Vagabonds, Misfits, and Criminals: Foucault's Covert Dialogue with Althusser

Foucault's philosophy has often been perceived to be antagonistic to Marxism. In this article I contest this understanding of the Foucault/Marx relationship. I suggest that Foucault's trajectory of thought emerged from a critical dialogue with the Marxism of Louis Althusser. Leaning on interviews and on Foucault's The Punitive Society lectures, I propose that limitations Foucault found in Althusser's philosophy led him to sketch out a different historical account of power/subject relations within the institution of modern capitalism. Whereas Althusser exaggerated the role of state repression and failed to interrogate the constitution of the punitive juridical apparatus, Foucault emphasizes the contradictory, open-ended, mutable, and contingent character of the historical advent of modern capitalism.