From inequality to difference: a displacement of the problem of the government. Revisiting the liberal governmentality from the eighteenth century to present

The problem of inequality in modern political theory always involves a problem of government. How is inequality combated, concealed or managed? In this paper we propose to think that the problem of inequality from (neo) liberal governability - using Foucault's concept-becomes the problem of govern the difference. For this purpose, we propose to reconstruct, according to Foucault's conceptualizations, those liberal policy innovations from the eighteenth century until their current declinations. Thus, we trace the passage from oppression to freedom as a problem of the ways to govern "the many" (or the multitude). In this detour, we also discuss how is always present a centrifugal dynamic of multiplicity, related to a theory of the difference, where there is no obsession with stability and governance.