In actual fact,thestatemutb._blindto_theeconomic processes. It must not be expected to know everything concerning the economy, or every phenomenon concerning the economy. In short, both for the state and for individuals, the economy must be a game: a set of regulated activities-you can see that we have come back to what we were saying at the Start-but iri which the rules are not <1ecisions which someone takes for others. It is a set ofrules which determine the way in which each must playa game whose outcome is not known by anyone. The economy is a game and the legal institution which frames the economy should be thought of as the rules of the game.

Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, loc. 931