The Vagabond: A Counter Society

Foucault: The vagabond is seen as someone choosing not to work and as just taking and consuming. They're seen as like a leech, a parasite consuming without giving back. Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations is very clear that mobility is one of the prime benefits afforded to the workers under capitalism. If you incarcerate people, if you take away their means to actually provide for themselves, they don't have a firm basis upon which to then go to work. And it's important to note that the legislators didn't understand their enemy here. It was outlawed begging and banished beggars, essentially creating vagabonds.