Foucault-L mail-list

Hi,
I'm no expert on 'governmentality studies' as a whole, i have not read the 
masses of secondary sources on this topic, but i am interested in the 
peculiar 'governmentality'  of the English, particularly in the Victorian 
period, a time, I'm sure you'll agree, when the intersection between basic 
tenets of laissez faire economics and the emergence of a communitarian 
'welfare state' is evidently pronounced. But is there a fundamental 
'tension' between these two political view-points? During the Victorian 
period economic discourse, as a whole, revolved around a particular 
definition of a subject which was essentially self-regulated by rational, 
calculated, self-interest. [on this see Albert Hirschman's *The Passions 
and the Interests* 1977, interestingly enough, Hirschman also intimates in 
this work that the concept of rational self 'interest', as a new 
behavioural paradigm in the West, initially emerged in political theory 
before moving on into economic discourse]. Foucault in a late interview 
states the "contact between the technologies of domination of others and 
those of the self I call governmentality" [from *Technologies of the Self: 
A Seminar with Michel Foucault, 1988, p 19]. Thus, in light of this 
statement, there is no 'tension', understood as some basic conflict, 
between "economic" [read laissez faire] and "biopolitical" [read welfare 
state] political positions- or forms of 'governmentality'- rather at the 
points in which they intersect we find the operations of 'governmentality' 
proper. I realise that the problem driving this request is precisely that 
in many instances these two forms of governmental practice are seen as 
being incompatible, but this may be largely the result of the colonial 
setting on which you focus. I'd argue, that for the English the one led 
rather 'naturally' or 'organically' to the other, in that the development 
English 'welfare' state was not, generally, driven by a need to 'dominate', 
'control' 'subject', or 'govern' the English populace, not only because the 
English would of seen this as an infringement of hard earned political 
rights, but there was no need for that, for the English had already, again 
generally, mastered the art of governing themselves. I would suggest that 
because the native Indian population was not seen to have acquired this 
national characterological trait, that the 'tension' between 'hands-off' 
and 'hands-on' forms of governmental practice would be most salient.
Just a few thoughts....
bradley nitins