 In the lecture series The Birth of Biopolitics, Foucault also engages in a lengthy examination of neoliberal governmentality. This analysis has become seminal for contemporary political theory. Many political commentators now see the year 1979, when Foucault delivered his lectures, as the inauguration of the dominance of neoliberal economic policy in Europe and the United States. Almost forty years after its expanding application, Foucault’s topic and his insights appear farsighted. His analysis of neoliberalism is distinctive in at least two significant ways. First, he analyzes neoliberalism as a historically novel form of governmentality—a rationality of governing connected with specific technologies of power. On Foucault’s account neoliberalism is not understood just as an economic doctrine, but as a governmental form that is directed toward specific objectives, regulates itself through continuous reflection, and, essentially, aims to ensure that capitalism works. It also comprises a coherent political ontology, a set of philosophical background beliefs about the nature of society, markets, and human beings. However, it is not an ideology in the sense of consisting only of ideas or false beliefs. Its political ontology necessitates and rationalizes a specific technology of power—specific practices of governing, as well as a particular way of reflecting on and problematizing these practices.