Postscript on the Societies of Control

Author(s): Gilles Deleuze

Reviewed work(s):
Source: October, Vol. 59 (Winter, 1992), pp. 3-7
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778828 .
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 Postscripton the Societies of Control*

GILLES DELEUZE

1. Historical
Foucault located the disciplinary societiesin the eighteenthand nineteenth
centuries; they reach their height at the outset of the twentieth.They initiate
the organizationof vast spaces of enclosure.The individualnever ceases passing
from one closed environmentto another, each having its own laws: first,the
family;then the school ("you are no longer in your family");then the barracks
("you are no longer at school"); then the factory;fromtimeto timethe hospital;
possiblythe prison, the preeminentinstance of the enclosed environment.It's
the prison thatserves as the analogical model: at the sightof some laborers,the
heroine of Rossellini'sEuropa '51 could exclaim, "I thoughtI was seeing con-
victs."
Foucault has brilliantlyanalyzed the ideal project of these environments
of enclosure, particularlyvisiblewithinthe factory:to concentrate;to distribute
in space; to order in time; to compose a productiveforcewithinthe dimension
of space-timewhose effectwillbe greaterthan the sum of itscomponent forces.
But what Foucault recognized as well was the transience of this model: it
succeeded thatof the societiesofsovereignty,the goal and functionsof whichwere
something quite different (to tax rather than to organize production, to rule
on death rather than to administerlife); the transitiontook place over time,
and Napoleon seemed to effectthe large-scaleconversionfrom one societyto
the other. But in their turn the disciplinesunderwenta crisisto the benefitof
new forces that were gradually institutedand which accelerated after World
War II: a disciplinarysocietywas whatwe already no longer were, what we had
ceased to be.
We are in a generalized crisis in relation to all the environmentsof

* This essay, which firstappeared in L'Autrejournal, no. 1 (May 1990), is included in the
forthcomingtranslationof Pourparlers(Paris: Editions Minuit, 1990), to be published by Columbia
UniversityPress.

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4 OCTOBER

enclosure-prison, hospital,factory,school, family.The familyis an "interior,"

in crisislike all otherinteriors-scholarly,professional,etc. The administrations
in charge never cease announcing supposedly necessary reforms:to reform
schools,to reformindustries,hospitals,the armed forces,prisons.But everyone
knowsthattheseinstitutions are finished,whateverthelengthof theirexpiration
periods. It's only a matter of administeringtheirlastritesand of keepingpeople
employed until the installation of the new forcesknockingat the door. These
are the societies which
of control, are in the process of replacingthe disciplinary
societies. "Control" is the name Burroughs proposes as a term for the new
monster,one thatFoucault recognizesas our immediatefuture.Paul Virilioalso
is continuallyanalyzing the ultrarapid formsof free-floating control that re-
placed the old disciplinesoperating in the timeframe of a closed system.There
is no need here to invoke the extraordinarypharmaceuticalproductions,the
molecular engineering, the geneticmanipulations,although these are slated to
enter into the new process. There is no need to ask which is the toughestor
most tolerableregime,forit's withineach of themthatliberatingand enslaving
forcesconfrontone another. For example, in the crisisof the hospitalas envi-
ronment of enclosure, neighborhood clinics,hospices, and day care could at
firstexpress new freedom,but theycould participateas well in mechanismsof
controlthatare equal to the harshestof confinements.There is no need to fear
or hope, but only to look for new weapons.

2. Logic
The differentinternmentsor spaces of enclosure throughwhich the in-
dividual passes are independent variables: each time one is supposed to start
from zero, and although a common language for all these places exists,it is
analogical.On the otherhand, the differentcontrolmechanismsare inseparable
variations,forminga systemof variable geometrythe language of which is
numerical(whichdoesn't necessarilymean binary).Enclosuresare molds,distinct
castings,but controlsare a modulation, like a self-deforming cast thatwill con-
tinuouslychange from one moment to the other, or like a sieve whose mesh
will transmutefrompoint to point.
This is obvious in the matter of salaries: the factorywas a body that
contained its internalforces at a level of equilibrium,the highestpossible in
termsof production,the lowest possible in termsof wages; but in a societyof
control,the corporationhas replaced the factory, and the corporationis a spirit,
a gas. Of course the factorywas already familiarwith the systemof bonuses,
but the corporationworksmore deeply to impose a modulationof each salary,
in states of perpetual metastabilitythat operate throughchallenges, contests,
and highlycomic group sessions. If the most idiotictelevisiongame shows are
so successful,it's because theyexpress the corporate situationwith great pre-
cision. The factoryconstitutedindividualsas a singlebody to the double advan-

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 on theSocietiesofControl
Postscript 5

tage of the boss who surveyed each element withinthe mass and the unions
who mobilized a mass resistance; but the corporation constantlypresents the
brashestrivalryas a healthyformof emulation,an excellentmotivationalforce
that opposes individuals against one another and runs througheach, dividing
each within.The modulating principle of "salary according to merit"has not
failed to temptnational education itself.Indeed, just as the corporationreplaces
the factory,perpetualtrainingtends to replace the school,and continuous control
to replace the examination. Which is the surest way of delivering the school
over to the corporation.
In the disciplinarysocietiesone was always startingagain (fromschool to
the barracks,fromthe barracksto the factory),while in the societiesof control
one is never finishedwith anything-the corporation,the educational system,
the armed services being metastable states coexisting in one and the same
modulation, like a universal systemof deformation.In The Trial, Kafka, who
had already placed himself at the pivotal point between two types of social
formation,described the mostfearsomeofjuridical forms.The apparentacquittal
of the disciplinarysocieties (between two incarcerations);and the limitlesspost-
ponementsof the societies of control (in continuous variation) are two very
differentmodes of juridical life,and if our law is hesitant,itselfin crisis,it's
because we are leaving one in order to enter into the other. The disciplinary
societies have two poles: the signature that designates the individual,and the
number or administrativenumerationthatindicateshis or her position within
a mass. This is because the disciplines never saw any incompatibilitybetween
these two, and because at the same time power individualizesand masses to-
gether,that is, constitutesthose over whom it exercises power into a body and
molds the individualityof each member of thatbody. (Foucault saw the origin
of this double charge in the pastoral power of the priest-the flockand each
of itsanimals-but civilpower moves in turnand by othermeans to make itself
lay "priest.") In the societiesof control,on the other hand, what is importantis
no longer either a signatureor a number,but a code: the code is a password,
while on the other hand the disciplinarysocietiesare regulated by watchwords
(as much fromthe point of view of integrationas fromthatof resistance).The
numericallanguage of controlis made of codes thatmarkaccess to information,
or reject it. We no longer findourselves dealing withthe mass/individualpair.
Individuals have become "dividuals,"and masses, samples, data, markets,or
"banks."Perhaps it is money that expresses the distinctionbetween the two
societies best, since discipline always referredback to minted money that locks
gold in as numericalstandard,whilecontrolrelatesto floatingratesof exchange,
modulated according to a rate establishedby a set of standard currencies.The
old monetarymole is the animal of the spaces of enclosure, but the serpent is
that of the societiesof control. We have passed fromone animal to the other,
from the mole to the serpent,in the systemunder which we live, but also in
our manner of living and in our relations with others. The disciplinaryman

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6 OCTOBER

was a discontinuousproducer of energy,but the man of controlis undulatory,

in orbit,in a continuousnetwork.Everywheresurfing has already replaced the
older sports.
Types of machinesare easilymatchedwitheach typeof society-not that
machines are determining,but because theyexpress those social formscapable
of generatingthem and using them.The old societiesof sovereigntymade use
of simple machines-levers, pulleys,clocks;but the recentdisciplinarysocieties
equipped themselveswithmachines involvingenergy,withthe passive danger
of entropyand the active danger of sabotage; the societiesof controloperate
withmachinesof a thirdtype,computers,whose passivedanger isjamming and
whose active one is piracyand the introductionof viruses.This technological
evolutionmust be, even more profoundly,a mutationof capitalism,an already
well-knownor familiarmutationthatcan be summed up as follows:nineteenth-
century capitalism is a capitalism of concentration,for production and for
property.It thereforeerects the factoryas a space of enclosure,the capitalist
being the owner of the means of productionbut also, progressively, the owner
of other spaces conceived through analogy (the worker'sfamilialhouse, the
school). As for markets,theyare conquered sometimesby specialization,some-
times by colonization,sometimesby loweringthe costs of production. But, in
the present situation,capitalismis no longer involved in production,which it
often relegates to the Third World, even for the complex formsof textiles,
metallurgy,or oil production. It's a capitalismof higher-orderproduction. It
no longer buys raw materialsand no longer sells the finishedproducts: it buys
the finishedproducts or assembles parts. What it wants to sell is servicesand
what it wantsto buy is stocks.This is no longer a capitalismfor productionbut
forthe product,whichis to say,forbeing sold or marketed.Thus itis essentially
dispersive,and the factoryhas given way to the corporation.The family,the
school, the army,the factoryare no longer the distinctanalogical spaces that
converge towards an owner-state or private power-but coded figures-
deformable and transformable-of a single corporation that now has only
stockholders.Even art has left the spaces of enclosure in order to enter into
the open circuitsof thebank. The conquestsof themarketare made bygrabbing
controland no longerbydisciplinarytraining,byfixingthe exchange rate much
more than by loweringcosts,by transformation of the product more than by
of
specialization production.Corruption thereby gains a new power. Marketing
has become the center or the "soul" of the corporation.We are taught that
corporationshave a soul, which is the most terrifying news in the world. The
operation of markets is now the instrument of social control and forms the
impudent breed of our masters. Control is short-term and of rapid rates of
turnover,but also continuous and withoutlimit,while discipline was of long
duration,infiniteand discontinuous.Man is no longer man enclosed, but man
in debt. It is true thatcapitalismhas retainedas a constantthe extremepoverty
of threequartersof humanity,too poor fordebt,too numerousforconfinement:

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 on theSocietiesof Control
Postscript 7

controlwill not only have to deal witherosions of frontiersbut withthe explo-

sions withinshantytownsor ghettos.

3. Program
The conceptionof a controlmechanism,givingthe positionof any element
withinan open environmentat any given instant(whetheranimal in a reserve
or human in a corporation,as withan electroniccollar), is not necessarilyone
of science fiction.Fdlix Guattari has imagined a citywhere one would be able
to leave one's apartment, one's street,one's neighborhood, thanks to one's
(dividual) electroniccard that raises a given barrier; but the card could just as
easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours; what counts is not
the barrier but the computer that trackseach person's position-licit or illicit
-and effectsa universalmodulation.
The socio-technologicalstudy of the mechanisms of control, grasped at
theirinception,would have to be categoricaland to describe what is already in
the process of substitutionfor the disciplinarysitesof enclosure,whose crisisis
everywhereproclaimed. It may be that older methods, borrowed from the
formersocieties of sovereignty,will returnto the fore, but with the necessary
modifications.What counts is thatwe are at the beginningof something.In the
prisonsystem:the attemptto find penalties of "substitution,"at least for petty
crimes,and the use of electroniccollars thatforce the convictedperson to stay
at home during certainhours. For the schoolsystem: continuousformsof control,
and the effecton the school of perpetual training,the correspondingabandon-
mentof all universityresearch,the introductionof the "corporation"at all levels
of schooling.For thehospitalsystem: the new medicine"withoutdoctoror patient"
thatsinglesout potentialsickpeople and subjectsat risk,whichin no way attests
to individuation-as theysay-but substitutesfor the individual or numerical
body the code of a "dividual" materialto be controlled.In the corporate system:
new ways of handling money,profits,and humans thatno longer pass through
the old factoryform. These are very small examples, but ones that will allow
forbetterunderstandingof whatis meant by the crisisof the institutions, which
is to say, the progressiveand dispersed installationof a new systemof domi-
nation. One of the most importantquestions will concern the ineptitudeof the
unions: tied to the whole of theirhistoryof struggleagainst the disciplinesor
withinthe spaces of enclosure,willtheybe able to adapt themselvesor will they
give way to new forms of resistanceagainst the societies of control? Can we
already grasp the rough outlinesof these comingforms,capable of threatening
thejoys of marketing?Many young people strangelyboast of being "motivated";
they re-request apprenticeshipsand permanent training. It's up to them to
discover what they'rebeing made to serve,just as theirelders discovered, not
withoutdifficulty, the telos of the disciplines.The coils of a serpent are even
more complex than the burrowsof a molehill.

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