Abstract

In the latter half of the 1970s, Michel Foucault’s reflection on power eventually led to the emergency of the categories of biopolitics and apparatuses of security. As the article contends, rethinking freedom as an inherent element of power relations became a troublesome issue, particularly concerning the birth of political economy. Foucault attempted to overcome it by analyzing governmentality and introducing the idea of pastoral power. However, some key passages of the 1979 lectures on neo-liberalisms offer the clue to show the potential of Foucault’s intuitions and the necessity of moving beyond the preliminary limits of his frame of thought