Power, freedom, and justice: rethinking Foucault | LSE Event

What are the implications of Michel Foucault’s critical social theories for how we think about freedom, power, and justice?

Political economist Mark Pennington will address this question exploring themes from his forthcoming book Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge and Freedom. Pennington provides a unique engagement between Foucault’s account of power and knowledge and the most prominent theories of social justice in the liberal and social democratic traditions. He will suggest that the ‘positive’ freedoms and rights favoured by contemporary liberal egalitarians, social democrats and standpoint theorists threaten to encase people in a web of ‘bio-political surveillance ‘technologies’ that narrow their scope to act as self-creating individuals. Building on this Foucauldian critique he will suggest that if we are to avoid the dangers of this species of ‘over-government’ we may be best placed to re-explore the value of the ‘negative’ freedoms and rights emphasised by the classical liberal tradition.

Pennington’s interpretation provides a unique dialogue between Foucault’s work and the quest for social justice, highlighting the ways in which we can address the complexities of modern governance and create a more just and free society. Don’t miss this opportunity to delve into a thought-provoking discussion on the intersections of power, freedom, and social change.

Speakers:
Professor Mark Pennington

Chair:
Professor Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey

#Foucault #Events #London

Full details/attend: https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/02/...

Featured image (used in thumbnail with watermark added): Photo https://unsplash.com/photos/black-and... by Tobias Tullius https://unsplash.com/@tobiastu on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/license

To turn on captions, go to the bottom-right of the video player and click the icon. Please note that this feature uses Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology, or machine generated transcription, and is not 100% accurate.

Sign up for news about upcoming LSE Events: https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/signup