Foucault, Weber and the history of the economic subject

Bibliographic Data

ID16994569
AuthorsPhilippe Steiner (0000-0002-0476-6527, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume15
Issue3
Pages503-527
Publication date2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of the History of Economic Thought (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0967-2567 • E-ISSN: 1469-5936
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09672560802252370
OpenAlexW1984728787
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited32

The present paper begins with a presentation of Foucault's lectures on economic issues. Departing from his previous views on government, Foucault offered a new approach to eighteenth-century liberalism and neo-liberalism, interpreting these political theories in terms of what he called biopolitics. Then the paper endeavours to demonstrate that the line of reasoning pursued by Foucault coincides with that found in Weber's sociology of religion. In as much as Weber studies the relation between the religious and the economic, the paper draws a parallel between the Weberian concept of ‘life conduct’ and the concept of ‘technique of the self’ advanced by Foucault in order to study the moral foundation of the economic agent

Biopower · Economic liberalism · Economics · Epistemology · Foundation (evidence) · Government (linguistics) · Liberalism · Michel foucault · Neoclassical economics · Order (exchange) · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Relation (database) · Social science · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory