Dear David and dear collegues,

i would recommend two of his lectures recently translated in english:
FOUCAULT Michel, Sécurité, territoire, 
population, Cours au Collège de France, 
1977-1978, Gallimard/Seuil, « Hautes études », 
Paris : 2004, 435 p. / Security, territory, 
population : lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78, 2007, XXVI-417
FOUCAULT Michel, Naissance de la Biopolitique, 
Cours au Collège de France, 1978-1979, Paris : 
Gallimard/Seuil, « Hautes études », 2004, 365 p. 
/ The birth of biopolitics : lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979, 346

In the first one he makes a genealogy of 
political economy (cameralism, mercantilism and 
physiocrats mainly) and how it helps shape a new state rationality.
In the second one, his lectures of the year 
78-79, his studies the origins of neoliberalism, 
that is the "ordoliberalism" and the Fribourg 
school, the constitution of the German state 
after WWII and the Chicago school (Becker, 
Schultz, Mincer), with some interesting ideas 
(and very exploited nowadays) about 
"self-entrepreneurship" and this "corporations' 
society" where everyone is invited to think about 
himself as a company; he also follows his thought 
on political economy, which he and describes as 
"a sort of general thinking about organization, 
distribution and limitation of powers in a society" (my translation, p.15)

According to me, these texts are more interesting 
than what you can find in Les Mots et les choses, 
written twenty years before, where he sketches 
the well known shift of paradigm in economy from 
production to circulation in the XVIIIe century.

Moreover, i dont know if it may be of any 
interest to your group, but I tend to think that 
Foucault proposes an analyse of power applicable 
both to the political and the economic fields -- 
mostly by focusing on government practices rather 
than on the state, and analysing power from a 
technical and relationist point of view rather 
than from the classical juridic and state-owned 
one. As he states in Security, territory...: "The 
introduction of economy within the political 
exercise is that I believe will be the key issue 
of the government."(my translation, p.98) The 
concept of governmentality, which he introduces 
and develops in these lectures, seems for example 
rather close in its meaning to our invading 
"governance", both standing on a line between 
politics and economics. On this last point, I 
recommend the very thoughtful On Human Conduct, 
by Michael Oakeshott (I plan to write a paper on 
that topic, trying to show the influence of the 
management litterature on Foucault's thinking 
about government. If anyone is interested by a discussion...)

Hoping this will help you a little,
Cheers
Thibault Le Texier