Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: A conversation with Mark Pennington
About this episode
Jonathan Fortier and Mark Pennington discuss the connections between Michel Foucault's work and the liberal tradition, focusing on power, knowledge, and individual liberty.
Jonathan Fortier and Mark Pennington discuss whether Michel Foucault’s work shares commonalities with the liberal tradition. In a conversation that covers theories of knowledge, human identity, and social and political thought, Pennington argues that Foucault’s concerns about abusive power and its effects on individual liberty open his work to productive consideration for classical liberals and libertarians. While the young Foucault was hostile to liberal understandings of liberty, his later work can be understood as increasingly sympathetic to the principles and methodologies of the classical liberal tradition. You can buy his new book Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom available now on Amazon. About our guest: Mark Pennington is a British political economist and professor of political economy and public policy at King’s College London. His research focuses on classical liberalism, public choice theory, institutional economics, and the role of markets in addressing social and environmental challenges. Pennington is known for exploring how decentralized decision-making and spontaneous…
More episodes of The Liberty Exchange
- Free Speech is for Losers: A Conversation with Bruce Pardy
- David Beito on his book FDR: A New Political Life
- You Don’t Own Me: Individualism and the Culture of Liberty with guest Tim Sandefur
- Peak Human: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages with Johan Norberg
- I, Smartphone: The Power of the Free Market with Lawrence W. Reed
- Talking Liberty and Milton Friedman: A Conversation with Brad Lips, CEO of Atlas Network
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Liberty Exchange podcast page.