Module III·Article II·~1 min read
Michel Foucault: Power, Discipline, Biopolitics
Freedom, Power, and Rights
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Power is not in the hands, but in networks
Foucault radically rethinks power: it is not something that is “possessed” by the state or a class — it is a relationship that permeates all social interactions. “Power is everywhere — not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.”
Disciplinary power (“Discipline and Punish”, 1975): prison, school, army, hospital — institutions that create “docile bodies” through surveillance, normalization, examination. Bentham’s Panopticon is an architectural metaphor: prisoners behave as if they are constantly being observed, even if that is not the case. Power is internalized.
Biopolitics
Foucault introduces biopolitics: power increasingly governs not individual bodies, but the population — life, health, birth rate, mortality. The state governs “life” as a resource.
Corporate wellness programs, productivity monitoring, management of “human capital” — this is biopolitics in a corporate context.
Question for reflection: What “disciplinary” mechanisms exist in your organization? How do they normalize behavior without explicit coercion?
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