POWER AND PROGRESS IN LATE CAPITALISM: AN EXPLORATION OF GILLES DELEUZE’S ‘POSTSCRIPT ON SOCIETIES OF CONTROL’

  The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics,  and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because  history does not deal with as many humans as physics  does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.   — Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire   From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.   — Franz Kafka, The Trial   INTRODUCTION   How ought we characterise the exercise of power in our societies? Are they societies that confine and discipline our bodies, or ones that control us in potentially subtler ways?   This article adopts the framework for analysis used by twentieth century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in his short but defining essay on the subject, ‘Postscript on Societies of Control’.[1] It firstly considers the background to the concept of control, then provides a definition of the concept, and, finally, asks whether our society is one of control. It argues that Deleuze is correct to say control has replaced discipline as the primary mechanism of power in our era.   ORTHODOXY   In order to address the question of whether societies of control are increasingly replacing disciplinary societies, it is imperative first to understand what disciplinary societies are.   Discipline is a concept developed most powerfully by Deleuze’s contemporary, Michel Foucault.[2] Foucault’s philosophy primarily concerns the technologies of power operating within society and their effect on human autonomy. He pursues this study via a genealogical approach; that is, he employs a historical critique to interrogate the workings of powers at play in modern society. In this way—despite his vocal opposition to Hegel—Foucault is very much Hegelian in his belief that close examination of historical parallels and events can clarify and deepen our understanding of present-day technologies of power and how they shape or restrict our autonomy.[3]   Through his historical work, which spans various societal and public institutions, Foucault identifies a fundamental change in the mechanisms of power exercised by the state in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He articulates this shift as a transition away from sovereign power to technologies of discipline.   This notion of discipline and disciplinary society is perhaps best exemplified by Foucault’s enquiry into the French penal system in his Discipline and Punish.[4] The book opens with vivid depictions of public torture and execution in pre-eighteenth century France. Foucault explains that the physicality and the public nature of punishment in the French criminal system up until then was an essential aspect of the exercise of sovereign power. Yet, while brutal public spectacle instilled fear and awe, it also provided public fora for communities to revolt against the perceived injustices of the sovereign. By moderating power through the benevolent reform of the criminal, by the discipline of the docile body, and by the fragmentation of public space into discrete, segregated institutions, state power could be obscured and, thus, maintained. These forces are the hallmarks of a disciplinary society.   REVISION   In his ‘Postscript’, Deleuze—building on the work of Foucault—argues that the twentieth century has marked a shift from disciplinary societies to societies of control. A precise definition of control and societies of control has proven to be elusive;[5] it is therefore helpful to consider both the antecedents and critiques of Deleuze’s analysis in addition to his work itself.[6]   Antecedents   Deleuze has attributed the concept of control to William Burroughs.[7] Burroughs, in turn, provides not a definition of control, but brief observations as to its exercise; in truth, his analogies are of only limited assistance when read in the context of mechanisms of power within society at large.[8] Nevertheless, there are two salient points to note. Firstly, Burroughs establishes that when one maintains total or absolute power over the actions of another, they can more accurately be said to be using them rather than controlling them. Secondly, Burroughs shows that control requires concessions and illusions: controllers must make concessions to the controlled in order to maintain the illusion of choice and free agreement, obscuring their true motives in order to avoid revolt.   In contrast to Burroughs, Félix Guattari provides an analogy of control that usefully supports the conception Deleuze comes to advance: the gated home and community accessed and exited via electronic cards.[9] This has elements of discipline, as movement being granted or denied constitutes a form of confinement. But, as Deleuze argues, it also represents a departure from the disciplinary society, as ‘what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each person’s position […] and effects a universal modulation’.[10]   Among his identified influences, Deleuze contends that Foucault sees as ‘our immediate future’ societies of control.[11] Deleuze particularly emphasises that Foucault’s work on discipline is historical (focused on the exercise of power in the nineteenth century); we should, therefore, not be so naive as to assume Foucault would not have recognised the possibility of further historical change. Indeed, Deleuze says that Foucault concludes his Discipline and Punish with the explicit recognition that a prison as a physical space is becoming less important in the exercise of power. This, Deleuze suggests, presages a fuller analysis of a new sort of power.[12]   Deleuze makes these forceful arguments as to Foucault’s understanding of power in response to a critique by Paul Virilio that Foucault did not understand the nature of modern power. Ironically, that critique is also an important precursor to Deleuze’s analysis. Virilio argues that the patrolling of the highway—and not the prison—exemplifies the exercise of police power. Deleuze concurs, adding that modern authorities possess predictive technologies that anticipate the movement of subjects and consequently have less need for confining subjects.   Deleuzian societies of control   That predictive power is a hallmark of control. In his ‘Postscript’, Deleuze fleshes out this position polemically. It must be noted that Deleuze never attributes any concrete definition to the notion of control itself; he is primarily concerned with how a society of control operates. This section will similarly consider the features and modes of operation that constitute a Deleuzian society of control.   Much like with the disciplinary society, the technologies of power that govern a society of control cannot be boiled down to one single technology or mechanism. Instead, there are targeted and multi-faceted ways in which societies of control manage the lives of their subjects.   Most fundamentally, there are no enclosures or strictly delineated confined spaces (like, for instance, the disciplinary society’s schools, barracks, and factories, which are all subject to clear separation from one another). Instead, there is a single modulation, which allows for the coexistence and connection of various states (the corporation, the education system, and the army are all connected, one flowing into the other).   This brings us to the next point: exploring how these spaces or states are connected. The disciplinary society operates on the basis that its subjects start over when they move from one space to another. Though it does recognise analogies between the spaces (the discipline of the school may be similar to the discipline of the army), the spaces and norms are ultimately distinct from each other, with one having little bearing on the other. Societies of control, on the other hand, are predicated on connection between spaces, such that ‘one is never finished with anything.’[13] These connections encourage a culture of constant progression or improvement. The question this cultural attitude begs (to what ends is progression and improvement directed?) admits no answer.   There are also differences in the conceptualisation and treatment of the person. The disciplinary society takes the individual and subjugates her through discipline so that she will conform to the mass. No such subjugation is necessary in societies of control. The individual is not viewed as a member of a mass, but as a data point, a market audience, a sample.   This allows for targeted control to take shape, where compliance is not forced upon the individual (as with discipline) but facilitated. There are no overarching aims or requirements outlined by societies of control (no ‘watchwords’). The society is governed merely by way of codes that function as ‘passwords’; these can allow or deny the individual access to certain information or amenities. The control of access is presumably based on the conduct of the individual and is a means of exercising control over individuals’ choices: the individual self-disciplines because of incentives and disincentives encoded within herself as a data-point. This, in turn, suggests (perhaps even necessitates) a degree of technological surveillance that goes beyond that of the comparatively simple model of the Benthamic Panopticon Foucault famously employs.   Additionally, there are no clear hierarchies, if there are any at all. Unlike in disciplinary societies, power is not centralised or in the hands of a single ‘owner’ or state. Rather, control is exercised by a corporation—invested with its own personhood—comprising stockholders. The make-up of this corporation is transitory and fundamentally transformable.   All of these technologies—singular modulation across singular space, an ethos of the relentless pursuit of progress, the ‘dividualisation’ or ‘data-fication’ of the individual, the facilitation of compliance, the use of codes as passwords, technological surveillance, and the absence of clear hierarchies of power—together create a society of control.   Critiques   Here we will explore three critiques of Deleuze’s thesis: the privatisation of public space, the role of surveillance in control, and the telos of control.   Privatisation   Michael Hardt deals at length with the Deleuzian conception of societies of control, both in his joint work with Antonio Negri on Empire, as well as more specifically, in a piece titled ‘The Global Society of Control.’ Here, Hardt contends that there is an incompleteness to Deleuze’s work on control, and proceeds to elaborate on the operation of societies of control to fill in these purported gaps. He does so by situating these societies within his and Negri’s broader framework of Empire. The study is multifaceted, but here only one aspect of the critique will be considered: the erasure of the dialectic between public and private.   ‘There is no more outside,’ insists Hardt.[14] This is to say, there are no longer any meaningful or permanent divisions between private and public spaces. Nikolas Rose, similarly, argues that inherently public spaces (like public parks, libraries, and playgrounds) are being abandoned in favour of privatised and privately secured places (like shopping malls and arts centres) for acceptable members of the public.[15] Those who have no legitimate, consumerised reason to occupy these new privatised ‘public’ spaces are denied access to them. Populations and classes of people deemed ‘dangerous’ or ‘undesirable’ are excluded from the private-public spaces and, so, from society itself.   Deleuze touches on this idea of exclusion as well, in saying that ‘three quarters of humanity’, who are too poor for debt (as in, those who cannot be managed through the mechanisms of ‘control’, because these mechanisms rely on monetary and consumerist incentives or ‘passwords’) and too numerous of confinement (which makes it logistically difficult to subject them to technologies of ‘discipline’ that rely on confinement) will have to face exclusion to shanty towns and ghettos.[16]   From this, we can take two points. Firstly, that neither the societies of control, nor disciplinary societies are or have ever been able to exercise control or discipline over every individual; when they are unable to, they simply exclude these potentially unpredictable and uncontrollable threats to order. Secondly, there is the implicit acknowledgment that technologies of control and discipline can coexist; to conceive of discipline and control as dichotomous notions would be inaccurate.[17]   In fact, the question posed by this essay itself may fall victim to a false dichotomy between Foucauldian discipline and Deleuzian control. These mechanisms of power are not necessarily mutually exclusive. We should, therefore, be wary to adopt a view that control represents a natural or irreversible progression (from discipline) in the exercise of power (as Hardt and Negri may be suggesting in saying that control is an intensification of discipline),[18] because they are contingent historical realities. That is what Foucault’s work—and Deleuze’s analysis of it—suggested of discipline, and it is no less true in the case of control. Thus, we can qualify our thesis by saying that while societies of control are increasingly replacing those of discipline, technologies of discipline (and even of sovereignty) are still employed in certain contexts.   Surveillance   Surveillance is implicit within Deleuze’s conception of control (in the understanding of the individual as a mere data point, not the member of a mass), but Oscar Gandy articulates this technology more explicitly.[19] Such an emphasis on surveillance is problematised, however, by Rose, who posits that societies of control are not predicated on surveillance but on the instilling of self-discipline and self-regulation in their subjects. That rather misses the mark, because, as we have seen, societies of control employ a range of technologies to exercise power. Nothing suggests an emphasis on self-discipline ought to exclude the technology of surveillance, which is implicit in the incentivisation of labour and use of passwords.   Telos   But Rose’s critique of surveillance does helpfully inform another point of discussion: the odd ideas prioritised within societies of control. Deleuze makes brilliant and incisive concluding remarks about this telos of self-improvement and self-actualisation. But what are the motivations behind this ethos of motivation? That is the question Deleuze poses in his conclusion, and it is a question that largely remains unanswered. In some ways, one can only hazard a guess at the mechanisms at work here. That is rather the point. Societies of control have evolved such that their technologies of power and their telos can be more obscure than that of disciplinary societies.   VALIDATION   With definitions—or, rather, understandings—of both disciplinary societies and societies of control to hand, this essay considers whether it can be said that the latter are replacing the former.    The institutions of the disciplinary society Foucault identifies in his body of work—the home, the school, the prison, the barracks, the factory—are all still extant. However, as we have noted above, there need be no ‘either/or’ as between societies of discipline and of control; the question is more accurately one of degree and we must identify whether a general movement may be occurring. Again, that movement need not be total or irreversible.   Such a movement seems to be taking place all around us. For example, remote working and learning, which Deleuze identified as increasing in the 1980’s and which has skyrocketed in light of the coronavirus pandemic, has weakened substantially the disciplinary segregation of physical space.[20] At the same time, it has strengthened the all-encroaching productivity ethos of societies of control by placing work or study (itself little more than a preparatory step towards work) within the walls of the private family home.   Whilst coronavirus may have accelerated a shift towards societies of control, this trend runs much deeper still. Below, we shall seek to validate the shift Deleuze identifies by employing and analysing four impressionistic vignettes.   Vignette A In April 2021, Chinese state television broadcast an exposé of intolerable working conditions faced by food delivery drivers—long hours, meagre pay, algorithms that encourage dangerous driving and heavily fine lateness, and harassment from customers who have full and ‘live’ access to drivers’ locations and contact details. China’s couriers are estimated to contribute to close to 1% of the country’s economic activity, but the undercover government official earned just £4.52 over a 12-hour shift.[21]   The courier works in no strictly delineated or confined space, but everywhere, openly. He is the subject of constant surveillance. Customers have his precise location, his ‘ETA’, the corporation’s promised delivery slot, and his personal mobile phone number at their fingertips. The threat of an angry call or harsh review might appear in those circumstances to operate rather like a panopticon unconfined by space, enforcing conformity.   But that is only a minor part of this story; it is secondary to the algorithmic surveillance and control in which both the courier and the customer are merely variables. Drivers will be set timescales in which to complete a delivery determined by the average speed at which drivers have previously made that journey or a similar journey. If they beat that timeframe, they may be rewarded with bonus pay. If they fail, their pay will be docked. Both processes—the incentivisation of speed and disincentivisation of slowness—are automated. The algorithm does not care how the driver gets from A to B, only that he does so quickly and does not damage the customer’s goods in the process. So, drivers will travel recklessly in order to beat the clock to boost their meagre pay, but this only shortens the average time of journey completion, making pay boosts harder to achieve and pay docks more likely and contributing to an insane culture of paranoia and uncertainty.   Compliance with the requirements of speed in this system is facilitated, not forced. In paying the less perfect worker less and the more perfect worker more, the corporation is nudging the courier to an (ultimately ephemeral) standard of compliance. But it need take no further punishing or corrective action: it knows that the courier, impacted by these forces, will correct himself. The password operating here is that of a courier ‘score’ that determines the level of pay afforded for work done.   This is ripe terrain to consider Deleuze’s challenge as to whether the unions will be able to resist forces of control upon the breakdown of the workplace. China, where organised labour is met with fear and hostility, shows that the communist party will intervene by challenging monopolies and exposing low pay. They may moderate the technology of power, but they will not extinguish it; the work is too economically important for that. In the UK, there have been increased efforts by unions to protect insecure, ‘gig-economy’ labourers and they have had some success.[22] But here too the overall system of algorithmic control is not removed, but mollified.   Vignette B A London-based junior employee at Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks in the world, has complained that staff face 18-hour shifts that mean they are earning less than the UK living wage and regularly take sick leave due to burnout. In 2015, US employee Sarvshreshth Gupta, who had been working 100-hour weeks, took his own life.[23] The company has a £50,000 entry-level base salary.[24] The company’s average employee takes home about £260,000 per year.[25]    It is at first blush surprising that employees at Goldman Sachs could be said to be subjects of control by twenty-first century technologies of power, and even more surprising to suggest that their situation is comparable to that of couriers in China. But this is precisely the sort of topsy-turviness that is to be expected from (and ultimately serves to legitimate) societies of control, where we all ‘work hard’.   The impetus to ‘get ahead’ is central to the ethos of self-improvement and motivation instilled by societies of control. That is perhaps nowhere more evident than amongst the new, highly-remunerated, highly-overworked, ‘meritocratic’, professional or upper class of managers, bankers, and lawyers.[26] Previously, elite status was maintained through generations by inheritance. That method of status-maintenance has now mostly been displaced by investments in ‘human capital’. This can be achieved directly—through funding private schooling, tuition, and even work placements paid for by the volunteer—or indirectly, through covering children’s rent and paying for their goods.   The crucial factor in bringing about this shift has been the rise of ‘meritocracy’, which purports that success (i.e. the rate of remuneration for one’s work) is a result and marker of an individual’s inherent drive and talent but which in reality allows ‘a relatively tiny segment of the population […] to transmit advantage from generation to generation’ because elite parents stack the odds in favour of their children’s advancement from birth.[27] This is the society of control in action: demanding, inequitable and possessing an obscured, democratically-papered-over telos, drive and skill directed at productive activities.   But the elite cl

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