In the tradition of the Italian Operaism there are two crucial theses, that have overturned the history of Marxism: the first one is well-known. It refers to the idea that capitalist development is subordinated to the working-class struggle. This approach overturns a picture that had dominated the whole socialist and communist tradition, according to which the working class has always been depicted as a victim, as a passive subject reduced to an exploited labour force, on which the development of capital imposes its own laws. The second important thesis refers to the discovery of the living labour as subjectivity, which implies an intransitive definition of the subjectivity, a definition of subjectivity as intrinsically subversive.
For his part (but regardless of any philological correspondence), Foucault echoes this approach, when he maintains that resistance is the key word, that resistance comes first, and obliges power relations to change.
Foucault’s whole work is crossed by a close confrontation with Marx and Marxisms. This confrontation reaches its peak during the first part of the 1970s (a period also characterized by the importance of Nietzsche’s work in Foucault’s thought). The critical appraisal of Marx’ theoretical legacy in Foucault’s account may be subdivided in this period in three main parts, which also mark the content of three courses delivered at the Collège de France: Théories et institutions pénales; la société punitive and Il faut défendre la société. Foucault makes use of some crucial Marxist notions, but at the same time he also submits them to a sharp criticism: notions such as class struggle, civil war or repression are at the core of his investigation and critique. Between 1976 and 1978, by abandoning the scheme of war to interpret political phenomena and focusing more and more on the notion of government, Foucault proposes an important theoretical displacement. Does this new pathway trace a form of counter-Marxism? Is an anti-Marx emerging? What are their consequences?