The Last Man Takes LSD

How Foucault, drugs, California and the rise of neoliberal politics in 1970s France are all connected

In May 1975, Michel Foucault took LSD in the desert in southern California. He described it as the most important event of his life which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality. His focus now would not be on power relations but on the experiments of subjec...

How Foucault, drugs, California and the rise of neoliberal politics in 1970s France are all connected

In May 1975, Michel Foucault took LSD in the desert in southern California. He described it as the most important event of his life which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality. His focus now would not be on power relations but on the experiments of subjectivity and the care of the self. Through this lens, he would reinterpret the social movements of May ’68. He would also come to appreciate the possibilities of autonomy offered by a new force on the French political scene that was neither of the left nor the right: neoliberalism.

Mitchell Dean is Professor of Politics and Head of Department at the Copenhagen Business School.

Daniel Zamora is Professor of Sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is the co-author of Foucault and Neoliberalism. His writing has appeared in Le Monde Diplomatique, Jacobin, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.