Abstract

In the 1979 course, entitled Naissance de la biopolitique, Michel Foucault proposes contemporary neoliberalism, especially in its North American variant, as one of the most expressive biopolitical governmentality instance of our time. This article examines if the care of the life and its articulation with the constitution of the individual as a free entrepreneur of himself, observable in this biopolitics, can be considered as a contemporary unfolding of the “care of the self”, the nuclear concept in Foucault´s last writings. It suggests that the care of the self, understood as a principle of permanent concern whose scope is the transformation of the self and the creation of new ways of being and living, leads us away to point two conclusions: the first one is that the neoliberal care of the life is inseparable from the management of the individuals´ freedom; the second one is that the neoliberal self-government, considered by means of the calculation of economic self-investment, it is something from which one should get rid of.

Keywords: governmentality, politics, care of the life, care of the self.