The Eyes Of Power

French philosopher Balibar said:“the whole of Foucaultˋs work can be seen interms of a genuine struggle with Marx, and that this can be viewed as one of thedriving forces of his productiveness.” And, French sociologist Bourdieu agreed withhim in this respect. So, Marx plays an important role for understanding Foucault.Whatˋs more, Balibar also said, in the very beginning(The Order of Things),Foucault breaks with Marxism, but he was affected positively in the late Foucault byusing Marxˋs basic concept(Discipline and Punishment and History ofSexuality).The Marx neglected by Foucault by Legrand tells us Foucault learned therules of construction from Marx. The relationships of Marx and Foucault arecomplicated and put easily them in the framework of modern and post-modern shouldbe abandoned.The whole of Foucaultˋs work can be seen a struggle with Marx, which isobvious in terms of power. Because Foucault focuses it throughout his lifetime.First of all, a different opinion on power between Marx and Foucault will bediscussed.In the first chapter, I will give a preliminary discussion on differences betweenthem. Nietzsche has the largest influence on Foucault. With him, Foucault goesbeyond liberalism and Marxism. The issue of power is at the heart of their thought.They both think power can produce subject and knowledge. But there is a differencebetween them, that is, for Nietzsche life and body are power, however for Foucaultpower is outside of body and he forbids us to ask where power comes from. As theresult, Nietzsche belongs to traditional metaphysicians and tries to substitute thetraditional subject for will to power, and Foucault attempts to escape from power andiron cage of modernist. Foucault goes forward following the way Nietzsche hascarved out. In this part, I will make a detailed analysis with respect to “is there a central point for power?”,“who has/have power?” and “violence and ideology are theforms of power?”In the second chapter, I will confirm that what Marx explores is a kind of macro-power, which is compressive and restrictive and in his eyes power both political fieldand economic sphere are permeated by power, which is different from traditionalpolitical view. Marxˋs uniqueness is that he thinks the working class is alienated andso is capitalist. Different from Marx, He builds relationships between power andknowledge. Foucaultˋs power is productive micro-power and it operates bydisciplining humanˋs body. Power relations must be understood as decentered and asa multiplicity of local situations. Foucault points out that his work has dealt with threemodes of objectification which transform human beings into subjects by power. Thefirst is the modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of sciences. Thesecond is “dividing practices”,the subject is either divided inside himself or dividedfrom others. The third is the way a human being turns him-or herself into a subject.Secondly, I will point out that similarity between Marx and Foucault.Specifically, biopolitics is an important theme for them. The biopolitics are formsof power that regulates social life from its interior, following it, interpreting it,absorbing it, and rearticulating it. As Foucault says “life has now become…an objectof power.”One of the first astonishments of our society is political power had assigned itselfthe task of administering life. In concrete terms, starting in the seventeenth century,this power over life evolved in two basic forms. They constituted rather two poles ofdevelopment linked together by a whole intermediary cluster of relations. One ofthese poles centered on the body as a machine, that is an anatomo-politics of thehuman body; The second focused on the species body, the body imbued with themechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes: propagation,births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with allconditions that can cause these to vary, that is a biopolitics of the population. Theseshows that a power whose highest function was perhaps no longer to kill, but to investlife through and through. According to Foucault, there are body politics andbiopolitics in Marxˋs philosophy. Different from Foucaultˋs emphasis on spaceand power, Marx pays more attention to time and power. Capital can be regarded as the biopolitics of time. A comparison on power between Marx and Foucault makesus see how the former affects the latter and we should stress Foucault for developmentof Marxism，certainly avoiding betraying Marx. Micheal Hardt and Antonio Negriare affected greatly by Marx and Foucault, especially their biopolitics. I will carry outa proper evaluation for their gains and losses.In the last part, the importance of relationships of Marx and Foucault will bepointed out. First of all, the comparison on power between Marx and Foucault ishelpful to understand Post-Marxism such as Hardt and Negri. Secondly, it isconductive to the Chinese problem.