The State on Power Relations

I think that it is very interesting that Foucault turns the question not centrally to the power of the state bu to already existing power structures that he sees. I also am intrigued by the idea that he began an in part rejection of simply seeing this power as repressive. To see the state merely as an apparatus for large power struggle relations between various sets is to see much more of what occurs in society. To view the state as a "codification of a whole number of power relations" (123) and to suggest that "revolution is a different kind of codification of the same relations" brings into light the more complex relation of the state to power. This manner of thinking allows the government to be a structure by which power relations fight to exert themselves while the state is no longer merely taking on the role of adversary but as conduit. I think this a far more accurate representation of state's role in the power relationship dialogue. It reminds me that in American, different political groups are often struggling with each other far more than with the state because if a long disenfranchised group finally takes some state power they often leave the state's authoritarian power intact. That is "one can perfectly well conceive of revolutions that leave essentially untouched the power relations that form the basis for the functioning of the state."