[lbo-talk] Bush and Foucault

[wrobert at uci.edu]

I highly doubt that Foucault ever thought to spend all that much time
thinking about Lenin's philosophy (Pannekoek and Gorter both had less than
kind things to say though and managed to remain Marxists), but Foucault's
work always had a materialist basis to it.  I'm not sure why one can't
engage with Marx and Nietzsche at the same time.  Many of the Italian
Marxists of the 70's did it without damage.  Last, Foucault's relationship
to the Marxist tradition is clearly vexed, most likely because of the
nature of the PCF.  There are moments when he insists that Marxism is
crucial to his project and other points when he tries to distance himself.

 The most important books for my engagement with Foucault is Discipline
and Punish and the History of Sexuality books.  Discipline and Punish is
primarily concerned with the apparatuses needed to produce abstract 'labor
power' and the end of the book quotes extensively from Capital.  The
history of sexuality introduction criticizes a certain Freudo-Marxism, but
primarily as a criticism of a particular reading of Freud by those authors
that reads power as primarily repressive.  robert wood


> However, I think Lenin is correct to articulate that Marx and Engels held
> for the existence of objective reality, but maybe Foucault did, too. Does
> he
> ? Does Foucault declare on Lenin's position on this issue of the existence
> of objective reality ? A fundamental philosophical issue is materialism
> for
> Marx. Is Foucault a materialist in the Marxist sense, after his shift ?
> What
> is his position on practical-critical activity ?
>
> On the other hand, in what I have read of Foucault, he himself seems to be
> differentiating himself from Marx philosophically. I can't buy the move
> from
> the "CP to Nietzche" as a step _toward_ Marx ( but then somebody will
> declare for a pluralist approach to Marx, or Marx as liberal : "There are
> many Marxes; even Marx wasn't a Marxist; down with Stalinist-Soviet dogma
> and rigidity", all kidding aside). Admire Nietzche, sure, but
> Marx-Nietszche
> eccleticism ? Uhhhhh...
>
>
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