Eric Schliesser, Foucault on the Idea of Europe (and Adam Smith, Hume & Kant), Digressions and Impressions, blog, 4 December 2019
[Editor Update 9 March 2026. Link above is to the page archived on the Wayback Machine]
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Foucault correctly discern the significance of Kant’s Perpetual Peace to Ordoliberal thought. (He mentions Kant’s essay on the following page, and he begins to develops his idea about the Ordos in the subsequent lecture on 31 January.) While it is not surprising Addison is ignored, it is a bit surprising that Hume goes unmentioned because his essays on “The Balance of Trade” and “The Jealousy of Trade” are key steps in the positions described by Foucault. In particular, “The Balance of Trade” explicitly adopts a European stance (and contrasts Europe with China, in particular).*
One way to put Foucault’s point in Schmittian terms he does not use is that once the non-zero-sum logic of mutual gains of trade is accepted as state policy, enemies can be transformed into possible mere rivals. Rivals can be genuine competitors in one sense, but since they are playing the same game also partners of a certain sort. And this transformation entails the possibility of permanent self-limitation in foreign affairs, even a route toward confederation (or “ever closer union”). I use the language of possibility because subsequent history suggests the temptation of continental-wide conquest does not disappear altogether.
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