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Opening a thread on Michel Foucault's The Punitive Society. A book that disproves the two rumors about Foucault: that he substitutes nebulous power relations for institutional analysis and that he's uninterested in class.Permalink On twitter.com
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Re the French penal system… “One thing is clear: we are in the midst of a social war, which is not the war of all against all, but the war of rich against poor, owners against those who have nothing, of bosses against proletarians." (22)Permalink On twitter.com
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Much of Foucault's research technique echoes Chomsky's: find the texts where the powerful (speaking to one another) confirm the most radical analysis of their aims and strategies. Or, as we say nowadays, where they say the quiet part out loud.Permalink On twitter.com
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Here's a French legislator in 1831 arguing that "The penal laws, intended for the most part for one [poorer] class of society, are made by another."Permalink On twitter.com
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French novelist Anatole France made the same point, but you could blame that on his leftism. No such excuse for the kinds of elites quoted in Foucault's work.Permalink On twitter.com
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Here's Napoleon calling for "no part of the Empire to be without surveillance; that no crime, no offense, no contravention must go unprosecuted…Permalink On twitter.com
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“and that the eye of the genius that can illuminate everything encompasses the whole of this vast machine, without the smallest detail escaping its attention.” 1984 avant la lettre.Permalink On twitter.com
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Foucault argues that the creation of prisons and of penitentiary-style self-regulation "link[ed] together morality, capitalist production, and State apparatus." (112)Permalink On twitter.com
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Highlights a more-than-coincidental symmetry between prison-form and wage-form: time is the measure of both, and one "pays a debt to society" through captivity in prison, while being reformed under state supervision.Permalink On twitter.com
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E.P. Thompson is cited a lot here but not (that I've seen) his brilliant piece that connects these dots: Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism sv.uio.no/sai/english/research/projects/anthropos-and-the-material/Intranet/economic-practices/reading-group/texts/thompson-time-work-discipline-and-industrial-capitalism.pdfPermalink On twitter.com
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One of Thompson's points is that new technology (ubiquitous clocks, work records, synchronized work hours) *created* the concept of time as a thing that can be used wisely or wasted. And "wisely" meant giving it to one's employer or to God.Permalink On twitter.com
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Hence the creepy image of Judgment Day as featuring a Great Employer toting up your use of your life on a ledger. A stunning symmetry between God and the capitalist employer.On twitter.com
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God and Mammon, both keeping you on the clock:Permalink On twitter.com
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Back to Foucault: In the early 1800s in France, "the working class is the dangerous class" and "What is dangerous is the worker who does not work hard enough." (172-73)Permalink On twitter.com
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Private police in the ports (who make sure workers don't steal the wealth stacked up in front of them) are the model…Permalink On twitter.com
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(and this already a big shift, from the pre-modern weaver "who possessed his skill, tools, raw material, and housing" to the wage worker, surrounded by "things regulated solely by the principle: 'this is not yours.'")Permalink On twitter.com
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… the emerging penal system criminalizes working class "immorality." Foucault argues this is just like banning theft at the warehouse, except what the employee steals is "his own body, the labor-power that the employer considers he owns." (173)Permalink On twitter.com
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And yes, this criminalization of morality was targeted at the lower class, "the part of society reputed dangerous for its vices, ignorance and poverty".Permalink On twitter.com
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How to "steal your body" from your employer... don't seek wage labor, don't apply yourself at work, waste your energy in festive revelry, refuse to focus on raising a family.Permalink On twitter.com
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(Incidentally, this whole narrative shows just how much ground Marx's Capital gives up by assuming that workers are simply compelled to work by need and not the various laws and punishments against the poor.Permalink On twitter.com
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The counter tradition of seeing proletarians as forced into their labor runs through Polanyi, Piven and Cloward, etc.Permalink On twitter.com
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Some, perhaps most Marxists have seen enclosure and proletarianization as historically necessary. Other left traditions have raised deeper questions that remain vital today.)Permalink On twitter.com
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France (1749-1890) had a straight up pass system for workers. You needed to show hours in your book and your employer's permission to travel to prove you weren't a vagabond, the latter being a criminal offense. napoleon.org/enseignants/documents/le-livret-ouvrier-1803-1890-document/Permalink On twitter.com