Michel
Foucault is usually not considered a Marxist
thinker, but his thought shares some of the interests as well as ground
assumption of the tradition related to Karl Marx. Foucault takes from Marxism
the understanding that ideas cannot be detached from social structures and
power relations (see for example his thought on power
and knowledge). Unlike classic Marxist thinkers Foucault does not share the
notion that the cultural super-structure is derived only from the economical
base and presupposed a much more intricate relationship between culture,
economy and politics. Marx thought that the economical aspect of humanity and
what he called "dialectical materialism" can account for any other
human phenomena. For Foucault things are not so simple and the reciprocal
interaction of material and non-material aspects should be the focus of interest.
Another
thing Foucault has in common with Marxist thinkers and especially Neo-Marxists
(Like Adorno
and Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Louis
Althusser and others) is his interest in modern mechanisms of subordination
and systems of control that do not require overt violence. Foucault asks how in
a modern liberal society people still function in compliance with interests
other than their own. His answer is that there are highly complex structure as
play who determine how people exercise their "free" will.
Like
Althusser, for example, Foucault emphasizes the materiality of power. For him
power operates on the material level of existence, on the body itself (see for
example his thoughts on Panopticism in " Discipline and Punish"), but
this power functions through discourse.
It can be argued that Foucault's discourse approach bridges the classic
Marxist thought on ideology as related to ideas and the Neo-Marxist thought
of Althusser
who sees ideology as purely material practices. On the one hand Foucault's
concept of discourse addresses ideas which shape the way people understand
reality. On the other hand Foucault's discourse includes material practices and
institutions.
In
conclusion, although Foucault will be right to reject the title
"Marxist", he can still have a place of honor in the history of
Marxist thought.
Recommended books by and on Foucault:
