Essay on Michele Foucault Biopower

Michel Foucault wrote a book called History of Sexuality. In Part five of the book Right of Death and Power over Life, he discusses about the historical “Sovereign Power” where one is allowed to decide who has the right to live and who has the right to die. The sovereign uses his power over life through the deaths that he can command and uses his authority to announce death by the lives he can spare. Foucault then moves on to Disciplinary Power where he came up with the “Panopticon” where one is to believe they were under surveillance at all times. Such surveillance is still used in our everyday life such as schools, prisons, offices, hospitals, and mental institutes. Later in his life, Foucault discovered Bio-power. This bio-power …show more content…
The economy and the politics became a problem in the 18th century. Foucault’s resolution for this is the political, economic, and the ethical can no longer be referred to as combination or a union. The juridical law, economic theory, or the law of the market is incapable of reconciling the heterogeneity. A new group or domain has to be created. The relation among the economy and politics does not lean in the direction of a production, but a heterogeneous power system and that civil society has arise to act as an intermediary among the opposing frameworks and lineages in managing society. Lazzarato believes that “we still have a disciplinary vision of capitalism” whereas Foucault believes that “those who take precedence are the dispositifs of security”. (Lazzarato) Foucault’s disciplinary power is very common and can be found in many places today. He discovered the “Panopticon” which was first created to make a prisoner feel as if they were being under surveillance at all times. This type of security prevented the prisoners to avoid wrongful doing. Panopticism can still be found in our everyday life such as schools, airports, hospitals, prisons, and mental institutes. We are constantly under surveillance no matter where we go or what we do. Cell phones,

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