
Michel Foucault’s ”The Punitive Society” (Part 4/4)
Theory & Philosophy
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The Industrial Reserve Army
Under 19th century capitalism, laziness would be pathologized and punished to dissuade others from being lazy. So of course this necessitated increased surveillance of the working class in order to encourage their further exploitation. More exploitation is going to mean that people are forced into what Marx calls the industrial reserve army. This creates the conditions for people to be forced to work for even less in order to have a job at all.
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