Michael Foucault: power is productive

Extract

[...] With these words, Foucault illustrates how this ‘police matter' is something that must be handled by control and domination. Confinement edicts were aimed at the enormous amount of unemployed beggars, who were rejected and mobilized by the new economic developments. Confinement was one of the answers the seventeenth century gave to the problems of economic crisis. Confinement is a means of manipulation, supposedly for the greater good. Furthermore, Foucault goes on to discuss the soul, and how it correlates to power. [...]

[...] Bio-politics, on the other hand, was the regulation of population, which would focus more on the reproductive functions of the human body. This type of bio-power could be seen in demography and ideology, and was used as a control on the statistical level. According to Foucault, power is not only productive; it is made up of many different aspects. It is repression, it is control, and it is law. Only through control and manipulation could society grow and evolve into a better and more disciplined system. [...]

[...] According to Michel Foucault, “power is productive.” Power is what molds society into what is, and what it should be. Foucault believed that through repression, domination and control, power creates society. Power relations operate and exist through people. Through the use of institutions, such as school, work and family, power is able to mold us into who we are as a people. Foucault saw a strong connection between language, knowledge and power. He believed the three were closely intertwined. Therefore, when Foucault talks about ‘discourse,' he is discussing more than the spoken or written word; rather, he is describing who is doing the talking in the situation, how they are relaying their message, and in what context it is being done, among other things. [...]

[...] Thus, Foucault believed that power is productive. Power has the ability to create, to modify and to invent. According to Foucault, repression gave power even more control over a situation, making power that much stronger, simply by saying no to simple things and being obeyed. Because Foucault believed that language and knowledge were linked directly with power, he maintained that language and knowledge would retain a strong political force. His interest in the matter lies therefore, not specifically in power, but in the human drive for knowledge, and the power that we find once we obtain that knowledge. [...]