A Comparative Analysis of Foucault’s and Marx’s Theory of Population

When it comes to contemporary political theory， people constantly make comparison between works of Foucault and Marx. While most theses focus on Foucault’s and Marx’s theory of power， this essay discusses their theory of population―an important concept in both people’s works. This essay first introduces the word’s origin “populousness”. In the body part， it analyzes the background of the two people’s theories， how they understand the concept population and how they think population works. From the comparative analysis it can be concluded that the concept population has changed in many aspects from an economic context into a political context over a hundred year.

Populousness

The word population origins from Latin word “populus” and populousness has a long and complicated history in western world， which showed up as early as in Aristotle’s Politics. “It points to the sense that units of government （kingdoms， empires， countries， parishes， cities） contain greater or lesser number of entities―hearths， soldiers or souls， for instance―distributed across different orders or classes” （Curtis 508）. The concept populousness makes it possible to plan the future and the degree of it reflects the index of wealth and measure of policy. Basically populousness involves numbering people， and more importantly， it “implies hierarchical differentiation of orders of the people.”（Curtis 508）

Population of Marx

In the early and mid 19th century， Europe witnessed a massive storm of first industry revolution where great changes of every social aspect took place. Engels pointed out that with the advent of the machine， unemployment as well as “want， wretchedness， and crime” all showed up. What is more， he noticed there was a gigantic expansion of population at that time， which can be regarded as first formulation of Karl Marx’s theory of population. Marx theory of population is also called theory of surplus population since he introduces “relative surplus population” in Capital：

The laboring population therefore produces， along with accumulation of capital produced by it， the means by which [it]itself is made relatively superfluous， it turned into a relative surplus population； and it does this to an always increasing extent.（Marx 692）

According to Marx， the intention of the phrase “surplus population” is to allege that it is not nature but productive system and material condition that cause people surplus. It can be explained in The German Ideology：

[Men] begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence…[by which they are]indirectly producing their actual material life…This production only makes its appearance with the increase of population. In its turn this presupposes the intercourse of individuals with one another. The form of this is again determined by production. （Marx 42-43）

According to Marx economic theory， the growing number of machine and capital drives the less efficient workers away； with the social and technological development of capitalism more and more workers become redundant. That is， mechanization may lead to unemployment. However， the advance of technology has much more complex influence on today’s society than what acclaimed by Marx and it has proved that massive unemployment hardly occurs in highly developed countries. In less developed countries， where the surplus peasant population （what Marx called “the latent industrial reserve army”） is often large， the consequent low wage is not the stimulus to capital accumulation that Marx considered it to be but a serious handicap to it.

From the ideas presented above， it can be concluded that in mid 19th century， the concept population Marx refered to is close to the word’s origin “populousness”， and he saw population as a social issue from the economic point of view. Population and production are inseparable parts from each other. How to decrease the surplus population and save capitalism from unemployment and redundancy are Marx’s major concerns， which are under economic context.

Population of Foucault

After WWII the world enters to postmodern mode and the West world comes to postcapitalist age. People found it hard to conform to the society with the old values and standards. Therefore， a need to redefine and reconstruct the ideas of former scholars became urgent at that time. In the late 1970s， Marxist economism remained stagnated and could not fit in contemporary western political life. Michael Foucault insisted on “getting rid of Marx” by extracting the “one true Marx” through textual analysis. He made elaborated analysis on Capital and pointed out that “Marx saw the great technological advance of the West in the steam engine， but neglected the invention of the political technology that made industrial innovation operative”（Curtis 506）. The neglected political technology concluded two practices： those of discipline and those of population.

Population is a core concept of Foucault’s works as he tried to analyze the formation and exercise of power. “Population， he argued， is the pivot on which turned the transition from rule based on sovereign authority to a governmentalized rule which decentres the state under liberalism.”（Curtis 506） Thus， population gained a refined definition in postmodern context by Foucault. The concept Foucault refered to contains its origin populousness and more importantly， links to bio-politics.

Since 18th century， Bio-politics has been prevalent in western political life as power could no longer operate on individual bodies simply， but rather had to operate on individuals as members of biological species. Bio-politics focuses on individual comportment， such as how to make people have more or fewer children； it also studies structural conditions， such as quality of housing. It improves through the development of surveillance techniques and operation of administrative organs.

In this sense， in the mid of 70s， Foucault began to argue that it was bio-politics which aimed at the collective body， population， that linked to the techniques of the individual body. His concern with population as a political object presented on his lectures on state formation and in “Governmentality” he pointed out that population was an essential object of modern forms of government.

The postmodern political concept of population has two main functions. First， it makes it possible to identify regularities， to discover things which hold together. Population is presented by birth， death， marriage or race rate so as to be the target of analysis and intervention. Second， with this statistical concept， population makes government of state involving totalization and governmentalization possible. Since 18th century， the Christian notion of “flock” or “corpus” has married to sovereign authority and thus， “the commonality of souls was replaced by common subordination to sovereign political authority.”（Macdonald 23）

Above all， it is clear that Foucault reconstructed the concept population from a political perspective， as it is closely related to bio-politics. That is， population is linked to the law of large numbers causing individual being under disposal. Hence， population is no more than naturalistical as an empirical phenomenon with “process”， but is a body constituting disciplinary power， an essential object of modern forms of government.

Conclusion

Marx explained his theory of population in the 70s of 19th century， while Foucault’s work was born in postmodern context a hundred year later. The background of two theories are， to a large extent， different， leading to essential difference. Marx applied his economic theory to study population， linking it to labor face， surplus values， production， unemployment， poverty and so on. The aim to study population was to analyze the capitalism condition and what’s more， figure out a way to decrease the surplus population and save capitalism from unemployment and redundancy.

However， Foucault applied his political theory on the concept population. Bio-politics， as one of the micro-powers， stresses on the control of population. In this sense， Foucault’s population contains at least three concepts： populousness， the social body， and the “statistical construct population”. Through the population study， Foucault intended to analyze how disciplinary power exercised and how social relation operated in postmodern western world.

References：

[1]Bradley J.Macdonald.“Marx，Foucault，Genealogy.” Polity， Spring 2002.

[2]Bruce Curtis.“Foucault on Governmentality and Population： The Impossible Discovery.” The Canadian Journal of Sociology， Autumn，2002.

[3]Karl Marx.The German Ideology.International Publishers.1967.

―.Capital：A Critique of Political Economy（Volume 2）.Penguin Classics.1993.

[4]William Petersen.“Marxism and the Population Question： Theory and Practice.”Population and Development Review，1988.

[5]戴蓓芬.析福柯生命权力中的人口概念[J].理论与现代化，2014（4）.

作者简介：姜煜玮（1992-），女，汉族，重庆人，硕士研究生，研究方向：英美文学。