About Biopolitics

I appreciate the question for talking about biopolitics. I will try to be clear, because I think is a meaningfull matter in the anew global scenario.

The core is that communities, states, firms along history struggle to have some kind of control over
people activities. Taxation, worksheets, strict worktime control, taylorism are one side of the manifestation of power over the movements, the actions, the thinkings of people: of his 'subjectivity'.
Quantification, economical statistic, and at least money, are a try to measure the subjectivity.
This try has obviously failed because of not-rational process developed by capital market and capitalism, and because emotions and relations survive, over all. Capital thorough business, and lately finance, struggle to collect workers' time surplus to control subjectivity. Subjectivity is relations, human social economical, ideas exchanges, creativity, and, in the Information era, knowledge based networks. Capital martket spoils knowledge networks without recognize any value to the job done by knowledge workers. Now that the value is moving from production of goods to production of knowledge. Capital try to replicate himself, avoiding spillovers of knowledge outside the border of economical control, and pretending to make Knowledge under financial quantification. In fact capital produce inside more knowledge than it needs, and try to not make it pass to societies by stating 'commonwealth' to not exist, and defining goods just private or public. Fortunately Knowledge is common. (See also the book: The Market as a Common)

The reponse of subjectivity to the continous raise of 'capital pushing him by' is 'moltitude':
the force of people that want to produce outside the line marked by capitalistic praxis.
A concept elaborated by Hardt/Negri, over the work of Foucault and Agamben, and many others. Communities' making, creations, developing, moving ideas, product enhancing is 'commonwealth'.
As the Social Forum, the Open Source movement, the workers' consortiums and many others, everything outside a centralized idea of 'ruling' is a side of the commonwealth. Internet communities for developing software, programmers blogs are actually an expression of commonwealth. The venture of a group of citizens to build houses to have own properties is contracting and producing inside the commonwealth. A group of
specialized worker opening their own consulting business after the dismission of their R&D facility, organizing themself with no hierarchy, but by nodes, or cells. The oldest examples of commonwealth in this sense are public services: libraries, etc. The important difference from what they call socialism or welfare state (which have both failed to face the world after WWII)is that these services has to be ruled and organized by communities intrapreneurship. Some
kind of deburocratization driven by networks. A new period for history needs new categories, so in my opinion is quite useless to go on talking about corrections to state or federation's economies in a world that is industrial, or fordist, or goods production driven anymore. The industrials will be more important in developing countries, elsewhere the economy has to be set on the shoulder of high tech and knowledge base companies or organizations managed as networks inside the multitude.

Build new leverages.

Comments welcomed.

Cold Rolling--i'm glad you have posted. however, i assume that English is not your first language. if not, you might want to try Google translate to see if your ideas might come out more coherant in translation. Your subject is quite heady and in it's current form is difficult to follow.

A good place of beginning is to define terms. Two in particular are "object" and "subject". As a frame of reference, tell us what these mean to you. This generally pertains to the treatment of persons in a system. Do we treat persons as objects or subjects and how are these different from one another and how does that treatment effect the system?

You're either way above my head or way below. Either way I have no idea what you actually mean.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Quantification, economical statistic, and at least money, are a try to measure the subjectivity.<!-/Quote-!>

Let's see if I can unravel this...


Quantifaction: to express in quantitative terms, or as a numerical equivalent


Economical statistic: not wasting money, time, fuel, etc.; thrifty... & A numerical datum.

THESE ARE AN ATTEMPT TO...

Subjectivity: determined by and emphasizing the ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. of the artist or writer, not just rigidly transcribing or reflecting reality.


Okay, I get it... a rough way to say it though.

*QUOTE* "You're either way above my head or way below."

LOL, I like that response! Too funny!

Michael Foucault in his book Power/Knowledge discusses the relationship between power and knowledge. As society has become more complex Knowledge is trumping the influence of brute force and even money. We are increasingly faced with the power of “the tyranny of the expert�. Two examples of this are attorney’s and educators. Who determines what the systems in our lives will look like, who will interpret those systems, and who will run them? Attorney’s. Look at the current healthcare bill which was largely crafted by attorney’s with the help of other attorneys and persons with an ax to grind. Over 2000pages of stuff that only an attorney can decipher.
And then there’s educators. From bottom to top in the education system, “expert� educators dictate what will be taught, how it will be taught and what the outcomes should be. Where did we get the idea that all children should have a college education? Where did we get the idea that the way to discipline children was with “time outs� or “rewards� and not to ever use the paddle for disciplinary purposes? The educators with the help of attorney’s. And if you don’t know the language they use then you’re powerless and marginalized since you’re not a part of their establishment.
As I interpret biopolitics, there is an interconnectedness between all these systems that form the whole organic being of society. And those who have the knowledge of how to manipulate the system in concert with other systems, have the power.
As we become even more complex this organic system had filtered into technology and other aspects of life. Take the internet. How much information do others have about you that you may not have readily given them? And how will that information be used? What about surveillance and airport screening? No wonder we feel that we are losing our freedom. Those with the knowledge, have the power.

The answer--play a different game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jReNeEHH2lQ

We have the knowledge, therefore we have the power. Your ideas and perceptions don't matter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoIJPwfsbqg

So many words.... makes .. BC... ANGRRRYYY!!!

BC- it's called navel gazing or mental masturbation, but it feels so good.

That's a killer flick! I'm going to have to get a copy of One Flew...

Hey Parsifal, have you ever heard of Jonh Perkins? He lends another persective to this.

biopower is the attempt to control whatever enter or exit the body, or the way the body appear. Food or sounds, clothes or body appearence.

biopolitics is the struggle of multitude to avoid this control developing by himself. creating by himself what to consume. producing and exchanging on markets without a centralized system of laws.

I am sorry for my English, it's not a case that anglosaxon countries produced individualistic way of thinking. But the discussion started with a trend about ancient Greek states, that were the first to apply decentralized organizations. Made very simply, biopolotics look for a concious system of 'polis' organized on information networks. With the scale permitted by modern medias: the 'commonwealth'.

The matter is if people can handle a system of rights not based on punishment by centralized state organizations. The GB system of justice is an example of decentralized rights system.

new reality >>> new categories >>> new language

--Parsifal: Health and education systems are the way biopower acts. What you said is half correct. But biopolitic it's not a theory of an organic state, as could be in Hume. That way have been set apart by the failing of dictatorship states in 20th century, and by the raise of information theory. We are just making discussion. The game is the right one because is the game, and not reality that is a bit more complex. The Foucault's works main matter talks about 'devices'. The 'tools' that modern politics use for his control purpose.

--Solomon:
verb (quantifies, quantifying, quantified, quantification)

* 1 express or measure the quantity of.

* 2 Logic define the application of (a term or proposition) by the use of a quantifier.

after I meant economical statistics. The device that centralized economy use to measure our lives.

'subjectivity' is meant as explained in the works of Hardt/Negri. The group of relations: economical, sentimental, working relationships; and creativity: the will to build an output, the will to develop our own communities, etc

The base for this concepts is Existensialism as developed by Heidegger and Deleuze.

Didnt hope to have so much replies!
Thanks

SG- yes, i've seen several blurbs by Perkins. Over time i've come to agree with him in a lot of ways. i still have problems with his conspiracy theories and the "threats" to him for writing his book. but a lot of people will read it simple for that. on the other side of his and others arguments about the draconian IMF policies, you have to ask yourself, that if you're a lender would you be willing to allow a borrower to continue to spend, spend, spend in the same old ways. I know, we in the US have been doing the same thing and at some point we'll pay the price like Jamaca and other underdeveloped countries. and in the case of underdeveloped countries, those in power will still get their cut. sad

Spend, spend, spend! Absolutley! The leaders are bribed not to repay the loans. The more unpaid debt I get to collect on the more natural resources I can get for my corps for FREE!

Muwahahahahahahahaha Hahahahah!

Yeah, spend, spend, spend, as long as it's borrowed money from me that they will never repay so that upon default I can rape their worthless breeder/feeder citizens and natural resources.

From CR--"The matter is if people can handle a system of rights not based on punishment by centralized state organizations. The GB system of justice is an example of decentralized rights system."

Foucault was somewhat pessimisstic towards this idea. Power and power transfer continues to be the prime mover of societies. But those with more power, wealth, etc. can exert more power than the marginalized and may only dole out scraps from the table. It's difficult to escape the dialectic between labor and capital.

Information technology, the internet etc. open new possibilities and realities but have a tremendous downside in that things have speeded up so much that we do not take time to stop and smell the roses and enter meaningful relationships. Texting and twittering may take up time and simulate a sense of power, but it's an illusion and only passes time. We all are becoming digitized, disaggregated and more isolated and less engaged in the issues of life. In another post I pointed to the low turn out in elections by persons under thirty. We also can look at lower marriage rates and out of wedlock births, drop out rates, and job mobility and low loyalty to workers and corporate entities by workers to see the by products of feeling marginalized and powerless. The feelings of powerlessness cut through the dulling effects of meaninglessness and commitment. But we also feel an existential angst of emptiness and engage in superficial activities that just fill up time, that give momentary pleasure or that dull and drug our senses. It reminds me of "Brave New World" where society offers a different kind of control. "I'm happy with being a Gamma. I'm better than Deltas or Epsilons and I don't want to have think/work as hard as Alphas or Bettas"

My answers--take time to develop meaningful relationships. Slow down to let your shadow catch up with you. Risk loving others. Risk Loving God.

I disagree because of three words: intellectual property rights.

MENTAL MASTURE BATION!!! MASTERBATION!!

AHHH HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!

--- Parsifal The idea that the world works in a dialectical way is not true anymore, because of the spread of communications. They works completely different from the industrial chains of production. Example: the cost of industrial materials tend to grow costantly because of shortage and so on, the cost of telecommunications tend to get lower costantly. The industrials are keeping a pace not affordable anymore by economic systems, they will be set apart (very slowly because of capital maybe) by more value added sectors. In many countries they are supported by state funding and they are not competitive anymore. Economy is not mathematics: capital markets pushing on finance avoid competition, making people taxation to pay for unefficiency. New way of power production could do better also.

---Scarlet System of rights are the effect of biopower. Biopower take the civil system and turn it into protection of monopoly positions, trying to control competition. General Public License (GPL) is a way the 'commonwealth' use to avoid monocratic systems in the software industry. The problem is that immaterial assets cannot be quantified with money. That's the problem that made capitalism to fail. This problem can be resolved with what some researchers call 'public money' or 'check for consuming': a kind of money that has not nominal value but only value of exchange.

CR--what you describe is Brave New World. Those with the power of capital, political and intellectual power determine what those at the bottom will receive 'public money' and will tell us what we can use it for in exchange. (food stamps-can't buy soda pop, cigs, or beer).

i would also suggest you ask the 17% of Americans who are unemployed whether the dialectic between labor and capital is dead, as well as what the effect of public policy has on their lives. Your system replaces one oligarchy with another. No thanks.

Scarlet makes an important point about intellectual property rights. These encourage innovation and as in the case of Henry Ford innovation and higher wages made it affordable for the common man to purchase a car. Who will innovate with GPL's?

To me the challenge of biopolitics, as i understand Foucault and others, is to call upon the system to open a place for as many voices in the system to have a say in the conversation and the making of policy. As Aristotle said it's not just about me getting mine. It's about creating meaning through all of us being given the respect as God's creation with certain rights and responsibilities, to share our life stories and find a place in the social structure that ensues. In many ways we're attempting to do this with such things as concern for those with disabilities and disease (breast cancer and AIDS) The internet is one place where these personal narratives can be given voice, if we are willing to listen and to go deeper into the discussion of what binds us together. The internet can help us get beyond our superficiality and prejudices or it can be a garbage dump for incipid kiddie games and porn. But maybe those too can point us towards making better choices and teach us to be more discerning and thoughtful rather than only living in the moment, while consuming vast quantities of SOMA.

Cold Rolling, the production of ideas occurs in much the same way the production of products. An idea is sold in the same way a product or service. There can be a shortage of ideas in much the same way as there is a shortage of products or services. The creation of an idea is innovation, but will people create ideas for free?

Innovation carries a price: a tangible price in time, effort, and money. If the commonwealth is to claim ownership over ideas, they do not do proper respect for the creators of ideas. When you think of Windows, you think of Bill Gates. When you think of Apple, you think of Steve Jobbs. When you think of Linux, you think of who? Perhaps there is some truth in these thoughts. Look at the prevalence of each.

If you consider two strands of innovation in the automobile industry, you can see the larger effect of profit-oriented innovation. Compare the Tata Nano and the Toyota Prius. The first gets 54 mpg and costs $2500. The second costs $22800 and gets 51 mpg. What is my point? The industrial sector of the developed world isn't keeping pace with the developing world... but that only means that we aren't creating anything worth a damn. Capital markets are efficient when there are fewer regulations. The inefficiency does not result from the market, but from outside factors.

Intellectual Property is important. It protects the investment of time and money of the creators of ideas. Ideas do not come out of nowhere. Immaterial assets do not need to be quantified with money. They belong to their creator. This isn't a question of money. This is a question of whether the product of an individual's labor belongs to themselves or the community. If someone has a good idea, they should have the choice of what to do with it. If it is valuable, why should their labor belong to everyone. If it is not, only then does it not matter.

good analysis Scarlet. To go a step further, Gates when he was starting the Microsoft empire, most software was in the common domain. everyone would steal/copy others work. But those who were doing software were a very small group. my guess is it would have remained that way if Gates hadn't said and backed up his threats by saying, "if you copy this copywritten program, you're going to be sued and will go to jail". It was a new world.

As near as I can tell, this fails to properly identify the causes of information and the purpose of property. It is a mistake to regard wealth as simply material.
What is wealth? Anything with value.
What has value? That is up to each individual to decide.
What is a market? A place or system in which items of value are traded for items of value.
How is value determined? That is ultimately between to the buyer and seller.

Your "subjectivity" is not an example of the failures of capitalism to quantify emotions or relationships. First, such things carry immense value... the only reason they exist outside the capitalist system is that they cannot be traded. This is the reason they cannot carry monetary value. Second, the capitalist system is not an attempt to quantify and control anyone. It exists to allow for the voluntary exchange of items of value among persons. It exists to protect a person's right to own items of value. Third, the existence of worktime control is part of the voluntary exchange of time for money between the worker and business owner. A business owner pays the worker to do something specific, not dilly-dally, and is right to expect certain rules be observed and enforced. If the arrangement is unsuitable, both parties have a right to leave the agreement. The business owner doesn't want to control the individual for it's own sake, but wants to get a return on his investment in the worker's time. After that, I doubt the business owner gives a damn what the worker does with the money or outside work.

The inherent problem with this thinking is that it looks at the world in a fundamentally weird way. It assumes that "control" is the driving force of the world. The reason is because it looks at the world from the standpoint of groups of people. You see a firm, a community, a state and think "control and power" drives the world, but you forget that it is individuals that are in power, and don't ask why they seek power. Power for power's sake? Not an accurate principle. Not all power-seekers are built alike - some have good intent, some have bad intent - but they are both seeking the same thing. If you look a little deeper and see it from the standpoint of the individual, the driving force of the world is "value", personal value and it's increase (profit). An individual acts for one root reason: his action creates personal value. It is pride, it is survival, it is luxury, it is leisure, it is family, it is friends, it is everything he can afford because he has already worked, everything he can buy by getting paid, everything he can create and sell/give/keep by working.

Ultimately, capitalism is merely the protection of private property from theft - theft meaning all non-voluntary exchange. Slavery is theft of labor. Robbery is theft of capital. Murder is theft of life. Piracy is theft of ideas. Regulation (aside from that protecting all this) is theft of freedom.
All of these things must be protected because they are all an expression of an individual. He is his body, his labor, his money, his ideas, his freedom. None of these belong to anyone else unless he voluntary decides to give them up or exchange them for something else.

Of course, I'm discussing philosophical capitalism, not simply the market.

Thanks for all your hints

Scarlet -- It's not utopia of a Brave New World, because new electrical power production techniques can make each individual or family or neighbourhood to produce and exchange through power networks. The same for informations. The problem is that u cannot find primary needs satisfaction outside the capital markets.

Public money make possible to have primary goods, food water house, by chain of exchanges between producers. Organizing a net of suppliers and consumers of goods through public offers. A clearing house has the task to make contacts between demand and supply. Goods travels without a nominal value sticked on them, but just because of their value of use. There are a lot of places where people has part of his salary paid by 'consume checks': u can decide if receive part of the amount in shape of consume bonuses, you go to the mall and by the check u get one kilo of bread, the bakery will use it to pay its supplier, and the supplier to pay his workers to buy bread, and so on. The check has direct value of use or exchange, it doesnt produce inflaction and it gets legitimated by the people that exchange it.

Everybody should receive enough public money to sustain phisically his individuality, because everybody is inside of a network of knowledge, producing subjectivity for the commonwealth. Capital market cannot have the monopoly of basic goods distribution, first of all because of the Bill Of Rights Of A Citizen.

Today with the information networks this way of distribution of goods has become possible, managing producers networks till the final user. So we could resolve the basic needs of warmth food and electrical power for more people. Let the capital enjoy the biopower over the rest.

Thanks for asking about a discussion on the meaning and sense of 'value' that is a key of this trend.

Innovation is a matter of growing efficiency in processes of production more than on product innovation I think. We have already enough useless product on markets.

When I think at Linux I see a commonwealth creating something usefull, giving example of good lifestyle. And in my opinion is already enough.

You cannot deny that capitalism on his majority of lifestyles do aim to control sensations and emotions. Fortunately it fails.

I agree on the "Ultimately..."

Parsifal --In the commonwealth nobody is unemployed because everybody receive an amount of very basic needs satisfaction because of his effort to the creation of relationships. We can discuss the demographic problem implied in this approach. If somebody aim to have more he is completely free to act legally as he wish. But first be sure to not force people to alienate his subjectivity.

I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. What you describe is welfareism at its worst. Whether charity or welfare there is a tendency to infantalize persons and keep them in poverty. They do not provide a way to get out of poverty. Even "Christian charity" has a tendency of only placating the givers feelings of entitlement at the expense of the recipient. As givers we can retreat into our gated communities with a feeling of having done good. The US welfare act in 1963 did more to destroy the incentives of persons to get out of poverty, to get an education and meaningful work and it helped destroy the already fragile black family unit. As of 2006, there were over 4.25million Americans on either parole,probation, or in prision. But they have their three hots and a cot, but when they get out, most will still not have an education or the values to make a radical lifestyle change. So, over 60% of those in prison will return to prison within 2-3years. There is a direct correlation to poverty, race, education, and family. What we've tried has not worked. And what is the long term societal cost?

So CR, who's going to decide what basic needs we all need? And how will that system enhance positive human relation building and attainment of each persons human potential. In your world it will be the central planners who have Power/Knowledge superiority. But they cannot make sound judgments because they can't use their technology to discern the unintended consequences of their decisions. Humans can't be disaggregated into convenient groups. We are all different. But we all have rights and responsibilities that can help us flourish, if given the right environment.

A short clip on the welfare office. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDfsjUZjMoM

thanks Parsifal. Unfortunately by now my connection doesnt permit to watch videos but I will whenever possible.

I'm trying to keep the discussion on general terms, because of the crossborders approach the concept of moltitude needs.

moltitude is not family nor welfare. The problem of integration I think is due to the exclusion some people suffer from relations networks, and mainly because of ignorance. Evidently marginalized people you were talking about aims confusingly to opulence instead of wellness; and that's strictly a philosophical problem. Biopower denies the usefulness of philosophy except when it can spoil it.


Many examples of networks in south america demonstrated that organizing producing communities through information networks is possible. Exchange can be regulated by transactions of purchasing power between producers of goods, determined by consumption, not by detaining goods. The main problem to solve I think is trying to eradicate from capitalism as we know it one of his sides: the need of being everywhere. The need of not having a counterpart, so it can not clarify his contradictions.

Some cultures use markets efficiently without the capital way of intending resource exploitation. Richness is not opulence. Many populations appear to westerns to be poor because of their austerity, but maybe there relations are strong and produce more value.
Capital cannot quantify 'culture', so defines it as useless, or underdeveloped. Unfortunately corporations need culture for their sakes so they try to put it in a box, stating that everything outside it is wrong.


Welfare state failed in western countries because it was based on the economic certainty that capital could be the right measure of wellness. The wrong economic indexes are still used to show countries' performances, as GDP. Google for some alternative economic indexes and you will find some answers. (My preferred index is wild land msqaure over population).

Economy as science can work outside money. Because it's mainly the way you sustain your network relations. Capital markets do not permit local networks to develop outside his control, to do this they arrives to high biopower pressure levels, destroying cultures, that is the opposite of an economical behaviour.

For what I know US were founded by a middle-class revolution, and their system of rights is based on individualism and competition. The first constitution contained some strong principles about preserving relations systems between former colonies, unfortunately they have been disregarded. Recently in the 1970s by the negation of Keynes-ianism and the turn made by Bretton Woods toward monetarism. It can be possible that simply welfare is not part of the american lifestyle. But again, they must let somebody else to try to have a different system of relations. Let's write a Constitution based on a system of rights according to information networks trends, and maybe we will see something impossible.

My dictionary does not have the word "molitude". What is that?

You mention South American examples of organizing producing communities through information networks. Please give me examples/case studies on this. Google references would be helpful.