Power

From Metapedia

Power (Foucault)

Power, particularly in the thought of Michel Foucault, is a web of relations or action that is dispersed throughout society by its institutions and its individuals. Rather than being a top down system of control (as in Marxist theory), it is spread out side to side throughout the whole of society. Power, however, is not simply to be described in negative terms but also in positive terms as it produces the reality around us.

In his text Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison Foucault discusses the profound role that the Panopticon has played in both the diffusion and totalizing of power. The major effect of the Panopticon is that it assures the automatic functioning of power. It does so because it acts to create a relation of surveillance independent of the person who actually operates the Panopticon. This surveillance turns individuals into objects of information. The observed knows that she is observed and adjusts herself accordingly.