Liberalism as internal racism

Foucault links this liberalism and dangerousness to the development of an “internal racism,” “whose function is not so much the prejudice or defense of one group against another 

as the detection of all those within a group who may be the carriers of a danger to it

To understand the categories that underpin colonialism and racism, liberalism must be seen in light of its relationship to dangerousness. Liberalism breeds dangers – that is, it entails the unshackling of a whole set of desires and interests in the individual (e.g. the self-interested individual freely exercising choice on the market), which creates dangerousness: unreason, chaos, despotism, the dissolution of the social contract, rampant individualism, racial degeneration, libertinism, etc.