Ouyang Qian: Foucault and Marx: From "Das Kapital" to the Genealogy of Power
Is Foucault ultimately a Marxist or an anti-Marxist? Did Foucault propose a "post-structuralist Marxism" or a "post-Marxism"? What exactly is the theoretical relationship between Foucault and Marx? These questions remain subjects of intense debate within Western academic circles. A relatively clear and simple view argues: "Certain declarations by Foucault clearly tell us that he maintains a specific distance from Marx's position. Therefore, we can say that Marx has no direct relevance to Foucault’s theoretical orientation." A more moderate and objective view, such as that proposed by the French leftist scholar Jacques Bidet, suggests: "A contradictory relationship exists between Marx and Foucault—both intimate and exclusionary... this contradictory relationship allows them to be combined, based on their respective philosophical critiques, to analyze and critique the present era." More multi-dimensional analyses, such as those by the French Marxist theorist Etienne Balibar, emphasize that Foucault’s entire body of work should be grasped through his theoretical engagement with Marx. Foucault’s discourse theory can be treated as a post-Marxist problematic shift, or he can be labeled with the "historical materialism" tag, albeit in quotation marks. In fact, while opposing Marx, Foucault simultaneously derived many analytical methods and theoretical concepts from him. The above are merely representatives of various viewpoints; while there is much recent research literature surrounding the relationship between Foucault and Marx, it generally falls within these categories.
This article contends that regarding the question of the relationship between Foucault and Marx, the key is to return to what Foucault himself said. The difficulty, however, lies in the fact that Foucault provides only a few direct citations in his books (a large number of citations are not explicitly marked), and there is even less content in his formal works that discusses Marx in detail. Conversely, in a vast number of interviews, articles, and lectures, Foucault made many statements and expositions on his relationship with Marx, though these are often self-contradictory and obscure. In one interview, Foucault stated explicitly: "I have not established any relationship with Marxism. Because as I see it, Marxism is quite complex; it includes many changes that occurred along with historical development, as well as many different political viewpoints and factions. I cannot answer whether there is Marxism in my work, or what my relationship with Marxism exactly is." Here, he seems to distinguish Marx from Marxism, as he could not associate himself with traditional Marxism. Yet he answered very clearly elsewhere: "I started from Marx, but I am not concerned with sociological questions about class, but rather with the tactical and strategic methods of struggle. My interest in Marx is concentrated on this issue, and I am willing to pose my questions starting from here." How, precisely, did he "start from Marx"? In fact, he provided a very crucial clue in an interview: "My work was guided by Volume II of Capital. My interest in Marx comes at least from Volume II of Capital, which inspired me. This volume carries out a comprehensive analysis of the origins of capitalism, first by analyzing the concrete reality of history, and second by analyzing the historical conditions of capitalist development, particularly from the aspect of the development of power structures and power institutions. If Volume I of Capital analyzed the origins of capital, then Volume II is a genealogy of capitalism. It can be said that I wrote my works on disciplinary power precisely along the lines of Volume II of Capital; my works and Marx’s works are almost exactly the same, and there is an essential connection between them." This article therefore posits that this is the most explicit statement of the relationship we can find from Foucault himself, and it can serve as a foothold for our understanding of the relationship between Foucault and Marx. Starting from Volume II of Capital, how exactly did Foucault construct a genealogy of power through Marx's perspectives and methods? The purpose of this article is to answer this question through specialized textual analysis.
I. The Complex Relationship between Foucault and Marx
If we are to explore the theoretical relationship between Foucault and Marx, we first need to understand the intellectual context in which Foucault was situated—that is, the theoretical landscape of contemporary French thought. Contemporary French thought possesses a very distinct characteristic of its time: a general affirmation of Marx and Marxism. The French philosopher Sartre once attempted to graft existentialism onto Marxism, making the famous assertion: "Marxism is the unsurpassable horizon of our time," and declaring, "We are in total agreement with the basic materialist point of view Marx used to define 'materialism' in Capital: 'The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life.'" At a conference hosted by UNESCO in May 1968 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Marx's birth, the famous French right-wing thinker Raymond Aron stated in his report: "If today's science has already solved the problems raised by Marx, then Marx belongs to the past—however, our commemorative meeting today is sufficient proof that Marx remains our contemporary." Under this theoretical premise, French thinkers and scholars of the left, center, and right all read and drew from Marx, resulting in an intellectual landscape unique to France: "At least every ten years, there is always a philosopher on the Left Bank of the Seine who proposes a new interpretation of Marx or attributes to Marx an idea that no one before him had ever thought of." Addressing the theoretical needs of contemporary problems, and also the theoretical problems of Marx and Marxism, French thinkers set out to interpret Marx from their respective positions. This led to the formation of theoretical schools such as Hegelian Marxism, Existentialist Marxism, Structuralist Marxism, Post-structuralist Marxism, and Post-modernist Marxism. Although these schools diverged greatly, they essentially formed two opposing theoretical camps. As summarized by Raymond Aron: "The Parisian way wavered between the 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and the 'Introduction' to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy [1] and the proto-structuralism of Capital: on the one hand, a version of Hegelian existentialism—the adventure of humanity amidst the whirlpool of class struggle, alienation, and revolutionary liberation, and the harmony between man and nature, the reconciliation of essence and existence; on the other hand, the scientific version of natural laws, namely the laws of the capitalist mode of production from its formation and development to its self-destruction."
The pluralistic interpretation, digestion, and absorption of Marx and Marxism by contemporary French intellectual circles roughly underwent three important historical nodes. The first node was the decade after the war (1945–1955). According to Foucault’s personal recollections, in the fields of French intellectual culture and political struggle, Marxism was an unsurpassable intellectual horizon, as Sartre said. French universities as a whole, especially the newly established ones, often regarded the construction of a phenomenological Marxism as an urgent task, influenced by the existentialist Marxism of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. "I was a student of Althusser at the time. The mainstream philosophy in France then was Marxism, Hegelianism, and phenomenology... At that time, if you wanted to be a philosopher, you had to be either a Marxist, a phenomenologist, or a structuralist." The second node lasted from the late 1950s to the "May 1968" storm (1956–1968) [2], during which structuralism gained intellectual momentum, threatening to replace phenomenology and existentialism. A commonality seemed to be found between structuralism and Marxism, and using structuralism to interpret Marxism became a theoretical fashion. French thinkers sought to move beyond phenomenology and existentialism, directing their theoretical passion toward structuralism. The third node occurred after the "May 1968" storm, when reflecting on and examining the events of "68" became a major task for French theorists. In Foucault's view: "The first thing that happened after '68' was that Marxism was seen as a dogmatic theory, which gave rise to trends like a new politics and new culture focusing on individual life." It was precisely this new turn and these new problems in social and political struggle that prompted Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge to further deepen into a genealogy of power. Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, published successively after the 1970s, presented a micro-political perspective of observation. Informed by the lessons of the "May 1968" struggle, Foucault began to ponder: "What is power? More specifically, how is power exercised? What happens when someone exerts power over someone else?" In his view, if the problem of poverty was the core issue on the 19th-century agenda, then for Western society today, who is exercising power? Or how is power being exercised? These questions were more important. Therefore, we need to rethink Marx's series of theoretical propositions regarding history, society, and revolutionary struggle. "In Marxist analysis, what strikes me is their concern with the issue of 'class struggle,' yet they rarely pay attention to the word 'struggle'... When they speak of 'class struggle' as the fundamental driving force of history, they main focus on the definition of class, the divisions and members of class, never concretely investigating what the essence of struggle is. I found one exception: in Marx's own non-theoretical and historical writings, there is a better and different analysis of the problem of struggle."
In fact, Marx’s historical materialism and his revolutionary theory are inseparable from the French social revolution. Both the "Paris Commune" [3] and the modern French workers' movement played a role in promoting Marx's theory of class struggle. However, "May 1968" and the various "new social movements" that arose thereafter changed the form and content of revolutionary struggle. What Foucault discovered was that the participants in these struggles (young students, homosexuals, Black people, women, etc.) shifted the focus of struggle from economic issues to topics such as identity and social injustice, often targeting various disciplinary powers. "Since the operation of power extends to different levels and social sectors, what are the different ruses of this diversity of power? What are the mechanisms, effects, and relationships of power? I think this can be boiled down to the following question: Can the analysis of power be derived from the economy in one form or another?" It was precisely targeting this economism within power theory that Foucault, on one hand, criticized those dogmatic Marxisms. Like Sartre, he categorized the Marxism interpreted by Stalinism and the French Communist Party (PCF) as dogmatic, the theoretical essence of which was a mechanical understanding and application of the so-called Marxist economism and its formulas of historical determinism. On the other hand, Foucault took the following intellectual stance toward Marx: First, he made a clear distinction between Marx and Marxism. In his eyes, the doctrines of Marx himself were quite different from the later doctrines of Marxism, especially since Marxism branched into so many theoretical currents and political organizational factions. In fact, what he valued was Marx's critique of political economy. "I want to limit my observations to Marx's political economy. I have never talked about Marxism, or if I use the word, I do so to refer to the history of political economy." Second, he believed that Marx did not form a unified theoretical system during his lifetime; Marxism as a complete and flawless system did not exist. Based on this theoretical judgment, Foucault partitioned Marx's doctrines: on the one hand, Foucault rejected the traditional deterministic model of economic base and superstructure, rejected universalist and holist views of society, denied utopian historical teleology, and opposed the theoretical additions of totality concepts by Marx’s successors. On the other hand, like Althusser and Bourdieu, he continued Marx's critique of political economy and its practical orientation, adopting the concept of strategy to understand how practice operates. Finally, he emphasized that Marx’s political economy still belonged to the scientific discourse of the 19th century: "Marxist economics—through its basic concepts and the general rules of its discourse—still belongs to a discursive formation defined by the Ricardian era." At the same time, from a methodological perspective, he fully affirmed Marx's historical narrative and social structural analysis. In an interview, when the questioner asked if Marx played a role in his methodology, Foucault immediately replied: "Yes, definitely. My works formally note citations of Marx in the footnotes."
Opening Discipline and Punish, one can see Foucault repeatedly citing Marx’s theoretical analyses from Volumes I and II of Capital. For instance, when discussing the developmental process of capitalism in Western nations, Foucault frequently paraphrases the theoretical analyses found in Capital:
"If the economic take-off of the West began with the techniques that made possible the accumulation of capital, it might perhaps be said that the methods for administering the accumulation of men wrought a political take-off in relation to the traditional, ritual, costly, unused forms of power... the two processes—the accumulation of men and the accumulation of capital—cannot be separated; it would not have been possible to solve the problem of the accumulation of men without the development of an apparatus of production capable of both sustaining them and using them; conversely, the techniques that made the cumulative multiplicity of men useful accelerated the accumulation of capital... See Marx: Capital, Vol. I, Chapter 13..." Furthermore, in revealing how institutions such as prisons and schools maintain social order through disciplinary techniques, Foucault echoes Marx's analysis of the reproduction of labor power and the reproduction of social relations. In his lecture series Society Must Be Defended and Security, Territory, Population, Foucault discusses the correlation between "biopolitics" and the capitalist relations of reproduction. In the concluding section of The Will to Knowledge, Foucault explicitly proposes that the operation of power in modern society no longer relies solely on violent suppression, but is realized through the management of life (such as population regulation and health policies). In short, in Foucault’s view, the logic of social reproduction revealed by Marx in Capital provides a key to understanding how power sustains its own existence through the governance of populations and bodies (rather than through mere violent suppression). We can, in fact, use a statement by Foucault himself to summarize his inextricable theoretical complex with Marx: "It is certain that even if we admit that Marx is obsolete today, he will one day be revived. What I wish to do is not exactly to rehabilitate Marx and return to the 'true' Marx, but certainly to liberate Marx from the dogmatism that has long marched under his banner and rendered him rigid."
II. Volume II of Capital and the Genealogy of Power
Through the brief review of the relationship between Foucault and Marx in the previous section, it is evident that their relationship is by no means a simple or static one. In fact, "the road that leads Foucault toward Marx is more like a labyrinth than a straight line." Foucault first refused to identify as a Marxist because he rejected all Marxist theories that had transformed into systems of knowledge and ideologies—rejecting all those Marxist theories that occupied a dominant position. However, he recognized a Marx engaged in the critique of political economy, or a non-theoreticized and historicized Marx. To be precise, he treated Marx merely as a theoretical "toolbox": "he wanted to utilize Marx to serve certain research, rather than accepting Marx’s views in their entirety." The reason he explicitly mentioned that Volume II of Capital served as a point of reference for his analysis of power was that he discovered the genealogy of capitalism constructed by Marx, starting from the critique of political economy, had already touched upon the actual operation of power in modern society. Moreover, this genealogy of capital was mutually complementary to the genealogy of power research he was currently conducting. While Marx explored the accumulation process of capital power, Foucault focused on the accumulation process of disciplinary power or technologies of control. Regarding the analysis of the operation of power in modern society, Foucault noted: "We can find important elements of this analysis in many documents... but we can obviously also find these important elements in Marx, primarily in the second volume of Capital... We can see in Volume II of Capital that, first of all, there does not exist only one single power, but rather polymorphic powers." Thus, Foucault extracted the theoretical tools he required from Volume II of Capital. Although on the surface his critique of disciplinary power seems far removed from Marx’s critique of political economy, he did indeed creatively transform the methodological principles of Volume II in constructing his theory of power, migrating them from the sphere of capital circulation into the analysis of power relations. Foucault believed that power is not a substance but a relation; power is not a fixed possession but a fluid change of struggle. Therefore, one can use the theory of the capital circulation process from Volume II as a comparative analysis. If one says Marx focused on the economy of power, then Foucault focused on the economics of power; Marx revealed how capital achieves "self-valorization" through the circulation process, while Foucault revealed how modern power achieves "self-diffusion" through various micro-techniques; Marx analyzed the systemic contradictions of the economic sphere in depth, while Foucault dissected the operational mechanisms of power networks in detail. In short, their process-oriented analyses of capital and power are interconnected and complementary. Their critiques of modernity point respectively toward the exploitation behind surplus value and the suppression under disciplinary techniques.
Foucault’s citations or paraphrasing of Marx’s research results in his early writings were based primarily on two reasons: first, he genuinely identified with Marx’s historical analysis regarding the evolution of capitalism, which could be borrowed for his discussions in History of Madness and The Order of Things; second, he admitted to a certain degree of "following fashion," as at that time, almost all left-leaning French intellectuals had to quote Marx in their works to demonstrate their ideological stance and "political correctness." [4] However, Foucault’s explicit claim regarding the methodological significance of Volume II of Capital should be seen as the result of certain shifts in his thinking. The most direct practical cause was the stimulation and inspiration of the "May 68" events, which led him to begin pondering how power actually operates. "Undoubtedly, the 'May 68' storm was a particularly important experience. In any case, it is certain that without 'May 68,' I would never have done what I am doing today; research into prisons and sexual experience would have been inconceivable. The political climate of 1968 was decisive for my research." The reflection this historical event brought to Foucault was: what methods and strategies does modern power employ to operate? What important changes have occurred in Western society regarding the increasing discipline of individuals? How can one reveal the changes in the political-economic dimension within the operation of power? Facing these questions of the age, Foucault, on the one hand, opposed simply equating power with the state, the individual, or the economy—specifically opposing the "economism" prevalent in popular power theories. On the other hand, however, he emphasized that he was not attempting to replace economic explanations with power explanations, nor had he ever said that power could explain all phenomena. Power itself is something that needs to be explained, rather than a principle used to explain everything else. He saw the occulted operation of power at basic social levels such as the economy; hence, he proposed concepts such as the "economics of power," the "micro-physics of power," and the "capillaries of power."
In The Order of Things, Foucault conducted research targeting British Physiocracy and liberalism, using the same materials as Marx—namely, the theoretical discourse of political economy. However, there existed a difference in theoretical focus between them: Marx sought to show that the object of capitalist production was not national wealth, concrete wealth, or use-value, but abstract wealth or surplus value. Foucault, conversely, aimed to demonstrate how liberal political economy targeted life, population, concrete wealth, and social power. Foucault emphasized the fact that behind liberal discourse there exists exploitation, which is similarly replete with coercive means of exploitation. Foucault focused on the most concrete forms of power, striving to reveal the knowledge-power or discipline that runs parallel to capital power. Facing accusations from certain scholars that he ignored social practice and the reality of historical experience, he replied explicitly: "I wrote History of Madness also to let readers know that I have not neglected the question of the constitution of knowledge from the perspective of social practice." Foucault opposed economic determinism and the economism of power explanation, but this did not mean he completely rejected the importance of the economy. In fact, in many of his works, there is a relatively clear analysis of economic systems and their social structures, characterized by what one might call a tone of positivist and practical materialism. Some scholars even believe that Foucault’s theory of power can be called "historical materialism," though his "historical materialism" differs from that of Marx: the "materiality" Foucault speaks of refers not primarily to the materiality of "social relations," but to the materiality of the machinery of power and its practices.
What specific methodological significance did Volume II of Capital bring to Foucault? This is something Foucault never explicitly explained. Marx once gave an explanation for the object of study in Volume II, "The Process of Circulation of Capital": "In Book I, the process of capitalist production was examined as an immediate production process, and every secondary influence that might be exerted by circumstances outside this process was left out of consideration. But this immediate production process does not exhaust the life process of capital. In the actual world, it is supplemented by the process of circulation, which is the object of the study in Book II." This paper contends that the most crucial phrase in this explanation is the "life process of capital," which is a distinct manifestation of Marx’s "dynamic analysis of capitalism" and is the historical dynamic analysis that Foucault particularly valued. In one interview, Foucault also explicitly mentioned that the first part of Volume II, concerning "The Metamorphoses of Capital and Their Circuit," influenced his investigation into the techniques of power. Since Foucault only vaguely mentioned the inspiration and influence of Volume II without providing specific conceptual comparisons or methodological explanations, this paper attempts a preliminary comparison between the basic viewpoints of Volume II and Foucault’s analysis of power, seeking to illustrate the main inspirations Volume II provided Foucault and the intellectual logic that connects them.
First, one can compare the operation of power with the movement of capital. The title and theme of Volume II is "The Process of Circulation of Capital," where Marx emphasizes that capital is by no means static but is in motion. The first part studies "the various forms which capital assumes in its circuit, and the various forms of this circuit itself." The second part studies the speed and manner of the turnover of capital within its continuous circuit, revealing the impact of the turnover of capital on the production of surplus value. The third part explores the circulation process of the total social capital and the mutual relations between the various components of total social capital in circulation. The circuits of money capital, productive capital, and commodity capital constitute a unified whole; these three circuits are both the result of the entire process of capital circulation and the prerequisite for that process to continue. In short, capital is a dynamic process that achieves valorization through circuits ($M-C-P-C'-M'$) and turnovers. This process does not depend on the will of the individual capitalist but is realized spontaneously through a systemic social circulation mechanism (such as the reflux of money and the exchange between the two departments). [5] Clearly, Marx’s concept of the "movement of capital" inspired Foucault’s "flow of power." Marx’s structural dynamic analysis of capital fits very well with Foucault’s understanding of the operation of power: power is not owned but is realized through strategic configurations; the effects of power do not depend on intentions but on the repetitive operation of anonymous apparatuses. Power is not concentrated in macro-institutions such as the state or the law, but operates in a fluid manner through dispersed, networked micro-techniques (such as discipline, examination, and archives). For example, power penetrates through the spatial distribution and schedules of prisons, schools, and factories, and operates through biopolitical techniques such as medical discourse and demographics. Foucault emphasized: "Power must be analyzed as something which circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localized here or there, never in anybody's hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth. Power employs and extends itself. Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power. They are not only its inert or consenting target; they are also the elements of its articulation. In other words, individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application."
Secondly, a comparison can be drawn between the reproduction of capital and the reproduction of power. In the second volume of Capital, Marx proposes the theory of reproduction, the core issue of which is how capital maintains its own existence through the reproduction of total social capital. The development of capitalism is predicated on continuous expanded reproduction, which can only be achieved on the premise of simple reproduction. Only through simple reproduction can surplus value be transformed into capital, thereby realizing capital accumulation. In Marx’s view, the difficulty in the study of reproduction “lies not in the investigation of accumulation, but in the investigation of simple reproduction.” The reproduction of total social capital requires the continuous renewal of labor power, relations of production, and market conditions. Here we can observe a correspondence between the reproduction of capital and the reproduction of power: that is, how power—through knowledge-power apparatuses [6] (such as psychiatry and criminology)—continuously reproduces “docile bodies” and “qualified subjects.” For instance, the function of social discipline is to subject social time to a temporal system of production cycles. Discipline is a dimension of capitalist production, necessary to a certain extent for the production of productive forces. The reproduction of power achieves the categorized reproduction of workers, criminals, and the educated through disciplinary institutions such as factories, prisons, hospitals, schools, and barracks. Foucault observed: “The development of capitalism would not have been guaranteed if the body had not been integrated into the production machinery in a controlled manner and if the population phenomena in the economic process had not been adjusted. But the development of capitalism demanded more. It required the augmentation of both the disciplining of the body and the regulation of the population, making them more useful and docile. It also required power instruments capable of intensifying various forces, capacities, and life in general, without making them more difficult to tame.” The population growth rates and qualified labor force required for capitalist development are both integrated into the tracks of the production and reproduction of power. Furthermore, “power relations are not external to other types of relationships (whether economic processes, knowledge relationships, or sexual relations) but are immanent in the latter... nor are they in a position of exteriority with respect to the economic processes... they have a directly productive role, wherever they come into play.”
Finally, a comparison can be made between the “barriers to circulation and crises” of capital and the “inevitability of resistance” in power relations. In Part III of the second volume of Capital (Chapters 20–21), Marx analyzes the problem of exchange equilibrium between the two major Departments of total social capital reproduction (means of production and means of consumption). Marx emphasizes that if the proportions between these departments become imbalanced (for instance, overproduction in Department I or underconsumption in Department II), it leads to “barriers to circulation,” which in turn trigger crises; the continuity of capital circulation relies on strict proportionality. Even if individual capital circulates normally, total social capital may still erupt into crisis due to disproportionality. In Foucault's view, the operation of power networks similarly contains “fracture points.” Disciplinary power demands a completely transparent individual (as in Panopticism [7]), but in actual operation, there are always invisible gaps (such as workers’ malingering or prisoners’ conspiracies). Biopolitical power attempts to manage the population, but bodily pleasures and lines of flight [8] (such as queer practices) are always subverting social norms. Whether it is the system of capital movement or the system of power control, both inherently contain instability. Money in circulation is both a medium of exchange and a potential trigger for crisis (such as a break in the payment chain); knowledge (psychiatric diagnosis, criminal statistics), like money, is both a medium for the operation of power and a field of discursive struggle. In fact, “where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power... Just as the network of power relations ends by forming a dense web that passes through apparatuses and institutions, without being exactly localized in them, so too the swarm of points of resistance traverses social stratifications and individual unities. And it is doubtless the strategic codification of these points of resistance that makes a revolution possible.”
The three points above are merely a preliminary and brief summary, indicating that there is a certain intellectual affinity between Foucault and Marx regarding the critical analysis of the origins and development of capitalism. In interviews, Foucault explicitly discussed the themes of the first and second volumes of Capital; in particular, the genealogy of the circulation and cycles of capital in Volume II provided significant inspiration for his own genealogy of the operations of social power. In accordance with Foucault's anti-determinist stance, the economy is certainly not the sole factor in understanding historical change; however, analyzing capitalism from within its economic structure and history is also a sufficient condition for exploring the genealogy of power in modern society. In fact, in his representative works of both his early and late periods, Foucault borrowed extensively from Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism, though he did not always directly cite his sources. As he put it: “In my discussion of discipline, my research is intrinsically linked to what Marx wrote... however, I prefer to quote Marx secretly.” He did not wish to follow the fashionable trend of the French intellectual milieu at the time, which held that frequent verbatim quotation of Marx was a sign of political correctness. While it appears he rarely cited Marx, in reality, he was drawing upon and applying Marx’s perspectives and methods.
III. Digital Capital and Algorithmic Governance
The critique of capitalism is a theme shared by Foucault and Marx. However, they each grasped one of the two core issues of capitalist development: one is the problem of the normative order or power in capitalist development—the problem of the organization of society; the other is the problem of the growth of capital circulation in capitalist development—the problem of the marketization of production and expanded reproduction. Marketization and organization are the two wings of capitalist development, the indispensable realistic foundations. According to the research of Jacques Bidet, Marx focuses on the property power and class relations formed by capital, while Foucault focuses on the disciplinary techniques and power relations generated by knowledge-power. Marx views class existence and class struggle from a macro perspective, whereas Foucault analyzes power relations and struggle strategies from a micro perspective. Therefore, Bidet argues that although Foucault and Marx are separated by more than a century and many of their theoretical positions are mutually exclusive, they are complementary regarding the common theme of the critique of capitalism. We have reason to combine them to forge a more complete theory to respond to the new changes and conditions of contemporary capitalism. To achieve a fruitful convergence of these two theories, we need to reinterpret and develop their theoretical concepts. Today, as capitalism steadily moves toward globalization and digitalization, the power of exploitation seen in Marx and the power of control seen in Foucault have not weakened or disappeared; rather, they have become more powerful and concealed. Thus, we can only find and exert their shared theoretical potential through the combination of these two theories. Regarding the new forms of contemporary capitalist development, profound transformations have occurred in both capital markets and organizational management. The capitalist critiques and diagnostic problems of Marx and Foucault have not become obsolete; on the contrary, the development of capitalism today seems to further validate their foresight. In works such as the Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse, Marx already foresaw the process of capital’s globalization: “The tendency to create the world market is directly given in the concept of capital itself. Every limit appears as a barrier to be overcome... Capital, driving beyond all national barriers and prejudices... it is destructive towards all of this, and constantly revolutionizes it, tearing down all the barriers which hem in the development of the forces of production, the expansion of needs, the all-sided development of production, and the exploitation and exchange of natural and mental forces.” Today, in the digital era, capital leverages big data and algorithmic platforms to form a digital mutation of its form, with data gradually becoming the core element of capital. The space of capital power has been reconstructed, and a digital control model of global value chains has appeared. For example, companies like Apple, through the iOS system and App Store rules, levy a 30% “digital tax” on global developers, while developing countries have been reduced to data colonies. At the same time, Foucault’s assertion that “power exists in the capillaries” has been further verified; power transformed from technical knowledge has, in the digital era, penetrated every line of code and every data interaction. Social power struggle has shifted from the physical to the virtual; the focus of struggle has shifted from territory, oil, and physical goods to data, computing power, and attention. The social power struggle has shifted from the explicit to the implicit, continuously achieving multipolar network control through technologies such as recommendation algorithms and API interfaces.
In an era where big data and algorithms have become core productive forces, even though Marx failed to foresee the developmental forms of contemporary digital technology, his critical analysis of the essence of capitalism can still reveal the operational logic of digital capital. First, data as a factor of production constitutes the source of surplus value. Data production still possesses a fundamentally exploitative nature: the data generated by users in their daily digital activities (such as social interaction, searching, and consumption) is appropriated by platforms for free or at a low price, thereby forming a new form of “digital labor.” This labor is certainly no longer traditional factory labor, but through the commodification of data (such as targeted advertising and algorithmic optimization), it creates surplus value for capital, thus confirming Marx’s assertions regarding “alienated labor” and “concealed exploitation.” Second, digital platform capital forms monopolistic accumulation; for instance, giants like Google have achieved concentration of wealth by monopolizing data resources, which is precisely the concentration of capital analyzed in Capital. Today, data has become a new type of means of production following land and machinery, thus giving rise to a form of digital fetishism. Marx’s critique of “commodity fetishism” is equally applicable: people often view algorithms as laws of nature rather than designs driven by capitalist interests. The alienation caused by digital technology is that when human life is fully quantified by data and manipulated by algorithms (such as credit scores and health monitoring), human subjectivity is reduced to calculable variables. Big data and algorithms are often packaged as objective and neutral tools, but in reality, they remain a direct extension of capital power in digital space. The myth of technical neutrality conceals the realistically existing class power relations. Foucault’s genealogy of micro-power is perfectly applicable to today’s increasingly intensified algorithmic governance; people can only submit to the algorithmic management and labor control of the digital era. Workers are often disciplined by algorithmic dispatch systems, with their labor intensity and time allocation completely dictated by code logic. Algorithms have become the invisible foremen of the digital factory, further strengthening the control of capital power over the production process and social life. The power struggle in the era of digital capitalism exhibits multidimensional and concealed characteristics; in fields such as data control, rule-making, and resource allocation, there is often a collusion of power between capital and technology. Examples include the expansion of private power by tech giants like Google, where platforms exercise quasi-state power through algorithmic governance (such as content moderation and traffic distribution). Shifting from a “disciplinary society” to a “governance society,” digital rule presents decentralized and concealed power relations, with power diffused within technology and daily life. Digital power does not merely repress; it also produces behavioral norms for society and the individual.
In the current expansion of digital capitalism, the deep integration of capital power with knowledge and technology has undoubtedly birthed a series of new forms and problems. Although Marx and Foucault failed to foresee the latest combination of new-type capital and digital technology, their respective critical analyses of capitalism can still reveal the symbiotic monopoly of capital and technology. Marx’s analysis of the logic of capital can explain the economic momentum of digital capitalism’s development, while Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary techniques can respond to the power relations and the direction of struggle in the digital era. Marx’s critique of political economy and Foucault’s critique of the genealogy of power together constitute the theoretical tools for the critique of capitalist modernity. As many Western scholars have stated, we still need to read Capital today.
Even in the era of digital capitalism, it is necessary to return to Capital, because "this book distances itself from all transcendent interpretations and abstract preachings, grasping concepts solely within the totality of concrete struggles. The determination to struggle is precisely what is defined by these concepts." [9] The true value of Capital lies not in providing ready-made answers, but in its methodology—that is, revealing the power structures of modern society by dissecting the logic of capital. To read Marx in the 21st century is not merely to regard Marxism as an intellectual movement that occurred in the past, but rather to see Marx as a contemporary thinker. In the words of the French thinker Jacques Derrida: "It will always be a fault not to read and reread and discuss Marx... there will be no future without this. Not without Marx, no future without Marx, without the memory and the inheritance of Marx." Today, as we transition from a form of capitalism based on the "mode of production" to one based on the "mode of information," the critiques of capitalism offered by both Marx and Foucault continue to demonstrate their powerful theoretical vitality. In fact, no matter what new changes occur in the form of capitalism, and no matter how production technologies and power relations evolve, as long as the private ownership of the means of production and the logic of capital persist, and as long as unequal social power relations and their attendant struggles exist, the thoughts of Marx and Foucault will not become obsolete.
About the Author: Ouyang Qian is a Professor in the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China.
Source: Teaching and Research (Jiāoxué yǔ Yánjiū) Issue 11, 2025 Editor: Huihui