Who among the following see "power as productive power means it produces identity and subjectivity"?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 1:

[Detailed explanation of why it is correct — include conceptual, or contextual depth.]

The correct answer is **Michael Foucault**. Foucault (1926–1984), a highly influential French philosopher, developed a radical theory of power that challenged traditional political theories, which often view power primarily as a repressive force (i.e., power stops you from doing things). Foucault introduces the concept of "productive power," arguing that power is not merely a negative, repressive 'thing' held by a sovereign or the state, but is a complex, omnipresent **relation** woven throughout the entire social body. Crucially, Foucault contends that power is productive because it actively creates or **produces** certain realities, knowledge, discourses, and, most importantly, **subjects** and **identities**. He suggests that the individual self, our identity, and our subjectivity—how we understand ourselves and our place in the world—are constituted through historical matrices of power/knowledge. For example, concepts like "the criminal," "the madman," or "the homosexual" are not natural categories but are produced by specific power relations embedded in institutions like prisons, asylums, and medical practices. Therefore, Foucault sees power not just as something that limits us, but as something that actively forms who we are, making him the definitive answer for the assertion that power is productive and generates identity and subjectivity.

The incorrect option is 2:

[Detailed explanation of why it is incorrect — include conceptual, or contextual depth.]

**Michael Walzer** is incorrect because his work is primarily rooted in political philosophy and ethics, particularly associated with the communitarian tradition and theories of justice. His seminal work, *Spheres of Justice* (1983), focuses on the concept of "complex equality," arguing that goods like wealth, security, and honor should be distributed according to different criteria appropriate to their respective social spheres, thereby preventing dominance by one type of good (e.g., wealth) over all others. While Walzer certainly discusses the distribution of power (as in social goods), his focus is distributive justice and pluralism, not on power as a constitutive force that produces identity or subjectivity in the post-structuralist sense defined by Foucault. He is concerned with how power is exercised fairly or unfairly within established social structures, not how power creates the subjects within those structures. His theoretical lens is fundamentally different from Foucault's.

The incorrect option is 3:

[Detailed explanation of why it is incorrect — include conceptual, or contextual depth.]

**Robert Nozick** is incorrect as he is a leading figure in libertarian political philosophy, best known for his work *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974). Nozick’s central concern is individual rights and the argument for a "minimal state," or "night-watchman state," whose functions are strictly limited to the protection of persons against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on. For Nozick, power is primarily seen through the lens of state authority and whether it violates individuals’ rights. He views power as essentially repressive and something to be minimized to maximize liberty. His "entitlement theory of justice" focuses on the legitimate acquisition and transfer of property, which stands in sharp contrast to Foucault’s radical critique of how power operates to constitute reality and identity itself.

The incorrect option is 4:

[Detailed explanation of why it is incorrect — include conceptual, or contextual depth.]

**Theda Skocpol** is a highly respected American political sociologist and comparative historical sociologist. Her most famous works, such as *States and Social Revolutions* (1979), focus on the role of the state as an autonomous actor and the social-structural conditions that give rise to major historical transformations like revolutions and the development of welfare states. Skocpol emphasizes the institutional and structural dimensions of political power, specifically focusing on the state's capacity and policy outputs. While she certainly analyzes how state power shapes society and social classes, her methodology is empirical and macro-sociological, seeking causal explanations for large-scale historical outcomes. She does not engage with the philosophical premise of power as a non-repressive, productive force that constitutes individual identity and subjectivity, which is the hallmark of Foucault’s post-structuralist approach.