Luca Paltrinieri: Quantifier la qualité Le « capital humain » entre économie, démographie et éducation @ Raisons politiques 2013/4 (N° 52)

Quantifying quality. Human capital between economics, demography and education by Luca Paltrinieri @ Raisons politiques 2013/4 (N° 52)

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This article focuses on something that could appear as a paradoxical omission in Foucault’s lectures on neoliberalism, namely the description of what would be a neoliberal biopolitics. The article outlines such a biopolitics by stressing how economics and demography connect. While sketching the genealogy of economic government of population from classical theories to neoliberalism, the author highlights the role played by the notion of human capital in neoliberal rationality, and the tension it introduces between quantification of working time and qualification of population, between present and possible, and between investment and realization: what is at stake is quantifying quality, through a set of measures appraising the possible valorization of subjects.

Cet article s’intéresse à ce qui peut apparaître comme un oubli paradoxal dans les coursque Foucault consacre au néolibéralisme, à savoir la description de ce que serait une biopolitique néolibérale. Il trace les contours d’une telle biopolitique en soulignant la manière dont s’articulent l’économie et la démographie. En faisant la généalogie du gouvernement économique de la population depuis les théories classiques, l’auteur met en évidence le rôle que joue la notion de capital humain dans la rationalité néolibérale, et la tension qu’elle introduit entre quantification du temps de travail et qualification de la population, ainsi qu’entre présent et possible, et entre investissement et réalisation : il s’agit de quantifier la qualité, à travers une série de dispositifs qui évaluent la valorisation possible des sujets.

Luca Paltrinieri est chercheur à la Chambre de Commerce de Paris Île-de-France et directeur de programme au Collège International de Philosophie. Il a publié L'expérience du concept. Michel Foucault entre épistémologie et histoire (Paris, Les Publications de la Sorbonne, 2012) et est membre de l'Association pour le Centre Michel Foucault. 

Ariel Schwartz - The 10 Fastest Growing Megacities In The World @ Fastcoexist, 16 Aprile 2013

Ariel Schwartz - The 10 Fastest Growing Megacities In The World 

@ Fastcoexist, 16 Aprile 2013

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As the world’s population rapidly moves into urban areas, the world’s largest cities are growing explosively--and almost all that growth is happening in the developing world.

The world’s population is rapidly moving into city centers; by 2050, seven out of every 10 people on Earth will live in a city. But not every city will be a megacity--defined as an urban area with over 10 million inhabitants--and not every megacity is equally large.

Every year, Demographia releases a comprehensive list of the population, land area, and population density of urban areas with over 500,000 inhabitants. It’s a huge list, as you might imagine. But in looking at the top 10 urban areas by population, some clear patterns emerge. Below, the list.

The United States and Europe are distinctly absent from the list, with the exception of the New York metropolitan area. If you scroll through the entire Demographia list (warning: it’s extremely long), you’ll notice that the pattern continues: the vast majority of the world’s biggest megacities are in the developing world, and, as New Geography points out, the fastest-growing megacities are also in developing nations.

You can see this clearly in McKinsey’s Urban World app, which examines how population levels (and other factors) in cities will change by 2025.

New Geography concludes that "the most rapid growth is taking place in countries that still have large rural hinterlands and relatively young populations. These mostly poor places-- most with median incomes between Dhaka at $3,100 per capita and Bangkok at $23,000--will continue to grow, at least until their populations begin to see the results of decreasing birthrates." These places may be poor, but according to McKinsey, 440 big cities in emerging economies will make up half of the planet’s economic growth by 2025.

In other words, the U.S. will probably matter less and less as time goes by.

[IMAGES via Shutterstock]

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Picblog: Beijing - China