Abstract
The problem of “government” in the sixteenth century. ∼ Multiplicity of practices of government (government ofself, government of souls, government of children, etcetera). ∼ The s 1 vecfic 1 roroblem of the government of the state. ∼ The point of repulsion of the literature on government: Machiavelli’s The Prince. ∼ Briefhistory of the reception of The Prince until the nineteenth century. ∼ The art ofgovernment di.stinctfrom the Prince’s simple arfulness. ∼ Example of this new art ofgovernment: Guillaume de la Perriere Le Miroir politique (1555). ∼ A government thatfi’nds its end in the “things” to be directed. ∼ Decline of law to the advantage of a variety of tactics. ∼ The historical and institutional obstacles to the implementation of this art ofgovernment until the eighteenth century. ∼’ The problem of l vopulation an essentialfactor in unblocking the art ofgovernment. ∼ The triangleformed by government, population, and political economy. ∼ Questions ofinethod: the project of a history of “gvvernmentality.” Overvaluation of the problem of the state.
A first transcription of this lecture was published in the Italian journal, Aut-Aut, no. 167–168, Sept.-Dec. 1978, reproduced in Actes, special issue, 51, Foucault hors les murs, Summer 1986, pp. 6–15, and reproduced in the same form, according to the editors’ criteria, in Dits et Ecrits, 3, pp. 635–657, with the title “La ‘gouvernementalite.”’ Our version has been completely revised on the basis of the recordings and manuscript. [A first English version, translated from the Italian by Rosi Braidotti, appeared in the English journal I&C, no. 6, Autumn 1979, and was republished, revised by Colin Gordon, in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, Peter Miller, eds. The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991; republished in Foucault, Essential Writings, 3: Power). I have consulted and benefited from this version in making this new translation; G.B.]
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Footnotes
On this tradition of the “mirrors of princes,” see P. Hadot, “Fürstenspiegel” in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol. 8, ed. Th. Klauser (Stuttgart: A. Heisemann, 1972) col. 555–632.
N. Macchiavelli, Il Principe (1513), (Rome: B. Di Giunta, 1532).
A.W. Rehberg, Das Buch vom Fürsten von Niccolo Macchiavelli, übersetzt und mit Einleitung und Ammerkungen begleitet (Hanover, bei den Gebrüdern Hahn, 1810; 2nd edn., Hanover: Hahnschen Hofbuchhandlung, 1824). See S. Bertelli and P. Innocenti, Bibliografia machiavelliana (Verona: Edizioni Valdonega, 1979) p. 206 and pp. 221–223.
Heinrich Leo published the first German translation of Machiavelli’s informal letters in 1826, preceded by an introduction, Die Briefe des Florentinischen Kanzlers und Geschichtsschreiber Niccoló di Bernado dei Machiavelli an seine (Dümmler, 1828). See, G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell’eta moderna (Bari: Laterza, 1995) pp. 385–386; S. Bertelli and P. Innocenti, Bibliografia, pp. 227–228.
Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber (Leipzig and Berlin: G. Reimer, 1824) pp. 182–202. In this work Ranke only devotes a “brief but substantial” appendix to Machiavelli (Procacci). On its importance, see P. Villari, Niccolò Machiavelli e i suoi tempi (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1895) vol. 2, p. 463 sq.; G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea, pp. 383–384: “After Fichte, Ranke was the first among the German interpreters (do not forget that the Hegelian pages of the essay Über Vefassung Deutschlands were still unpublished) to pose the problem of the unity of Machiavelli’s work in a consistent way and to attempt to resolve it on a purely historical basis.” See also, Friedrich Meinecke (1862–1954), Die Idee der Staatsräson in der neueren Geschichte (Munich-Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 1924); French translation by M. Chevallier, L’Idée de la raison d’État dans l’histoire des temps modernes (Geneva: Droz, 1973) p. 343; English translation by Douglas Scott, Machiavellism. The Doctrine of Raison d’État and its Place in Mode rn History (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1984) p. 380: “It is one of the most intelligent and fruitful estimates of Machiavelli that has ever been written, and it broke new ground for all those who followed him. Fifty years later, he supplemented it with additions which throw a particular light on the principles of his attitude towards Machiavelli, whereas the first edition was carried out purely from a historical point of view, and only hinted lightly at a moral judgment.” This second edition appeared in 1874 and is reproduced in the Sämtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1877) XXXIII-XXXIV, p. 151 sq.
Angelo Ridolfi, Pensieri intorno allo scopo di Niccolò Machiavelli nel libro Il Principe (Milan: 1810). See G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea, pp. 374–377.
Lancellotto Politi (entered the Dominican order in 1517 under the name of Ambrogio Catarino), Enarrationes R.P.F. Ambrossi Catharini Politi Senensis Archiepiscopi campani in quinque priora capital libri Geneses. Adduntur plerique alii tractatus et quaestiones rerum variarum (Rome: Antonium Bladum Camerae apostolicae typographum, 1552). According to Luigi Firpo, “La prima condanna del Machiavelli,” Turin University of Studies, Annuario dell’anno accademico 1966–67 (Turin: 1967) p. 28, the work could have been printed in 1548. The paragraph in this book entitled “Quam execrandi Machiavelli discursus & instituito sui principis” (pp. 340–344) immediately follows the paragraph in which the author deals with “de libris a Christiano detestandis & a Christianismo penitus eliminandis” (p. 339)—not only pagan works, but also those of their imitators, such as Petrarch and Boccacio. See G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea, pp. 89–91.
I. Gentillet, Discours sur les moyens de bien gouverner et maintenir en bonne paix un Royaume ou autre Principauté, divisezen trois parties à savoir du Conseil, de la Religion et Police, que doit tenir un Prince. Contre Nicolas Machiavel Florentin (Geneva: 1576), republished as Anti-Machiavel, edited with commentary and notes by C.E. Rathé (Geneva: Droz, “Les Classiques de la pensée politique,” 1968). See C.E. Rathé, Innocent Gentillet and the first “ ‘Antimachiavel’,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, XXVII, 1965, pp. 186–225. Gentillet (c.1535–1588) was a Huguenot jurisconsult who took refuge in Geneva after Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Between 1576 and 1655 there were 24 editions of his book (ten in French, eight in Latin, two in English, one in Dutch, and three in German). The title given by Foucault (Discours d’Estat...) corresponds to the Leyden edition that appeared in 1609.
Frederick II (Frederick the Great), Anti-Machiavel (The Hague: 1740) is Voltaire’s revised version of the Réfutation du Prince of Machiavelli written by the young heir to the Prussian throne in 1739, the text of which will only be published in 1848 (republished, Paris: Fayard, “Corpus des œuvres de philosophie en langue française,” 1985); English translation, Anti-Machiavel: Or, an Examination of Machiave l’s Prince. With notes historical and Political. Published by Mr. de Voltaire (London: T. Woodward, MDCCXLI).
The first edition of Thomas Elyot’s The Boke Named the Governour appeared in London and is actually dated 1531; critical edition ed. D.W. Rude (New York: Garland, 1992).
Paolo Paruta, Della perfettione della vita politica (Venice: D. Nicolini, 1579).
Guillaume de La Perrière (1499?–1553?), Le Miroire politique, œuvre non moins utile que necessaire à tous monarches, roys, princes, seigneurs, magistrats, et autres surintendants et gouverneurs de Republicques (Lyon: Macé Bonhomme, 1555; 2n edn., Paris: V. Norment and J. Bruneau, 1567; 3r edn., Paris: Robert Le Magnier, 1567); English edition, The Mirror of Police (London: Adam Islip, 1589 and 1599). See G. Dexter, “Guillaume de La Perrière,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, XVII (1), 1955, pp. 56–73; E. Sciacca, “Forme di governo e forma della società nel Miroire Politicque di Guillaume de La Perrière,” Il Pensiero politico, XXII, 1989, pp. 174–197. The posthumous work could have been written in 1539 on the request of the Toulouse Capitol z, who will ask the author to “compose in one volume, in suitable order, illustrating and enriching municipal edicts and statutes, concerning the act of political government” (3rd dedication, p. 9).
François de La Mothe Le Vayer (1588–1672), L’Œconomique du Prince (Paris: A. Courbé, 1653), reprinted in Œuvres, vol. 1, part II (Dresden: Michel Groell, 1756) pp. 287–288: “Morality, which is the science of conduct, is divided into three parts. In the first, which is called ethics, or morality par excellence, and on which your Majesty has already conversed, we learn to govern ourselves by the rules of reason. There are two other parts that naturally follow this, one of which is œconomic and the other political. This order is quite natural, since it is absolutely necessary that a man knows how to govern himself before commanding others, either as father of a family, which is œconomic, or as sovereign, magistrate, or minister of the State, which concerns politics.” See also the prologue to La Politique du Prince in Œuvres, p. 299: “After the first two parts of morality, one teaching self-control and the other stewardship, that is to say conducting a family properly, the third part, which is politics, or the science of governing well.” These writings, composed between 1651 and 1658, are grouped together in the Œuvres of Le Vayer under the title: Sciences dont la connaissance peut devenir utile au Prince.They make up the set of the Instruction of Monseigneur le Dauphin, which dates from 1640. See, N. Choublier-Myskowski, L’Éducation du prince au XVIIe siècle d’après Heroard et La Mothe Le Vayer (Paris: Hachette, 1976).
F. de La Mothe Le Vayer, La Géographie et la Morale du Prince (Paris: A. Courbé, 1651 [Œuvres, vol. 1, part II, pp. 3–174 for the first treatise and pp. 239–286 for the second]); L’Œconomique du Prince. La Politique du Prince (Paris: A. Courbé, 1653 [Œuvres, ibid., pp. 287–298 for the first treatise, and pp. 299–360 for the second]).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’économie politique (1755), in Œuvres complètes, vol. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade,” 1964) p. 241; English translation by G.D.H. Cole, A Discourse on Political Economy in The Social Contract and Discourses, p. 128: “The word Economy, or Œconomy, is derived from oÍÓS, a house, and Υ͵Óζ, law, and meant originally only the wise and legitimate government of the house for the common good of the whole family”
Ibid.: “The meaning of the term was then extended to the government of that great family, the State.” A few lines later Rousseau notes that “the rules of conduct proper for one of these societies” would not be “also proper for the other. They differ too much in extent to be regulated in the same manner; and there will always be a great difference between domestic government, in which a father can see everything for himself, and civil government, where the chief sees hardly anything save through the eyes of others.”
See, François Quesnay (1694–1774), Maximes générales du gouvernement économique d’un royaume agricole, in Du Pont de Nemours, ed., Physiocratie ou Constitution naturelle du Gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain (Paris: Merlin, 1768) pp. 99–122; republished in F. Quesnay et la physiocratie, vol. 2, pp. 949–976. See above, lecture of 25 January, note 40.
G. de La Perrière, Le Miroir politique, folio 23r: “Gouvernement est droicte disposition des choses, desquelles on prent charge pour les conduire jusques à fin convenable.”
On the classical use of this metaphor, see Plato, Euthyphro, 14b, Protagoras, 325c, The Republic, 389d, 488a-489d, 551c, 573d, The Statesman, 296e-297a, 297e, 301d, 302a, 304a, The Laws, 737a, 942b, 945c, 961c, etcetera (see P. Louis, Les Métaphores de Platon [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1945] p. 156); Aristotle, Politics, III, 4, 1276b, 20–30; Cicero, -Ad Atticum, 3, 47; Thomas Aquinas De regno, I, 2, II, 3. In the next lecture Foucault returns to this metaphor on the basis of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.
Frederick II (the Great), Anti-Machiavel (Amsterdam: 1741); English, Anti-Machiavel: or, an Examination of Machiavel’s Prince, commentary on chapter 5 of The Prince, pp. 17–19. Foucault probably used the Garnier edition of the text, published after Machiavelli’s The Prince by R. Naves, 1941, pp. 117–118. See also the critical edition of the work by C. Fleischauer in, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Geneva: E. Droz, 1958) vol. 5, pp. 199–200. Foucault’s paraphrase is, however, inexact: Frederick the Great did not say Russia was made up of marshes, etcetera, but of land that “produces all sorts of corn.”
Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–1694), De officio hominis et civis iuxta Legem naturalem (ad Junghans, Londini Scanorum 1673) Book II, ch. 11, § 3; French translation, Les Devoirs de l’homme et du citoyen tels qu’ils sont prescrits par la loi naturelle, trans. J. Barbeyrac (Amsterdam: Pierre du Coup, 1718, 4 edn.) vol. 1, pp. 361–362; English translation by Michael Silverthorne, On the Duty of Man and Citizen according to Natural Law, ed. James Tully (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) p. 151: “This is the general rule for sovereigns: the safety of the people is the supreme law. For authority has been given them to achieve the end for which states were instituted. Princes must believe that nothing is good for them privately which is not good for the state.” [The French translation of this passage is a bit different: “The good of the people is the sovereign law: it is also the general maxim that sovereigns [Puissances] must keep constantly in mind, since Sovereign authority has only been conferred on them in order that they make use of it to obtain and preserve the public utility that is the natural end of the establishment of civil societies. A sovereign therefore must on no account hold to what is to his own advantage, unless it be also advantageous for the State”; G.B.]; see also, De jure naturae et gentium (Lund: A. Junghaus, 1672) VII, IX, § 3; French translation by J. Barbeyrac, Le Droit de la nature et des gens, ou Système général des principes les plus importants de la Morale, de la Jurisprudence et de la Politique, trans. J. Barbeyrac (Amsterdam: H. Schelte and J. Kuyper, 1706); English translation by Basil Kennet and others, Of the Law of Nature and Nations (Oxford: 1703).
On the history of statistics, see the classical work of V. John, Geschichte der Statistik (Stuttgart: F. Encke, 1884), reference to which appears in Foucault’s notes. He may also have been familiar with the volume published by the INSEE, Pour une histoire de la statistique (Paris: INSEE, 1977; republished, Paris: Éd. Economica/INSEE, 1987).
See, for example, Richelieu, Testament politique (Amsterdam: H. Desbordes, 1688); ed., L. André (Paris: R. Laffont, 1947) p. 279: “Private families are the true models of Republics.”
See the subtitle of the book on cameralism by P. Schiera, Il Cameralismo e l’assolutismo tedesco: Dall’Arte di Governo alle Scienze dello Stato (Milan: A. Giuffré, 1968). Foucault never cites this book, which marks a milestone in the recent history of Polizeiwissenschaft, but he probably knew of it, at least indirectly, through Pasquale Pasquino, who was then very close to him. Foucault comes back to the word “science,” which he rejects, at the start of the next lecture.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’économie politique, p. 241 and p. 244; A Discourse on Political Economy, p. 128 and p. 131. “But how could the government of the State be like that of the family, when the basis on which they rest is so different? (…) From all that has just been said, it follows that public economy, which is my subject, has been rightly distinguished from private economy, and that, the State having nothing in common with the family except the obligations which their heads lie under of making both of them happy, the same rules of conduct cannot apply to both.”
See Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. RJ. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969) p. 75: “The state is the coldest of all cold monsters [das kälteste aller kalten Ungeheuer].Coldly it lies, too; and this lie creeps from its mouth: ‘I, the state, am the people.’” Nietzsche’s expression is frequently taken up in anarchist discourse.
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Senellart, M., Ewald, F., Fontana, A. (2009). 1 February 1978. In: Senellart, M., Ewald, F., Fontana, A. (eds) Security, Territory, Population. Michel Foucault. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245075_4
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