However Foucault claims that political economy in fact was t

However, Foucault claims that political economy in fact was the first economic school of thought to represent the beginning of a new governmentality by dividing power, knowledge, government and science properly. Foucault (2004, pp. 350–351) says that, unlike the resorts used by 17th century raison d’Etat – that is, calculations of forces, diplomatic calculations and trade balance, classical political economy launched a type of scientific knowledge that was external to the State and entered governmental practices through different analytical methods. He says: ‘two poles appear of a scientificity that, on the one hand, increasingly appeals to its theoretical purity and becomes economics, and, on the other, at the same time claims the right to be taken into consideration by a government that must model its decisions on it.’ (Foucault, 2004, p. 351). Then, as Smith (1976a, p. 428) once considered, the duty of political economy was to architect and rationalize politics that aimed at the opulence of the nation and its population. Thus, this glibenclamide school of thought acquired a normative tone which went beyond the analysis of pure economic data, creating a strategic role in terms of governmental policies. When economic ideas reached governmental level of action, economic liberalism was consolidated as a technology of government, transforming the markets, utility and interests as self-limiting principles of governmental reason. This represented to Foucault (2008, pp. 27–28) the empowerment of “the liberal art of government” and the provision of the idea of “frugal government”. This meant that the State did not establish its principles, actions and reasoning through concepts of power, laws, wealth and strength anymore, but through the restriction of State power based on economic rules, principles and actions. For instance, an eighteen century edition of the Evening Mail (London) described how State should perform as a supervisor when managing the society and the economic reality: Introducing liberal economic principles within the sphere of actions of the State led to a redesign of its practices, especially concerning the treatment of the population. Justice, security, freedom, education, health and wellbeing policies became a political agenda that was not found in the old State of police during mercantilism. This actually led to several political and social consequences that were conceptualized by Foucault in the shape of a new technology of power, biopolitics. Insofar as biopolitics constituted itself from the perspective of security, Foucault (2008, pp. 65–66) emphasized the emergence and reinforcement of control mechanisms as a counterpart of liberal economic ideas and the establishment of markets as a truth regime. If biopolitics arose as a technology of power that aimed at regulating and controlling the population through wellbeing policies and forms of knowledge known as security apparatuses, political economy was also responsible for rationalizing such policies through the role of State concerning population issues. When Malthus (1998, p. 05) discusses the differences between food expansion (arithmetical growth) and population increase (geometrical growth), he demonstrates great concern in defending a set of control mechanisms to, in Malthusian terms, maintain the naturalness and regularity between the growth of population and land production according to natural laws. This represented a concern regarding demographic control, public hygiene, economic production and population\'s statistics (see Malthus, 1998, p. 10). Other means of action regarding the role of State toward population lied on preventive checks. According to Malthus, the discouraging of early marriages depended on moral and educational pillars, which, in Smith\'s opinion (1976b, pp. 781–786) should be a duty of the State. Quoting Smith: Ricardo\'s (see 2001, pp. 96, 105) criticism of governmental taxes over foreign trade and national capital well portrayed how the State could become an obstacle to an increase on economic returns from industry, agriculture and foreign trade. That reinforces Foucault\'s argument regarding the double-sided consequences of political economy: the defense of less State intervention on economic forces (and in case of intervention, it should occur only when necessary or to ensure the proper functioning of markets); and the emergence of numerous policies that involved the biological side of the population.