Inventing our selves

152

. . the latter. But Foucault conceives of power

tivity within (ces _from the 'macro' to the 'micro'_ throuashthat. "-'hicb t
1
verses v;:a~:ered, held in check, administered, steered, g~id:~ ch Perso~
are r~l~ ~hey are led by oth~rs or have come to direct or reguJat ' by .means
of~hic Foucault, 1979a; Miller and Rose, 1988, 1990). To anal ~the1ro"1i
actions (
'the self' and power, then, is not a matter of lay the reJa.
t1ons between
.
mentin
. h' h our autonomy is suppressed by the state, but 0 r 1
. 8 the
ways m w ic
.
nvestigar
. which subiectivity has become an essential obiect t
iog
the ways m
'J

d
d
'J
' arget a
rtain strategies, tactics, an proce ures of regulation nd
resource fcor Ce
d d
h' h
.
der the terms that are acco~ e so ig a political value .
To cons1
'b'l'
h .
.
mour
omv fulfillment, respons1 J ity, c 01ce - from thispers .
present - au ton J

Pect1ve
.
. to question whether
they mark a kmd of culmination oferb
is certam1Y
.
.
icaJ
this
does
not
unply
that
we
should
subject
these
terms
t
.
But
evolut10n.
. .
.
.
oa
.
.
"'or
example
bv
cla1mmg
that
the
rhetonc
of
freedom
1s
an
ideoJ
cnt1que, 1~
,
~

08J-.
l ask for the workmgs of a pol1t1cal system that secretly demes it. Wi
~:o::d, rather, examine the ways in which tbe~e ideals of the self are boun:
up with a profoundly ambi~uous set of relat10ns between human subjects
and political power. Following Foucault, I have suggested that we use the
term 'government' as a portmanteau notion to encompass the multiple strategies, tactics, calculations, and reflections that have sought to 'conduct the
conduct' of human beings (Foucault, 1986a; Gordon, 1986, 1987; see this
volume, especially Chapters 1 and 2).
We can explore these relations along three interlinked dimensions. The first
dimension, roughly 'political', Foucault termed 'governmentality', or 'mentalities of government': the complex of notions, calculations, strategies, and
tactics through which diverse authorities - political, military, economic,
theological, medical, and so forth - have sought to act upon the lives and
conducts of each and all in order to avert evils and achieve such desirable
states as health, happiness, wealth, and tranquillity (Foucault, 1979b). From
at least the eighteenth century, the capacities of humans, as subjects, as citizens, as individuals, as selves, have emerged as a central target and resource
for authorities. Attempts to invent and exercise different types of political
rule have been mt1mate

1Y lmked

to conceptions of the nature of those who

are to be ruled The auto
b. . .
the antJt. hes1s. of polif J nomous su ~ectIV1ty of the modern self may seem
ratio f h
. ica power. But Foucault's argument suggests an explon o t e ways m whi h th.
. .
. .
l
feature of
c
is autonom1zat1on of the self is itself a centra
Th
cont~mporary governmentality.
e second dunension s
d
tional'. However .t
. uggeste by Foucault's writings is roughly 'institu. . .
.
.
'
' I entads constru1
eal way, that is t0
,
ng mst1tut1ons m a particular 'technolog1through the asylumsay,
as human tech no1og1es
'. Inst1tut1ons

to th
from the pnson,

a:

as practices that put le workplace, the school and the home can be seen
the hum b
m P ay certain a
'
. .

th d . an eings that inhab't

ssumpt10ns and ob1ect1ves concerrung
1 h
e esign of institutional
t em (Foucault, 1977). These are embodied in
space, the arrangements of institutional time and

Governing enterprising individuals

153

d es of reward and punishment, and the operation of systems

vitY, proced .u~gments. They can be thought of as 'technological' in that
acu
an JU
.
f h
. ..
of 00rtn~ the ca\cu\at~d orchestration o .t e act1v1t1es of humans under a

neY see . na\ity directed toward certain goals. They attempt to simulta...
. a\ ratio
.
..
f . d' 'd
pracuc maximize certain capac1t1es o 1n iv~ uals and constrain others in
neous\y
with particular knowledges (medical, psychological, pedagogic)
rdance
l' d' . .
..
acc0 toward particular ends (respons1.b'11ty,
1sc1phne, diligence, etc.). In what
and d with what consequences are our contemporary notions of subjec~ays a~onomy and enterprise embodied within the regulatory practices of a
uve
.
" ')
. .au tive\y 'modern, ('iorm
o f 1lle.
dtsunc
.
. r .
.
.
f
The third ~\~ens1on. ior 1nvest1gat~on. o the mode~ self corresponds to a
h\y 'ethical fie\d, 1nsofar as ethics is understood in a 'practical' way as
roug
.
d
.
'
odes of eva\uat1ng an acting upon oneself that have obtained in different
~istorica\ periods (Foucault, l 986a, 1988~ see my discussion in Chapter l of
this vo\ume). Foucault examined these in terms of what he called 'technologies of the self', techniques "which permit individuals to effect by their own
means or with the he\p of others a certain number of operations on their own
bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being, so as to transform
themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom,
perfection, or immortality" (Foucault, 1988, p. 18). Ethics are thus understood as means by which individuals come to construe, decipher, act upon
themselves in relation to the true and the false, the permitted and the forbidden, the desirable and the undesirable. Along this dimension, then, we would
consider the ways in which the contemporary culture of autonomous subjectivity has been embodied in our techniques for understanding and improving
our selves in relation to that which is true, permitted, and desirable.
'Enterprise culture' can be understood in terms of the particular connections that it establishes between these three dimensions. For enterprise links
up a seductive ethics of the self, a powerful critique of contemporary institutional and political reality, and an apparently coherent design for the radical
transformation of contemporary social arrangements. In the ~~tings of 'ne.o\iberals' like Hayek and Friedman, the well-being of both poht1cal and social
existence is to be ensured not by centralized planning and bureaucrac~,. but
through the 'enterprising' activities and choices of au!o~o~ous ent1t1esbusinesses, organizations, persons - each striving to max1m1ze ~ts ~":'n advan and promoting
new pro3ec
t s by means of tnd1v1dual and
tage by .inventing
local calculations of strategies and tactics, costs and benefits (Hay~k, l 9_76;

1993)
Neohberalism
\982 for an extended d1scuss1on,
see nose
N
'

Fnedman
' than
' a phenomenon at the level of poritica
l Ph1losophy
It const1is thus more
..
ld

f how authonties shou use

tutes a mentality of government, a co1:1ception
h
ds they should
their powers in order to improve national well-being, t e en d
. ll
. h
th y should use, an ' cruc1a y,
seek, the evi\s they should avoid, t e means e
a political rationality
e nature of the persons upon whom they m~st ~c:..ng
Enterprise is such a potent language for art1cu a 1

154

Inventing our selves

because it can connect up these general political defbe .

. 1taneousJy J ration
. tb
b s WJth
mulation of speci.fi c programs th at simu
.ffi
. 11
pro leni .
e fo
d
in
many
i
erent
socia
ocales,
and
p
.
at1ze
oro~
. r.
ional
practices
t
. h
Th
rovide r . O'&lllQ
t em.
e vocabulary of ent
. attonales
g uidelines for transforming
to be ' trans1ated' into

alld
a political rationality
attempts toerpnse th us enab'-.

h
govern
JtS
1
ocial
economic,
and
persona
existence
t
at
have
come
to
asPects
f
S
'
1 d .
k.
appear
o
Problem.
0
atlc Enterprise here not on y esignates a ind of oraanizat
Jona/ fo
individual units competing with one another on the market b t nn, Wirb

' u tnore
ally provides an image of a rnode o f activity
to be encouraaed
.
g~er.
c
m
a
muJtu
.
.
h
1 t he university, t e hospital, the GP'
of arenas of life - the schoo,
Ude
.
.
h
""
1
s
surge
the factory and business organ1zat10~, t e.iam1 y, and the apparatus of ~
welfare. Organizations are problernat1zed in terms of their lack of ent ~JaJ
weak nesses and their
ia1
"" 1ings.

which epitomizes their

CorrelativeJv therpnse'
.
d 1 .
h
J,
ey are
to be reconstructed by promoting an ut1 iz1ng t e enterprising capaciti
each and all, encouragin.g them to conduct the!11selves with boldness~:
vigor, to calculate for their own advantage, to dnve themselves hard, and t
accept risks in the pursuit of goals. Enterprise can thus be given a 'technolog~
ical' form by experts of organizational life, engineering human relations
through architecture, timetabling, supervisory systems, payment schemes,
curricula, and the like to achieve economy, efficiency, excellence, and competitiveness. Contemporary regulatory practices - from those which have sought
to revitalize the civil and public services by remodelling them as private or
pseudoprivate agencies with budgets and targets to those which have tried to
reduce long-term unemployment by turning the unemployed individual into
an active job seeker - have been transformed to embody the presupposition
that humans are, could be, or should be enterprising individuals, striving for
fulfillment, excellence, and achievement.
Hence the vocabulary of enterprise links political rhetoric and regulatory
pr~gra1!1s to the 'self-steering' capacities of subjects themselves. Along this
third dimension of political rule, enterprise forges a link between the ways
w~ are governed by others and the ways we should govern ourselves. Enterfe~~~b;:e desi~n~~es. an array. ~f rules for t~e conduct of one's everyda~ ~~is. er~. JnJt1at1ve, ambition, calculat1on, and personal respons1bi11ty.
The enterpns1ng. self wi11 make an enterpnse
. o f its
. life
. seek to max1m1ze
. . 1ts
.
own human capital

'
t0 be
' pro1ect itself a future and seek to shape itself in order
come that which it h
'
active self and a
~is es to be. The enterprising self is thus both an
ea1cu1at1ng self.
lf h
.
acts upon itself 1n 0 d
' a se t at calculates about itself and that
~ er to bette 1
t lf. E

!0 rm of rule that is intrinsicall

~ s~ , nterpnse, that is to say, designates a
in the ways in which
Y ethical: good government is to be grounded
For many critics th~ersons govern themselves.
apoth
' is vocabulary f
.
Such eosts of the 'capitalist illu . , 0 enterprise JS obfuscating rhetoric: the
articu~~assess~ent is facile. T~~o~ that persons are 'sovereign individuals'.
tng eth1caJ presupposit. anguage of enterprise is only one way of
ions that a
.
re very widely shared; that have

Governing enterprising individuals

155

mmon ground for almost all rationalities, programs and

e to fortn a cl~ in advanced liberal democratic societies. Govemm~nt in
cotfl . s of ru
. db h
. d
.rbll1qu~ . . not characterize
y t e utopian ream of a regulative mat~"
ieues is
11 .
f h
. lb
such soCthat will penetrate a reg1~ns o t e soc1ha ?dy, and administer them
chioerY
on good. Rather, since at 1east t e nineteenth century, liberal
for .tbe ~~:;;ght bas been structured by the opposition between the constip01.1uc ...,.,its of government on the one hand, and on the other the desire
t ona11hu
h
. l d
.
tll ~rrange things sue~ t d~t socia .a~ ~conom1c_ processes turn out for the
to . hout the need ior irect po it1ca intervention (Rose and Miller 1992)
bCSt w1t
. . .
h
f' h
'
'
.
Thus the formal h~1utat~ons ofn td.e powedrs o t estate have entailed, as their
corollary, the prohfer~t1on o ~ . t~perse a~ray ~f programs and mechanisms,
upled from the direct acttv1t1es of the pubhc powers, which nonetheless
deco
. h d
.
mise to shape events in t e omains of work, the market and the fampro
'
ily to produce sueh ' publ'1c' values as wealth, efficiency, health,
and wellbeing.
The autonomy of the . sel~ is thus. not the eternal antithesis of political
power, but one of the ob1ect1ves and instruments of modem mentalities and
strategies for the conduct of conduct. Liberal democracy, if understood as an
art of government and a technology of rule, has long been bound up with
the invention of techniques to constitute the citizens of a democratic polity
with the 'personal' capacities and aspirations necessary to bear the political
weight that rests on them (Rose, 1993). Governing in a liberal-democratic
way means governing through the freedom and aspirations of subjects rather
than in spite of them. The possibility of imposing 'liberal' limits on the extent
and scope of 'political' rule has thus been provided by a proliferation of
discourses, practices, and techniques through which self-governing capabilities can be installed in free individuals in order to bring their own ways of
conducting and evaluating themselves into alignment with political objectives.
A potential, if always risky and failing, solution to the problem of the
regulation of 'private' spheres produced by liberal democratic political m~n
talities has thus been provided through the proliferation of experts ground1~g
their authority on knowledge and technique: medics, social workers, J?SYC~a
trists, psychologists, counselors, and advisers (Rose, 1987). Govei:n1ng in a
liberal democratic way depends upon the availability of sue~ _techniques that
will shape, channel, organize, and direct the. pe~s~nal capac1~1es and selve~ of
individuals under the aegis of a claim to ob1ect1v1ty, neutral~ty, ~nd tec~rucal
efficacy rather than one of political partiality. Th~ou~h the 1~~rrect ,an::e:s
established by the apparatus of expertise, the objectives of hber~l, ~ .
.
'th the selves of 'democratic citizens.
ment can be brought into. a1ig1;1ment w1
been made both thinkable
And contemporary mutations 1n government have
be
and practicable by the multitud~ of technolo~ies ~h:~;~~n~; au::n~:=
bled for enjoining and emplacing the regu ate r
selves.