The war model in Foucault and Marx. Continuities and discontinuities

Abstract

The main goal of this text is to establish a preliminary relationship between Foucault's model of the political-discursive analysis, Marx´s, and Rusche and Kirchheimer’s; such a relationship is intended to lay the foundations for a much broader comparative analysis. The Foucauldian model fundamentally consists of the realization of a genealogical history of power-knowledge, techniques, and technologies, while the Marxist model, within which the analysis of Rusche and Kirchheimer is included, is based on the realization of a structural analysis. First of all, this article will demonstrate the possibility of extracting some elements from above-mentioned types of analysis, which, due to their complementariness (or compatibility), can be used simultaneously; in this regard, it will be argued that Foucault, Marx, and Rusche and Kirchheimer, use war as a principle of historical intelligibility. Secondly, it will be shown that the fundamental differences between these models derive, on the one hand, from the Foucauldian analysis of the microphysical relations of power-knowledge, that is, from the relations of struggle between heterogeneous social forces that are not necessarily configured as economic classes. Finally, on the other hand, it will be shown that the differences between these models derive from Foucault's critique to the Marxist analysis of political relations (the so-called “economistic analogy”) and to the discourses (the category of ideology).