Power Is not Simply Repressive": Michel Foucault and the" Productive Power

It is said repeatedly that Foucault begins his theoretical occupation with analyzing the repressed groups,such as insanes,patients,students,soldiers, and prisoners,to set forth a power theory that examines micro-powers and local resistances. This reading of Foucault’s work is called,here,Power-Oriented reading or Power-Theory reading. This reading is fundamentally misleading,for since it considers Foucault a power theorist,assumes his theory as a formal or a political sociology,that its historical examples are not constitutive parts. The object of this essay is to demonstrate the distinction between this reading and some critical considerations that,marginalizing the power,gain a radical interpretation of Foucault’s works.