o r d i n a r y : this is a society w h i c h has generalized biopower in an absolute sense, b u t w h i c h has also g e n e r a l i z e d the sovereign right to k i l l . The two mechanismsthe classic, archaic mechanism that gave the State the right of life and d e a t h over its citizens, and the new mechanism organized around discipline and regulation, or in other w o r d s , the new mechanism of biopowercoincide exactly. W e can therefore say this: The N a z i State m a k e s the field of the life it man ages, protects, guarantees, and cultivates in biological terms absolutely coextensive w i t h the sovereign right to k i l l anyone, meaning not only other people, but also its own people. There w a s , in Nazism, a co incidence b e t w e e n a g e n e r a l i z e d b i o p o w e r and a dictatorship that was at once absolute and retransmitted throughout the entire social body b y this fantastic extension of the right to kill and of exposure to death. W e have an absolutely racist State, an absolutely murderous State, and an absolutely suicidal State. A racist State, a murderous State, and a suicidal State. The three w e r e necessarily superimposed, and the result w a s of course both the "final solution" ( o r the a t t e m p t to eliminate, by e l i m i n a t i n g the J e w s , all the other races of w h i c h the J e w s w e r e both the symbol and the m a n i f e s t a t i o n ) of the years 1 9 4 2 1 9 4 3 , and then Telegram 71, in which, in April 1 9 4 5 , Hitler gave the order to destroy the German people's own living conditions.
5

The final solution for the other races, and the absolute suicide of the [ G e r m a n ] race. That is w h e r e this mechanism inscribed in the w o r k i n g s of the modern State leads. Of course, Nazism alone took the play between the sovereign right to kill and the mechanisms of biopower to this paroxysmal point. But this plav is in fact inscribed in the w o r k i n g s of all States. In all modern States, in all capitalist

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S t a t e s ? P e r h a p s not. But I do t h i n k t h a t b u t t h i s w o u l d be a w h o l e new a r g u m e n t t h e socialist State, socialism, is as m a r k e d by racism as the w o r k i n g s of the modern State, of the capitalist State. In addition to the State racism that developed in the conditions I have been telling you about, a social-racism also came into being, and it did not w a i t for the formation of socialist States before m a k i n g its appearance.

Socialism w a s a racism from the outset, even in the nineteenth cen tury. No matter w h e t h e r it is Fourier at the b e g i n n i n g of the c e n t u r y
6

or the anarchists at the end of it, you will a l w a y s find a racist com ponent in socialism. I find this very difficult to t a l k about. To speak in such terms is to m a k e enormous claims. To prove the point would really t a k e a w h o l e series of lectures ( a n d I w o u l d l i k e to do t h e m ) . But at least let me just say this: In general terms, it seems to meand here, I am speculating somewhatthat to the extent that it does not, in the first instance, raise the economic or j u r i d i c a l problems of t y p e s of property o w n e r s h i p or modes of productionor to the extent that the problem of the mechanics of power or the mechanisms of p o w e r is not posed or a n a l y z e d [ s o c i a l i s m therefore] i n e v i t a b l y reaffected or reinvested the very p o w e r - m e c h a n i s m s constituted by the capitalist State or the industrial State. One t h i n g at least is certain: Socialism h a s m a d e no c r i t i q u e of the theme of b i o p o w e r , w h i c h developed at the end of the eighteenth c e n t u r y a n d throughout the n i n e t e e n t h ; it has in fact t a k e n it u p , developed, r e i m p l a n t e d , a n d modified it in c e r t a i n respects, but it has certainly not r e e x a m i n e d its b a s i s or its m o d e s of w o r k i n g . U l t i m a t e l y , the idea that the essential function of society or the State, or w h a t e v e r it is t h a t must replace the State, is to t a k e control of life, to manage it, to compensate for i t s aleatory nature, to explore and reduce biological accidents a n d possibilities . . . it seems to me that socialism takes this over wholesale. A n d the result is that w e i m m e diately find ourselves in a socialist State w h i c h must exercise the right to k i l l or the right to e l i m i n a t e , or the right to disqualify. A n d so, quite n a t u r a l l y , w e find that racismnot a t r u l y ethnic racism, b u t racism of the evolutionist k i n d , biological racismis fully operational

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in the w a y socialist States ( o l the Soviet Union t y p e ) deal with the mentally i l l , c r i m i n a l s , political adversaries, and so on. So much for the State. The other thing I find interesting, and w h i c h has caused me prob l e m s for a long time, is that, once again, it i s not simply at the level of the socialist State that w e find this racism at work; w e also find it in the v a r i o u s forms of socialist analysis, or of the socialist project t h r o u g h o u t the nineteenth century, and it seems to me that it relates to this: w h e n e v e r a socialism insists, basically, that the transformation of economic conditions is the precondition for the transformation, for the transition from the capitalist State to the socialist State ( o r in other w o r d s , w h e n e v e r it tries to e x p l a i n the transformation in terms of economic processes), it does not need, or at least not in the im mediate, racism. Whenever, on the other hand, socialism has been forced to stress the problem of struggle, the struggle against the en emy, of the e l i m i n a t i o n of the enemy w i t h i n capitalist society itself, and w h e n , therefore, it has had to t h i n k about the physical confron tation w i t h the class enemy in capitalist society, racism does raise its head, because it is the only way in w h i c h socialist thought, w h i c h is after all v e r y much bound up w i t h the themes of biopower, can ra tionalize the m u r d e r of its enemies. W h e n it is simply a matter of e l i m i n a t i n g the adversary in economic t e r m s , or of t a k i n g a w a y his privileges, there is no need for racism. Once it is a matter of coming to t e r m s w i t h the thought of a one-to-one encounter w i t h the adver sary, and w i t h the need to fight him p h y s i c a l l y , to risk one's o w n life and to try to k i l l h i m , there is a need for racism. Whenever you have these socialisms, these forms of socialism or these moments of socialism that stress the problem of the struggle, you therefore have racism. The most racist forms of socialism were, therefore, B l a n q u i s m of course, and then the C o m m u n e , and then

a n a r c h i s m m u c h more so t h a n social democracy, much more so than the Second International, a n d much more so than M a r x i s m itself. Socialist racism w a s l i q u i d a t e d in Europe only at the end of the nine teenth centurv, and only bv the domination of social democracy ( a n d , it has to be said, bv the reformism that w a s bound up w i t h i t )

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on the one hand, and bv a n u m b e r of processes such as the Dreyfus affair in France on the other. Until the Dreyfus affair, afl socialists, or at least the v a s t majority of socialists, w e r e basically racists. A n d I t h i n k that they were r a c i s t s to the extent that ( a n d I will finish h e r e ) they d i d not reevaluateor, if you l i k e , accepted as self-

evidentthe m e c h a n i s m s of b i o p o w e r that the d e v e l o p m e n t of society and State had b e e n establishing since the eighteenth century. H o w can one both make a b i o p o w e r function and exercise the rights of w a r , the r i g h t s of murder a n d the function of death, w i t h o u t b e c o m i n g racist? That w a s the problem, a n d that, I think, i s still the problem.

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1. On the question of disciplinary technology, see Surveiller et punir. 2. On all these questions, see Cours an College de France, annee 1978-1979: Le Pouvoirpsychiatrique forthcoming. ). Foucault comes back to all these disciplines, especially in Cours au College de France 19771978: Securite, territoire et population and 1978-1979: Naissance de la biopolitique, forthcoming. 4. Foucault refers here to the theory elaborated in mid-nineteenth-century France by certain alienists and in particular by B.-A, Morel (Traite de degtnerescences physiques, intellectueties et morales de Vespice humaine [Paris, 1857], Traite's des maladies mentales [Paris, 1 8 7 0 ] ) ; V. Magnan (Lemons cliniques $ur les maladies mentales [Pans, 189)]); and M. Legrain and V. Magnan (Les De'gtnere's, e'tat mental et syndromes eptsodiques [Pans, 1 8 9 5 ] ) - This theory of degeneracy, which is based upon the principle that a so-called hereditary taint can be transmitted, was the kernel of medical knowledge about madness and abnormality in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was quickly adopted by forensic medicine, and it had a considerable effect on eugenicist doctrines and practices, and was not without its influence on a whole literature, a whole criminology, and a whole anthro pology.
s

5- As early as 19 March, Hitler had drawn up plans to destroy Germany's logistic infra structure and industrial plant. These dispositions were announced in the decrees of 3 0 March and 7 April. On these decrees, see A. Speer, Erinnerungen (Berlin: ProplyaenVerlag, 1 9 6 9 ) (French translation: Au Coeur du Tromeme Rekh [Paris: Fayard, 1971]; English translation by Richard and Clara Winton: Inside the Third Rekh: Memoirs [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1 9 7 0 ] ) . Foucault had definitely read J. Fest's book Hitler (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, and Vienna: Verlag Ulstein, 1 9 7 3 ) (French translation:Hitler [Pans: Gallimard, 1973]; English translation by Richard and Clara Winton, Hitler [Lon don: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974])6. In this connection, see in particular Charles Fourier, Theorie des quatre mouvements et des destinies gene'rales (Leipzig and Lyon, 1 8 0 8 ) ; Le Nouveau Monde industriel et societaire (Paris, 1 8 2 9 ) ; La Fausse Industrie moixelee, repugnante, mensongere, 2 vols. (Paris, 1 8 3 6 ) .