« Civil war is the matrix of all struggles of power »: the debate with marxism in the analysis of Michel Foucault’s power

Abstract

Making the genealogy of power was never Foucault’s clear intent. However, the power issue was always a recurring theme in his investigations, to the point of scholars suggesting a division and organization of his work as from three theoretical axis. Within this perspective, the analytic of power would mark Foucault’s philosophical path in the 70’s. Indeed, until 1994, the year of publication of a series of texts, interviews and conferences by Foucault on Dits et écrits, the issue of the analytic of power was mostly known from books like urveiller et punir (1975) and Histoire de la sexualité I: la volonté de savoir (1976). With the beginning of the publication of the classes in Collège de France from 1997 the reading towards the analytic of power might undergo an enlargement. But it isn’t until 2015 that the entirety of Foucault’s classes on Collège de France were published, opening an important path towards the investigation concerning the first reflections regarding power. It is our intention to show on this paper how the first steps of the analytic of power by Michel Foucault comes to life from a gauchiste context still set in the terms of a dynastic of knowledge. Accordingly, we try to show how the dynastic period matches a theoretical sketch, first attempts of formulation of the power concept, distinctively elaborated in contrast with marxism. This opposition occurs mainly in the refusal both of the Marxist infra-superstructure scheme and of the contractualist (Hobbesian) model of state society.