POWER/ KNOW LEDGE: SELECTED INTERVIEWS SG OTHER WRITINGS Ton 2 eo YY MICHEL FOUCAULT EDITED BY COLIN GORDON behind these difficult individual ofthe broad social vision and poli: sj them in this superb set of essays and interviews, a segment cctual enterprises of all time—and P which possesses profound implica ions for und i Four bodies and our minds © SOCTTINOND /HAMOd 1-705POWER/KNOWLEDGE Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977Also by Michel Foucault Madness and Chilton: A History of Init in the ‘Age of Reson The Order of Tings An Archacology ofthe Hunan Sess ‘The Archaeology of Keoledge (ad The Discourse on Langa) The Bith ofthe Cline: An Archaeology of Media! Percsion ere Rive, having slaughter, my si arm tier Cate of Paice inthe Ninsteont Cnty Discipline and Pun: The Birth of the Pion The History of Seay. Volumes 1, 2. sn 3 Hevculine Bein, Being the Resenty Discovered Memoirs of Nineson-Century French Hermaprie The Foucault Reader (edited by Poul Rabin) POWER/KNOWLEDGE Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 Michel Foucault Edited by COLIN GORDON Translated by COLIN GORDON, LEO MARSHALL JOHN MEPHAM, KATE SOPERCONTENTS page Preface Mi Translations and Sources x T'On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists. 1 2 Prison Talk 7 3 Body/Power 55 4 Questions on Geography 6 5 Two Lectures * 6 Truth and Power 7 Power and Strategies 1M 8 The Eye of Power 146 9 The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century 10 The History of Sexuality 11 The Confession of the Flesh Afterword BibliographyPREFACE Michel Foucault's name, at least, must now be a familiar fone to English-speaking readers, since this is the tenth ‘oliume of his writings to have been translated within the ast dozen years. But pethaps the distinctive features of his work hhave not always Been easy for us to discemm from among that gyrating nebula of Gallic luminaries which we have been so Arduously and querulously observing during the span of Foucaults career to date. One ofthe motives for fabricating, in translation, this further Foucault “book has therefore been the hope that it will facilitate access to works that ae, at least in principle, already available: to construct a son of rnon-didactic primer made up of texts in which the author himself explains in straightforward and informal terms some stages and facets of his work and the preoccupations that traverse it. By bringing into clearer focus the political and intellectual environment in which this work has been carried out, this volume should help to undo some of the abtuscating effects commonly produced by the use of such vague and polemical labels as 'structuralism’ and ‘post-Marxism’ and hence -make possible a more informed estimate of its significance within contemporary thought, or, to speak less grandly, of the interest, uly and pleasure it offers us. ‘A few words about the material selected. All the pieces date from since Foucault: election, following abriet spell as fone of the founders of the experimental University of Vincennes, to the chair of History of Systems of Thought at the College de France; within his published output, they succeed his two methodological and programmatic texts, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) and The Order of Discourse (1970). With the exception of Chapter 1, which is 8 discussion occasioned by an episode in post1968 revalu tionary French politics, all of the book isclosely linked t0 the themes and arguments of Foucault's two most recentPreface vit works, Discipline and Parish (1975) and The Will Know History of Sexuality (1976). We have sought to minimise internal redundancies, and have omitted items. already ‘widely available in English, The resulting pattern is that of| an aleatory, openended collage in which, from point 10 point and in changing contexts and perspectives, 2 certain hhumber of fgures and motifs recur. The forms and occasions Of the pieces, the identity of the nterlocutors and the origin fnd point ofthe questions posed are numerous and diverse Some texts are more or less direct oral transcripts, others are writings in a more orthodox sense. Some have never appeared in France, of are no longer availabe there. ‘The diversity of this volume’s sources (documented in a separate note below) gives an indication ofthe remarkable impact of Foucaul’s books in France and elsewhere, an impact by no means confined to the literary beau monde What are in essence historical essays, albeit unconventional jones in their scope and form, have encountered a wide and receptive audience among the proliferating intellectual and militant action groups, campaigns, currents and publications Which have teen a feature ofthe international tereain since the 1960s. One should note that this volume does not represent Foucault's important and extensive journalistic ‘output on topies including capital punishment, abortion Suicide, prison revolts and the recurring scandals of justice and psychiatry (not to speak of their everyday norms), crime and punishment in the Soviet Union, China and Iran, fd the popular uprising in the latter country. Some of fis articles, notably those on the application ofthe guillotine by Presidents Pompidou and Giseard, have a phlippic force rate in contemporary writing. What i striking about the dliscussions collected here isthe way in which the dimen- sions of history and philosophy are brought to intersect and interact with this sime detailed confrontation of present actuality Tr would nevertheless he misplaced to set about installing Foucault within the lineage of Voltaire, Zola and Sartre, French tradition of great intellectual paladins of justice and truth, For reasons sich his unalysis of the twilight of the ‘universal intellectual’ (sep. 126if) makes clear, Foucault has persistently and dexterously avoided the canonical roles Es PoweriKnowledge of revolutionary guru, greatand-good writer or ‘master- thinker’. This feature of his personal trajectory, while making it less readily visible from afar than those of other illustrious contemporaries and predecessors, may pethaps turn out to be a8 seminal as any system of theoretical positions to be extracted from his books. At any rat, part of the interest of the present volume lies in the complex relationship it documents between a singular intellectual venture and some common issues posed by out recent historical experiences. Collaborative, consciously pro- visional, often fragmentary and digressive, abounding in hypotheses and sparing in conclusions, these dialogues manifest their own kind of rigour throvgh an abiding ‘concern, constant throughout Foucault's work, to question and understand the fluctuating possibilities, the necessary oF contingent historical limits of intellectual discourse itself ‘The problematic of pouvoir-savoir, power and knowledge, Which has given this book its ile, isa fundamental theme of Foucault’s historical studies of the genealogy of the human sciences: it is also, inclucably, & fundamental question ‘concerning our present “This also meats that these diseussions, given thelr location in time and space, have to do with the events of May 1968 and the transformations of politcal thought and practice Which these events were seen as inaugurating, Now, some years later, one can tentatively identify the years around 1972-1977 in France as an unusal and fascinating, ab confused, period, during which new lines of investigation and critique emerged on the intellectual scene in relation: ship of mutual stimulation with new modes of political Struggle conducted at mulipliity of distinct sites within society, This is not of course to say that France has been lunigue in this respect, nor thatthe felationship in question should be understood as having provided these new zones of militancy with a set of perfect und reciprocal political nd theoretical legtimations. In France, moreover, many would now see this period of intellectual ebullition and pervasive "Tocal struggles’ as over, ended—at the latest—by the electoral debicle of 1978, But if these years climate of immediate optimism has for the moment given way—and not only in Frantce--to one of moroste, something of theirPreface x tlty wil, we hope, be transmited through the present The chapters in this book are arranged in approximate chronological order Readers new to Foucault may however prefer ostart with Chapters Sand fora general overview, fnd Chapters 2 and 10, for presentations of the recent Books. Foucaut is his own best expositor and his wrtngs ate intractable material forthe commentators ats: [have however, added as an appendixamesay in whieh attempt a speculative summary ofthe philosophical background Fotcaul’s enterprise and is main concepial architecture Cots Goxbov TRANSLATIONS AND SOURCES Chapter 1 is translated by John Mepham, Chapter’ by Kate Soper, Chapter 10 by Leo Marshall and the remainder by Colin Gordon. Original tiles and sourees of the pieces are a follows: Chapter 1: ‘Sur la justice populaire: débat avec les aos’ in Les Temps Modernes 310 bis, 1972: a special issue entitled Nouveau fascisme, nouvelle démocratie. Pierre Victor 1s co-author with Jean-Paul Sartre and Philippe Gavi of On a raison de se révolter (Paris, 1978) Chapter. 2: From Magazine Litéraire 101, June 1975, feprinted as ‘Les jeux du pouvoir’ in D. Grisoni (ed.) Poltigues de la Philosophie (1976) Chapter 3: ‘Pouvoir et Corps’ in Quel Corps?, September! October 1975, reprinted in Guel Corps? (Petite collection ‘maspero, Paris, 1978), a selection of material from this ‘Marxist journal on physical education and sport ‘Chapter 4: ‘Questions & Michel Foucault surla geographic’ in Herodote | (1976). Issue 4 of this Marxist geographers Journal contains responses to questions posed in rtm by Chapter 5: These two lectures, which have not appeared in French, were transcribed and translated by Alessandro Fontana and Pasquale Pasquino in Michel Foucault, Micro fisica det Potere (Tutin, 1977). Chapter 6: “Intervista a Michel Foucault’, in ibid. A Ghortened. and mutilated) French version’ appeared as ‘Verte et Pouvoir' in L'Are 70 (1977), Chapter 7: ‘Pouvoirs et Stratégies'in Les Révotes Logiques 4 (197), The journal is produced by the Centre de Recherches sur les Ideologies de la Révole Chapter 8: L'Oeil du Pouvoir', published as a preface to Jeremy Bentham, Le Panopugue (Paris, Beliond, 1977) ‘This comprises a facsimile of the French version (Paris, 1791) and a translation of the fst part of the English version (Dublin and London) of Bentham’s Panopticon,Translations and Sources xii together with a postface by Michelle Perrot on Bentham and the Panopticon which has a useful bibliography. Michelle Perrot's works include Les ouvriers en gréve (1978) The full English version of Bentham’s text is contained in Volume 1V ofthe Bowring edition of his works [Edinburgh 1838-43) Russel & Russel, New York, 1971) Chapter 9 ‘La politique de Ta santé au XVIIle sil’, in Michel Foucault, Blandine Barret-Kriegel, Anne Thalamy, Francois Beguin, Bruno Fortier, Les Machines a Guertr (aux origines de Phpial moderne (Institut de VEnviconne: ment, Paris, 1976). Chapter 10: ‘Les rapports de pouvoir passent Tintérieur des corps’, in Quincaine Liuéraire 247, 1-15 January 1977. Chapter 11: "Le jeu de Michel Foucault’ in Ornicar? 10 July 1977. The journal is published by members of the Depart: ment of Psychoanalysis at the University of Vincennes. A. few preliminary remarks are omitted from ths translation, We are grateful fo Michel Foucault for his friendly asistance and co-operation throughout the preparation ofthis volume. t must be said that the Afterword is inno sense an authorised representation of his views.) We are also much indebted to Foucault's Italian editors and transators, Ales sandro Fontana and Pasquale Pasquino, whose work formed the basis for this volume. We gratefully acknowledge per mission from the Princeton University Press to quote in the Afterword from Albert O. Hirschman's The Passions and the Interess: Political Arguments for ‘Capitalism before its triumph (1977). 1 would like to thank John Mepham for helping to organise the translations, Meaghan Morris and Paul Patton for kindly showing me theit versions. of Chapters 6 and 7 (see Bibliography), and Graham Burchell and Nikolas Rose for advice ‘on the Afterword, Earlier Versions of Chapter 2 and part of Chapter 6 appeared in Radical Philosophy 16 and 17, Spring and Summer 1977 outs Gono POWER/KNOWLEDGE Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-19771 ON POPULAR JUSTICE: A Discussion with Maoists Inthe following discussion Michel Foucault and some Maoist militants attempt to idemtly the baste issues ina debate Which had been initiated in fesponse tothe project of June T971, to set up a people's court to judge the police Foueavtr: In my view one shouldn't star withthe court a8 2 particular form, and then go on to ask how and on what conditions there could be a people's court; one should start ‘with popular justice, with acts of justice by the people. and 0 on to ask What place a court could have within this. We Imust ask whether such acts of popular justice can or cannot be organised in the Torm of a court. Now my hypothesis i ‘not so much that the court is the natural expression of popular justice, but rather that its historical function i t0 ensnare it, to control it and to strangle it by se-inseribing it ‘within institutions which are typical ofa state apparatus, For example, in 1792, when war with neighbouring counties broke out and the Parisian workers were called on to go and get themselves killed, they replied: "We're not going t0 20 Before we've brought our enemies within our ovin country to court, While we will be out there exposed to danger they'll be protected by the prisons they're locked up in. They'te only waiting for uso leave in order to come out and set up the old order of things all over again. In any case those who are in power today want to use apainst us—in ‘der to bring us back under contol—the dual pressure of| tenemies invading from abroad and those who threaten us at hhome. We're not going to fight against the former without bnaving first deat with the later’ The September executions Were at one and the same time an act of War against internal enemies, a political act against the manipulations of those in power, and an act of Yengeance against the oppressive lasses. Was this not—during a petiod of violent revol utionary struggle— an approximation to an act of2 Pomer/Knowledge popular juste: response to oppression, statically Eecive and politically necessary? Now, no sooner hed the Executions stated in September, when men from the Pars CCommune—or trom that quarter—intervened and sel alpout staging » court: judges behind a table, representing & third party standing between the people who were scream. ing for vengeance and the accused who were either uly ‘of innocent; an investigation to establish the “ruth orto ‘buain a confession’; deliberation in order to find out what vas Jost this form wis, imposee. in an authoritarian ‘manner. Can we not se the embryonic, abit rage form Of a slate apparatus reappearing here? The possbilty of class oppression? Isnt the setting up of «nesta nsition Standing between the people and ie enemies, capable of éstabishing the vain ne hotween the tue and the fase. the gully and the inocent, the jst und the unjust this nota way of resisting popular justice? A way of disarming it ithe stroggle its Sonduting in really favour of an aritation inthe tsi of the eal This shy am ‘wondering whether the eourt nots form ol popula justice but rather its first deformation. eee Viciok: Yes, but fook at examples taken not from the bourgeols revolution but tiom proletarian revolution Take China’ the fret stage the ieologel evolutions ation ofthe masses, uprisings inthe villages, ses of justice by the peasant masses against their enemics: executions of despots all sort of repr forall the extonions suersd over the centuries, ete The executions o the enemies othe people spread, and we would al agree in saying tht these Sere act of popular juste. All his! the peasant has 2 good eye for what needs to be done and everthing Bocs just fine im the countynide. But «new stage inthe process develops, withthe formation ofa Red Army. and then I no longer simply a matter of the masses revolt spat their enemies, for now we have the masses ther enemies, plus an instrument forthe unifeation ofthe masses, namely the Red Army” At this point allo the acs of popular justice are supported and dseplined. And noceenty that there be some legal authority 0 that the diverse act of vengeance shouldbe in conformity with la, with « peoples law which is now something entirely different fiom the old system of On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 3 feudal law. It has to be decided that this particular execution forthat particular act of vengeance isnot simply amatter of individu setling of accounts, thats, purely and simply an ‘egotistical Tevenge against ail the oppressive institutions ‘which had themselves equally been based on egoism. Ia this ‘case it struc that thece s what you call a neutral institution Which stands beoween the masses. and their immediate ‘oppressors. Would you argue that at this point in the process fa people's courts nat only nota form of popular justice ut is'a deformation of people's justice? Focavtt: Ate you certain that inthis example a neutral institution” came to intervene between the masses and thei oppressors? I'do not think so: T would say that, on the contrary, it was the masses themselves which came tact a8, intermediary between any individual who might become separated from the masses, from the aims of the masses, in order to satisly an individual desire for vengeance, and Some other individual who might well, infact, be an enemy fof the people but whom the former individual might be timing fo get at simply asa personal enemy Tn the example which T was discussing the people's cour, as it functioned during the Revolution, did tend to act as a ‘neutral institution’ and, moteover, i had a very precise social basis: it represented a social group which stood between the bourgeoisie in power and the common people ‘of Patis (la plebe); this was a petty bourgeoisie composed ‘of small property owners, tradesmen, artisans. This group took up & position as intermediary, and organised a court, which functioned as a mediator, in doing this it drew on an ideology which was up toa certain point the ideology ofthe dominant clas, which determined what it was right of “not tight’ to do or to be. This is why, in this court, they convicted not only refractory priests or people involved in the events of 10 August-—quite a small number of people — but they also executed convicts, that is, people who had been convicted by the courts of the Ancien Regime. They executed prostitutes, and soon... Soitis clear that it had eoccupied the ‘median’ position of the judicial institution just as it had functioned Under the Ancien Regime. Where there had originally been the masses exacting retribution fagainst those who’ were their enemies, there was now4 Power/Knowledge substituted the operation ofa court and of a great deal ofits ideology Victon: This is why it is interesting to compare cases of, courts during the bourgeois revolution with eases of courts ‘during the proletarian revolution. What you have described ‘comes down to this: between the masses atthe base — wh then constituted ‘the people’ on the one hand, and their enemies on the other there was a class, the petty bour- geoisie (a ‘third part) which was an intermediary, which took something from the common people and something else from the class which was becoming dominant: thereby played the role of a median class, it coalesced these two elements, and this gave tothe people's court what Was, from the point of view'of the development of popular justice which was being conducted by the common people, an element of internal repression, thus a deformation of Popular justice. So if there isa third part’, this does not anise from the court itself, it comes from the elass which took over the courts, that i, from the petty bourgeoisie. Foucault: [ would like to take a bret look backwards, at the history of the state judicial apparatus. In the Middle Ages there was a change fom the court of arbitration (to Which cases of dispute were taken by mutual consent, to conclude some dispute of some private battle, and which was in no way a permanent repository of power) to a set of stable, well defined institutions, which had the authority to intervene and which were based on political power (or at fany rate were under its control). This change was ac- complished in conjunction with two underlying processes, ‘The first was the iscaisation ofthe judicial system? by means of fines, confiscations, distraints, By granting expenses and all sorts of allowances, operating the judicial system became profitable; after the breakdown of the Carolingian state the Judicial system became, inthe hands of the nobles, not only 4 instrument of appropriation—a means of coercion — but a direct source of revenue, it produced an income over and above feudal rent, or rather tt became an aspect of feudal Fent. To be a judge was to have a source of income, it was property. Judgeships became a form of wealth whieh could be exchanged, circulated, which were sold or inherited as part of, or sometimes separately from, fiefs. They became On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists S ‘0 integral part ofthe citelation of wealth and of the feudal levy, For howe who owned them they constituted right Addition to those of quivrene, mortmatn, tithe, tomnage Banal, ete); and Yor those who. came nds thet Jursdiction they amounted toa kind of taxation which was fot systematised but to which ita nevertheless fn eran aes certainly necesary to submit. The archaic operation of the judi system had osome inverted: oe eoul 9 that in earlier mes justice was ight for those to whom it teas applied (ie igh to demand justice when the dsputants greed to do so) and a duty for those who made the Helgments (the obligation fo exerne their prestige, thir Buthority, their wisdom, their polite rligious power). Tt teas to become from this point on a (lutaive right for those in power, ands (coy) ogaton for thoxe wh Bad {o submi to it At this point we ean ee the convergence twth the second ofthe processes which I mentioned earlier the increasing link between the jc sytem and armed forst To replace private wars by a sompulery and urative judicial system, 10 impose a judical system where one = tone andthe same tme— judge, part) t the dite Sd tax collector, instead of sytem of deal andsetlements,t0 impore a. judicial syatem which secures, guarantees and increases by significant amounts the levy onthe prot of iabour, all his implies the availabilty of the power of constrain. I could ot be imposed without amd force Sterevera feudal lord disposed of sutesent military power qo enforce his peace’ it was possible Tor him to impose juridical and eal levies faving become source of Income, judgeships developed inthe direction of the Livison of private propery. But supported by the force of Sims they developed in the direction of ils ever increasing concentration. Ths dual development let the “lass” Fesult: when, during the fourteenth century the feudal lords were ed wth teen gent ad urban ey they Sought the support ofa centalsed power, army and taation system and inthis emergeney thee arose, together withthe provincial High. Cours, the King's Procuator, official Prosecutions legsation against beggars, vagabond, sles, End before long the early rudimentary forms of police ad & Shield juice! system. This was sm embtyomie sate6 PoweriKnowledge judicial apparatus which was superimposed upon, duplica: ted and controlled the feudal judges and their fiscal rights, but which allowed them to continue to function. ‘There thus sprang up a judicial order which had the apperance of the expression of public power: an arbiteator both neutral and With authority, of whom the task was both t "justly" resolve disputes and to exercise “authority in the maintenance of public order. It was on these foundations, of social struggles, the levying of taxes and the concentration of armed fore, that the judicial apparatus was erected We can understand, then, why itis that in France and, 1 believe, in Western Europe. the act of popular justice Is profoundly anti-judicial, and is contrary to the very form of the cout. Tn all the great uprisings since the fourteenth century the judicial officials have regulary been attacked, fon the same grounds as have tx officals, and-more generally those who exercise power. the prisons have been ‘the judges thrown out and the eaurs closed down, jusiiee recognises in the judicial system a state apparatus, representative of public authority, and instru ment of class power. I would like to put forward a hypoth- esis, though Tm not certain about iit seems to me that a (ain number of habits which derive from the private war 4 certain number of ancient rites Which were features of “pre-juicial” justice, have been preserved inthe practises of popular justice: for example, it was an old Germanic custom fo put the head of an enemy on a stake, for public viewing, when he had been killed ‘according to the rules’, or jurii cally’, in the course of a private war; the destruction of the hhouse, oF at feast the burning of the timberswork, and the ransacking of the contents of the house, is an ancient rite Which went together with being outlawed: now, these are cts which predate the setting up of a judicial system and Which are regularly revived in popular uprisings. The head ‘of Delaunay was paraded around the captured Bastille; around the symbol of the repressive apparatus revolves With its ancient ancestral rites, a popular practice which does not identity ise in any way with judicial institutions. Tn my view the history of the judicial system as state apparatus enables us to understand why, in France at least, acts of justice which realy are popular tnd to flee from the On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 7 court, and why, on the other hand, each time that the bourgeoisie has wished to subject a popular uprising to the constraint of a state apparatus a court has been set up table, a chairman, magistrates, contronting the 10 op ponents. Thereby the judicial system is reborn. That is my View of things. Vicroa: Yes. You see things up to 1789, but what I'm Interested in is what happens later. You have desevibed the birth of a class idea and how this cass idea was materialised Jn practices and apparatuses. I perfecly well understand hhow it was possible, in the French Revolution, for courts to become instruments of indirect deformation and repression ‘of the acts of popular justice of the common people. If ve lunderstood, this was hecause there were several social Classes involved, on the one hand the common people, on the other hand the traitors to the ‘ation and to the revolution, and between them a class which attempted to play out to the full the historical role which was open to it ‘Therefore 1 cannot draw any definitive conclusions about the form of the people's court from this example—in any ‘ease, for us there are no forms which are incapable of historical development—but merely see how the petty bourgeoisie as a class picked up from the common people some serap of an idea and then, being dominated as it was, especially in this period, by the ideas of the bourgedisi, crushed the ideas drawn from the common people under the form taken by courts at that time, Teannot draw fom this any conclusions about the practical problem we are faced With today, concerning people's courts in the present-day ideological revolution, nor, a fortios, in the future people’s armed revolution, This is why T would like us to compare this example from the French Revolution with the example Which I’ mentioned just now, that of the people's armed revolution in China [Now you would say ‘In this example there are only two celements— the masses and their enemies’. But the masses in a way delegate some part of their power to an elemen Which, while being deeply attached to them, is nevertheless isting, the People's Red Army. Now this figure, military powerfjudicial power, which you pointed out, can be seen Again here with the People's Army helping the masses to8 PoweriKnowledge organise regulations covering the trial of class enemies. ‘myself do not find anything surprising about this, given that the People’s Army is.a state apparatus. So I would put the following question 10 you: are you not dreaming up the possibilty of going straight [rom presentday oppression to communism without any transition period — that whichis traditionally called the dictatorship of the proletariat— during which there is @ need for anew ype of slate apparatus, of which we must define the content? Ts it not this which ies Behind your sstemate refs of the people’ FOUCAULT: Are you certain that it is merely the form of the court that is involved here? T do not know how these things are done in China, but look a bit more closely atthe eaning of the spatial arrangement of the court, the arrangement of the people who ate part of or before acount ‘The very least that can be said is that this implies an ideology. ‘What is this arrangement? A table, and behind this table, which distances them from the two litigants, the “third Party’, that is, the judges. Their position indicates firstly That they are’ neutral with respect to each litigant, and secondly’ this implies that their decision is not already arrived at in advance, that it will be made after an aural investigation of the two partes, on the basis of a certain cconeeption of truth and a certain number of ideas concern: ing what is just and unjust, and thirdly that they have the Authority to enforce their decision. This is ultimately the meaning of this simple arrangement. Now this idea that there can be people who are neutral in relation tothe two parties, that they can make judgments about them on the basis of ideas of justice which have absolute validity, and that their decisions must be acted upon, [believe that all this is far removed from and quite foreign tothe very idea of popular justice. In the case of popular justice you do not have three elements, you have the masses and thei enemies. Furthermore, the masses, when they perceive Somebody to be an enemy, when they decide to punish this enemy or 10 reeducate him—do not rely on an abstract luniversal idea of justice, they rely only on their own experience, that ofthe injures they have suffered, that of On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Magis — 9 the may in which they have Been wronged, in whch they have been oppresed and fly, tei decison isnot at authoritative ne, that they are not backed up by ate apparatus which has the power to enforce thet Jeions they purely and simpy cary them out. Therefore | hold firmly tothe view hit he organisation of cour at eat in the West, i nevesarily align to the practice of popular 4 Victor: I do not agree. Whereas you discuss concretely all evoltions ap to the proletarian evolution, you become Completely abstract wht talking about modern revolutions inching thowe tha have occured inthe West. That's why Ti now fake a new cas, coming back to France. Dring the Liberation there wee 8 varity of sets of popular juice T wil deliberately take an ambighous example of poplar juste. an act of popular Jusice which wat both Fal set Smbiguows, that ia et whch was in eet manipulated by the cls enemy; we can draw a general conclston rom this so as to Tocate more exactly the theorteal ents which Tam making I want fo discuss those young women whose heads wore shaved hesotse they had slept withthe Germans. In one ‘way this was a et of pula justice: frintercoure (nthe mont physical sense of the term) ith Gans was some thing which was offense tothe deepest Boy, sese of patie fling: this realy wasn Coton and physical Injury to the people. However it was an ambiguows act of popular justice. Way? Quite simpy Beene while the People were beng entertained by shaving the headh OF these Some, th eal collaborators te real atfors—renained Untouched. So the enemy was allowed to exploic hese cts Of popular estes not the od enemy the Neat occupation force, now disncgrating mista but the new enemy, the French bourgeosiey with the exception of sal minority who were too compromised bythe oxcpation sro cou net come out tothe open too mach, What Se learn rom this ambiguous et of poplar justice? Not at Ill the conetsion tht thi mass movermest fs unteason aby because there was in Tact 9 eawon for this at of ‘etaliston against young women who had sept with the German oficers, but that the mas movement nt given10 Power!Knowledge proletarian unity and direction it can disintegrate fom Within and be ekplotted by the class enemy. In short, the mass moverneaton is own fs not enough. This bocavse there ae contradictions among te masts, These sont dictions within @ popular movement can casiy cause ts Alevelopment to fake a wrong course, tothe extent thatthe enemy takes advantage of them Sots necessary for there to'Be an organisation to regulate the course of popular justice, to give it direction, And this cannot be done ditectly by the masses themselves, precisely becouse whats nceded is an organisation which is able io feolve the masses! Jnernal contradictions Inthe ease of the Chinese revo thom the organisition which enabled these contradictions to be resolved (and which played the same role once again fier state power had Been seized, at the time of the Cultural Revolution) was the Red Aimy. Now the Red ‘Arm is different rom the people even thovgh tis inked to them, eventhough the papi love the army and the amy loves the people. Not ll the Chinese were nthe Red Army nd they are Sti no 0 today. The Red Army represents delegation of the power of the people, ts not the people thempclves This vaio why there lvaysthe pony of $ contradiction between the smy and the people, an thee wal always be the possibilty that this state spparats wil Tepres the popular ase, and this opens up the possibilty find the necesuty for a whole series of cultural revolutions, Precisely in onder to abolsh contradictions which have Eccome antagonistic between the state apparatuses suchas the army, the Party or the administrative appara, eo the popular masses "Phetetore, I would be against people's cours, 1 would find them completely unnecessary or detrimental i the masses~-once ‘et i movement were a homogeneous sthole-—thet in shor if there were no need, In order 0 Keep the revolution moving shead, for sitions which could dsipine, centralise and uniy the masses, In other swords T would be against peopl’ courts i did not think that to make the evolution itis necessary to have a Paty, tnd, forthe revolution to keep going, a evolutionary sate "7A for the objection which you pu forward on the basis of On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoisis U1 the analysis of the spatial arrangement of courts, my reply is 4s follows: on the one hand we are not forced to adopt any particular form—in the formal sense of spatial arrangement ‘or any particular court. One of the best ofthe Liberation courts was that at Béthune. Hundreds of miners had decised to execute a “boche'— that is, collaborator and they lett hhim in the central square for seven days: each day they turned up, and they sai: "We'll execute him’, and then went away again, The lad was stl there, and they still didn't execute him, AC that point somebody marginal, I'm not sure who exactly, with some vestige of authority Ie, sid, ‘Let's get it over With, lads. Either kill him of let him go, we can’t 40 on like this, and they said “OK. Come on comrades, we'll execute him, and they took aim and fired, and before dying the collaborator ried out “Heil Hitler!" which allowed everyone fo say thatthe decision had been a just one «In this example there was not the spatial arrangement that you describe ‘What forms should the judicial system take under the dictatorship of the proletariat? This isan unanswered question, even in China. Things are still t an experimental stage om this question, and there s a class struggle around the question of the judiviary. You ean See from this that it rot a matter of once again adopting the table, the magis trates, ete. But here I'm only touching on the supericial aspect of the problem, Your example went much further. It pointed to the problem of neutrality’ as far as popular Justice goes what happens to this necessarily neutral -thitd Element” which is purportedly in possession of a truth Gifferent from that of the popular masses, and by virtue of this acting as a shield? FoucaUtr: I identiied thece elements: (i) a ‘thitd element’ (it) reference to an idea, a form, a universal tule ‘of justice; (li) decisions with power of enforcement, Its these three characteristics of the courts which are rep: resented in aneodotal fashion by the table, in our society Victox: The ‘third element’ in the cave of popular justice is a revolutionary state apparatus—for example, the Red ‘Army in the early tages or the Chinese Revolution. Ia what sense i it “third element, a repository of a law und of & ‘uh? This is what needs to be explained.Power/Knowledge here are the masses, there is this revolutionary state apparatus, and there is the enemy. The masses express thet stievances and compile an inventory of all the extortions, of all the suffering caused by the enemy; the revolutionary state apparatus takes note of this inventory, and the enemy interjetts, I don't agree about such-and-such a point’. Now, the truth as far asthe facts are concerned can be established, Ifthe enemy has betrayed three patriots, and ifthe whole population of the commune is present and are agrced on a erdiet, then it must be possible to establish the facts of the matter” Ifit isnot then there must be some problem: ithere is no agreement that he is guilty of such-ande-such an extortion then the least that can be Said is that the desire 10 ‘execute him is not an act of popular justice buta settling of accounts between some minority fraction ofthe masses with ‘egotistical ideas and this enemy, ofthis alleged enemy The facts of the matter have been established, the role of tc revolutionary state apparatus is not yet over, Already, uring the investigation of the facts, it has played a role Since it has allowed the whole of the actively participating population to list the charges against the enemy, but is role {does not stop here; i sil has acontribution to make when it ‘comes to deciding on the sentence. Say the enemy is the ‘owner of some moderately large factory; the fact ean be established that he realy did exploit the workers abomia- ably, that he was responsible for quite a few accidents at Works i he to be executed? Let-us suppose that it is ‘desirable thatthe middle bourgeoisie be rallied to the cause ff the revolution, that itis said that only the very small handful of archcriminals should be executed, and that these can be identified by objective criteria; then this enemy would not be executed even though the factory workers whose friends bad been killed have a violent hatred oftheir boss and would perhaps like to execute him, This could constitute a perfectly correct poly, as was, for example, ‘during the Chinese revolution, the deliberate minimising of the contradictions between the workers and the national bourgeoisie. [don't know if it would happen like that here, but { will give you a hypothetical example. Its probable that not all the bosses would be liquidated, particulary in a ‘country like France where there isa large number of smal: On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 13 and medium-sized firms so that this would amount to t00 many people... All this comes down to saying that the revolutionary state apparatus, representing the general interests which have prionty over those of any particular factory or any particular village, applies objective eiteria in sentencing. I'll go back again to the example of the early Stages ofthe Chinese revolution. Ata certain point in time it was correct to attack all landowners, while at other points there were some landowners who were patriots and who had to be spared; it was necessary to educate the peasants, and S0 {© 0 against their natural inclinations with regard to those landowners, Foucautr: The procedures you've described seem to me completely alien ta the very form of the court, What role is played by this revolutionary state apparatus, inthis ease the Chinese army? Is its role to choose between two sides, for fone rather than the other, Between the masses who represent one particular wil or one patticular interest, and aan individual ‘representing a different interest or ‘will? Obviously not, because it is a state apparatus which is tengendered by'the masses, whichis under the control of the masses, and which will carry on being controlled by them, and which in fact has a positive role to play, not in making cisions as between the masses and their enemies, but in guarantecing the education, the political taining, the broadening of the political vision and experience of the masses. So is the job of this state apparatus bere 0 determine sentences? Not at all, but to educate the masses land the will the masses in uch a way that its the masses themselves who come to say, In fact we cannot Kill this rman’ or In fact we must kil hist: ‘You can see clearly that this is not at all the way that ‘courts operate, as they exist atthe present time in France — Where they are of an entirely different order—in which itis not one of the parties which is in coatrol of the judicial system and where the judicial system has no educative role to play. To go back to Your earlier example, if people went ‘ishing after women to shave their heads it as because the collaborators who should have been thele natural targets and against’ whom they should have exercised. popular justice, were presented tothe massesas being too dificult4 Power!Knowledge deat wth in that way: t was sid, “Oh, those people’ ximes fre too great, nel bring them before court. They were put in picon and were Brought bcfore the eur, nd they. Steoune,acgulted them, inthis ete the sours were jxt sed as an enue for dealing with things other than by Sts ot popular justo Now [v2 atid atthe basi point of my thesis. You speak about contradictions among the masse and sou 8) fat theres a need fora revolutionary sate apparats hep the mascs resolve these contradictions. New, 1 dot Know what happened a Chins perhaps the jul appara {Go wa ike thee neal wn am xy Ree Spparatus, with ite centralisation, en societies sch 36 or own, on the contrary, te dial apparats has ben Extremely important ste appaats ef which the history has always been obscured. People do the Rory ofa the history ofthe ceonomy, but the Mor of the system, of jude practs--of what hav infact ben & ional Syste, of wat have ben systems of repre This fs rarely ducused, Nowy I belive thatthe ual System asa state apparatus is historically been of abso trcly fundamental importance. The penal specm hax had the function of introducing cera numberof conta Hons among the: mass, and_one major eontadistion, namely the following fo create muti! antagonism between the prletarinted common pople and the no prolctaria ised common peop. Tets wis a paca period when the peal system, of which the funton inthe Midale Ages tna been evenly 3 facal one. became organised around the strugle to stanp out rebelion, Up unt te point the job of patting down popular uprisings had bee poarily 5 Military one. From now on twas to become taken on, of rendered nneccuary by" complex wen. of cums policeprison tna salem which hs bataly ripe rl: nd depending on the period, depending on the stte of strugelee and onthe conjuncture, was one oF oler of these roles wbich was dominant On the one hand ts 8 {actor in'proetarianation: He oes to fore the peopl 0 xpibkation of the prtarat W's perfectly obvious that ftom the end ofthe Mile Ages up unl the cighteenth On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 18 century, all the laws against beggars, vagabonds and the idle, all the police organisations designed to catch them, forced them— and this was of course their role—to accept at the particular place where they were, the conditions imposed on them, which were extremely bad. If they rejected these conditions, if they went away i they took to begging or to doing nothing’, then it was prison and often foreed labour. On the other hand, this penal system was ‘aimed, very specifically, against the most mobile, the most excitable, the violent’ elements among the common people: those who were most prepared to turn to direct, armed action, eluding farmers who were forced by debts to leave their land, peasants on the run from tax authorities, workers banished for theft, vagabonds or beggats who refused to clear the ditehes, those who lived by plundering the fel, the smalhtime thieves and the highwaymen, those who, in armed. groups, attacked the tax authorities and, more generally, agents of the State, and finally those who--on ays of rioting in the towns of in the villages —curried Weapons. There was widespread plotting, a whole network Of communications, within which individuals could adopt Uifferent roles. Ie was these ‘dangerous’ people who had to be isolated (in prison, inthe Hopital Genera, inthe galleys, in the colonies) 0 that they could not act as a spearhead for popular resistance. This fear was great in the eighteenth Sentury, and it was greater still after the Revolution, and at the times of commotion during the nineteenth centu ‘The third role of the penal system: to make the proletariat see the non-proletarianised people as marginal, dangerous, immoral, a menace to society as a whole, the dregs ofthe Population, trash, the mob’. For the bourgeoisie it is a matter of imposing on the proletariat, by means of penal legislation, of prisons, but also of newspapers, of “liters ture’, certain allegedly universal moral categories which function as an ideological barrier between them and the non-proletarianised people. All the Iterary, joumalisic, medical, sociological and anthtopological rhetoric about criminals (and we are all familiar with examples ofall these in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century) play this role. Finally, the distance which the penal system ereates and sustains16 PoweriKnowledge between the proletariat and the non-proletarianised people, all the pressures whieh are put upon the later, enable the bourgeoisie to make use of certain of these plebeian elements against the proletariat; they mobilise them as Soldiers, policemen, racketeers and thugs, and use them for the surveillance and repression of the proletariat (its not ‘only faseism which has provided examples ofthis) ‘AC fits sight these area least some ofthe ways in which the penal system operates as an antiseditious sytem, as a variety of ways of creating antagonism between the pro- letarianised and the non-protetanianised people, and there by introducing a contradiction whichis now firmly rooted This is why the revolution ean only take place via the radical elimination of the judicial apparatus, and anything which could reintroduce the penal apparatus, anything. which could reintroduce its ideology and enable ths ideology to surreptitiously ereep back into popular practices, must be banished. This is why the court, an exemplary form ofthis judicial system, seems to me to bea possible location forthe reintroduction ‘of the ideology of the penal system into popular practice. This is why I think that one should not ‘make ust of such a model Victor: You have surreptitiously forgotten one particular century, the twentieth, So I pat to you the following ‘question: is the prineipal contradiction among the masses that between prisoners and workers? Foucautr: Not between prisoners and workers; between the non-proletarianised people and the proletariat: this has been one of the contradictions, one’ of the important contradictions, which the bourgeoisie has for a long time, land especialy since the French Revolution, scen as a means of selidetence. For the bourgeoisie the main danger against Which it had to be protected, that which had tobe avoided at all costs, was armed uprising, was the armed people, was the workers taking to the streets in an assault against the government. They thought they could identify, in the non: proletarianised people, in those common people who rejected the status of proletarians, oF in those who were excluded from it, the spearhead of popular rebellion. They therefore provided themselves with a certain number of methods for distancing the proletarianised from the non On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 17 proletarianised people. At the present time these methods lire deficient, they have been or are being taken away from them, ‘These three methods are or were the army, colonisation and prisons, (Obviously the distancing between proletarian ised and non-ptoletarianised people and the prevention of armed uprising were only one oftheir functions.) The army, with the “proxy (remplacants) calbup system, made it possible to drain off significant numbers, especially from the peasant population which was over-numerous in the Countryside and could not find work inthe towns. It was this larmy which was used against the Workers when the need darose. The bourgeoisie tied 10 maintain an antagonism between the army and the proletariat, and. this often worked, though sometimes it filed when the soldiers refused’ to move of 10 shoot. Colonisation constituted ‘another way of draining off these elements; those who were sent to the colonies did not take on a proletarian satus They were used as cadres, administrative functionaries, as tools of surveillance and control over the colonised peoples. ‘And it was certainly in order to avoid the Torming of an flliance between these ‘Tesser whites’ and the colonised peoples—an alliance which would have been just as Gangerous out there a proletarian unity would have been in Europe — that a rigid racalist ideology was foisted on them: ‘Watch out, you'll be living among cannibals’. As for the third method of separating off these elements, this was ‘organised around the prison system, and the bourgeoisie erected an ideological barrier around those who went to prison oF who had been in prison (an ideology about crime, riminals, theft, the mob, degenerates, “animsas’) which was in part linked with racialism, ‘But look what's happened; no overt form of colonisation is possible any longer. The army can't play the same role as itused to, As a result we have & reinforcement of the police tnd an overloading ofthe penal system: these now have to fake on by themselves the whole burden of performing all these functions. Systematic police control of every quarter, the police stations, the courts (especially those dealing out summary judgments tO those “caught in the act’). the prisons, the parole and probation systems, the whole system18 Power/Knowledge ‘of controls involved in making ciren wards of court, the Social welfare system, reform schools all these thst now Perform, herein France, athe roles that used tobe taken {nby the army and colonisation in geographical relocating people and in sending them abroad The Resistance, the Algerian war, May ‘68 have been crucial episodes inthis story, involving te revival inthe Sarious struggles, of elandestnity of atm and of action in the strets. At the same time there has aso been te establishment of an apparatus for highting internal sub Version (an appaatus witch hasbeen strengthened adapted and refined in response to each of these episodes, but from ‘hich, ofcourse, al the corrupt elements have never been Purged) an apparats which as been in connuous Speration now fr thirty ea We cn say tha the ee mies employed upto 160 relied primarily onthe policy of imperialism (the rmy/the colonies), wheieas these et ployed since then are closer to's fascist monel (police, Interal surveillance, contnement). Victon: Stl, you havent answered ny question, which ‘sas is this the principal contradiction among the people? Fovcautr: 1am not saying that tis the pep contra: diction Victon: You are not asserting that, but the way you tell the tory speaks for itself prsings are the esl of uson between the proletaraised and the ‘nor proletaranied people. You have described for sal the mechanisms whieh Sperate to draw a dividing line between the proletrianised and the non-proletaransed people. So, obviously. sven this dividing ine, there are no uprising, whereas were the fusion to be reestablished then there would be uprsings Although you sy" that yu don coder th 0 be the Principal contradiction, "it in fat becomes the. Precip contradiction on your intespretation of history. Tm Rot sping to respond 1 thisin relation tothe twentieth century Ti'tck ‘tothe incteent century, snd invoduce tle extra historical evidence, evidence whichis somewhat cor ttadictory, taken fom a text by Engels onthe develope of largescale modern indostey." Engels sald thatthe hist form of revolt of the moder prolearit agains arg seal industry was criminality, that of those workers who killed (On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 19 their bosses. He made no attempt to discover the underlying ‘causes of this criminality, nor the conditions in which it ‘operated, and he did not write a history of the penal system, Hie was speaking from the point of view of the masses and rot from the point of view Of the state apparatuses, and he Said that criminality was an initial form of revolt; then he ‘Went on quickly to demonstrate that this was very embryonic land not very effective. The second, and superior, form was Inachine-breaking. But here aguin it did not get very far, because as soon as the machines were broken others im: siediately took their place. This hit at one aspect of the Social order but didnot attack the roa causes. Where revolt took on a conscious form it was with the formation of ‘combinations’, that is, of unions in the original sense of the word, Combination is the superior form ofthe revolt ofthe ‘modern proletariat because it resolves the principal contra diction among the masses, namely the internal contradiction among the masses which results from the social system and from is core, the capitalist mode of production. It was, Engels tells us, simply the struggle against competition between the workers, and thus combination, to the extent that this united the workers, which made it possible 10 transfer competition to the level of competition among the bosses. It is in this context that he situates. his early descriptions. of union struggles over wages or for the reduction of the working day. This litle extra historical evidence suggests to me that the principal contradiction among the masses is the opposition between egoism and Collectivism, competition and combination, and that itis ‘when you have combination, that i, the vitory of collec: tivism over competition, that you have the working masses, land thus a unity among the proletariansed people, and that then there will bea mass movement. Tt is only then thatthe first condition forthe possibility of subversion, for revolt is Achieved. The second condition is that these masses gain @ hold on all people in revolt throughout the social system and ‘do not confine themselves 10 the workshops and. the factories as the site of revolt, and itis then that you will in fact find them coming together with the non-proletarianised people, and you will also find them joining together with ther social classes, with young intellectuals, the self20 Power/Knowledge being the main danger. This show the boutgeoste viewed Engels | would by and large agree with. I oes infact se that at the end of the cighteenth cenury. and a the éeived, by the proletarian themscves, tobe form of we the, breaking the law, she trastory anda ee ean no longer have the same meaning, nor the same function forms of organisation, dd everyhing tat Renu to Gone sauna meat het a ae example, the morality taught in primary schools thats the {he teaching of iteray, reading and weting covering op the imposton of values) aod some were rater smal in ‘ovations, tiny and horrible machiavelianisms. (Since union off with the funds; it was impossible for the unions to sue See to Pe protected by the law, ete.) i wich would turnout to beth cause oftheir degeneration, On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Mavists 21 of the fully formed, established proletaiat—and_ the Vimpenproltartarthat is, i the sick sense, the mae ‘inuised proletarian, those who had been thrown out ofthe Suet, The principal cleavage was between a minoiy Ere workers so thepreat mass of he workers that 8 the opts who were being profetaransed. These latter were ker who were coming from the countryside; they Were Tot hooligan, brgands, see! brawlers FovcAutt 1 think 1 have neve, in anything tha have jus sais tied fo show that this was a asic contraction, 1 Iie desrbed certain aumber of factors andeffect, and Hive trea to show how they were all interconnected, and hove the proletariat was able, upto certain pont, come 1S terms ith the moral ideology ofthe bourgeois. Vierors You says This t one factor among others, i is aot the prinetpalcontadition- But all of your example, {he whole hstory ofthese mechanisms as you've deseribed {Rend to put the emphasis on this conttaditio. For you {he proletariat fst sold out fo the devil in having adopted the Binal values by means of which the bourgeoisie Ghtablshed a dhoree between the nomproetananised Soople andthe proletariat, between the hoolgans and the Rongst workers reply, nt s0. The first sling out the Toei by the workers orgamiations was to have made felongitg to a trade a condition of membership. 1 was this Sitettlfned the heat unons to become eorporation wh Excluded the ass of uasiled workers. FOUCAULT, This restriction on membership which you mention was certaaly the nox fundamental one. But notice Chat as impliatons wees i workers who had no trade “Toe belong tothe unions tis was all the more so for those Sino were net proletarian, So, once again, we can ask ow Gis the judicial apparatus, and more generally the penal ‘Stems dperte? ky anawer that (ha lays operated Nigh a'nap as to introduce contradictions among the peor T'Sh hor Saying (tt would be ridcuous to do so) that the pont system inttoguced the base contradictions, but Tm Seating the idce that the peal sptem is nebuios super ‘lista. hs played a deteroiing role inthe divisors of resent-day society. PG rest [am wondering whether we shoulda't distinguish2 PoweriKnowledge to terent kins of ‘pet’ (or nompoletransed com tom peopl) nthe story Can he plete realy be ced & those who reine to be workets wth he eomenuene ot this boing that the ples mou then have mop on Wiolenee, wheres the workers, the prolettians ne tt Senscof ine word, woul ncinedo be nowisen? Tat ths the elles ofa bougcos view ofthe mei ott classifles the worker as group organised within the sate nd sary the peasants, and sh wher al set would be the plebs rebelions rsidve ths pase Sransed word asthe bourgeois would have whisk the Juda stem aw the mason of contling the borders. But te plebeanscan themselves wel be rapped within thi bosrgeos view of things tht ty they ea Conceive themselves as being of another wort” Ad I'm nor sure tht, being trappet tin s iew o ngs the Other World would not ben duplate of the bourgeos world. ‘Obviously his would be completely so" hetsoe ihre ar ats, ut weld bosom pat Noor stable, the ream of the familar Judicassten does ot Exit." there no, behind the oppostion Between the Protcarat ‘and the “plebe who mongpooe lene, the foming together ofthe proletariat and the peesaney a the’ se peasanty, but he peasantry in pote eclion? Isnt tht which threaten the Dourgeose then father he cope together of trkers andthe pent! Oveavtr: Teompetlyagice wih jou i saying hat ne soust distinguish between the common people’ st they are seen bythe bourgeoise andthe common pepe sey ae in realty” But what we have been tril see oe he Jui system operas Pena aw anno cfsted by the Gommon peopte, aor bythe peasant. nv by the prs leant tt ently by the Bourget an impotent tata weapon nhsspsom at Gaon whch they wahed to iiroduce. That thi tata weapon nt sed oa train wt he cal poiteofeoston Expected, because he bourgeoisie cannat have an acre perception of eal relsion tn vel process, And in es, fo speak ofthe pesantry. we cinta eatons Dewees On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Mooiss 2: workers and peasants were not at all the target of the ‘Wencrn penal ystem nthe ineteenth century the general Tipresion Is thatthe bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century arte relatively confident about the peasants Gueues Hiis so tae tis possible tat the real ston to the problem of the retin, between proletariat and plebss/zomained inthe capacity to resolve the problem of eesti, thats the fasion of proetrian methods of Prgale and the methods of peasant warfare ‘Viton This would not be suflent to resohe the probiem of sion, There ® also the problem of methods Finale for those who are mobile. An army is the only Seton ft POD ee op tuts! This means that the solution to the opposition between profetarat and non proetarianised plebs volves Saeko the sat hing oer sate power. Tsao Why there i anced for people's courts "Poveautr:Ifwhat has bee sed i true then the srugle aguint the Judicial apparatus an inporan stage —fdo sae nay a basi strugle, but it as important as was that Jobat ysem inthe dion wich the bourgeobie crested Jed mastained between the proletariat and te plebs. This idkdat apparstes has had specie ideological effects on saerar ake dominated classe, and there i in partlar 9 Srolerlan cology into which certain bourgeois ideas hot what is Just and what unjust, about the, property ‘Pine nd cima have nated Te dbs ot mean that the nomproltaiansed plebs has remained unsli lng resolute: On the contr, for one-and-arhall centuries Ihe bourgeois ore the following ee you ca qetpromor jm the army, you can gt prison oF go 10 the Colbie, you can go to prisn or you can on the ple So this non prolcaranseplebs has been racialit when it has propolis has een eaten chains, Wen heen armed; an it hasbeen fst when i has become {he police force. These ideological fects onthe pbs have teh uncontestble and profound. The elles on the Proletarat are also uncontestabe. This sem is, nasense, Pony aubtle and works relatively well even though the tourgeose isblind tothe basic relations and real processes, ‘Evan From the strtly historical dscussion we have24 Power/Knowledge learned that the struggle agains the penal apparatus con stitutes a relative unity and hat everthing which you have described as the introduction of contradions among the ope dos ot repent maj contrat tu rks onraditions which have had great importance fom ie Doint of view of the bourgeoisie, ts struggle agai t evolution. But with wha you have jst said we ae now at the hear of popular justice, which goes far beYond the Struggle agaitst the Judicial apparatus: beating up. the foreman as nothing to do withthe struggle again the judge, Similarly forthe peasant who executes a imownet ‘This popular jstie ahd its far broader than the struggle against the juditial apparatus. Even ie tae the exarple Othe past year we cam Se that popular justice was put ato Practice before the broad. sriggles against the judd Apparatus, that it was the former which paved the 4a for the later: it was the fst locking up ofthe bosses and beating up of thee lackey, which mentally prepared people for the big struggle against injustice and agua he fala apparatus, Gut the prisons, etn the aftermath of May 18 was really this that happened Grosso modo what you're saying ths: the proletariat has an ideology which ha bourgeot Meology and, which incomporates the system of bourgeos values, the postion between the mora and the immoral, the jas and tne unjust the honest and the dishonest, ete. Therefore there fesults from this a corruption of ideology among the prolet arianised people, and corruption of idolony among the Aonsproletarianised people. brought about bya the Iechanisms of integration andthe various tools of repres Sion of the peoples Now, and this i exaely the point, the development of the unifying idea, the raising of the banner of popular jasc, isthe struggle ayunst senated ideas within the pret and einer, Renee ao among those sons'of the proletariat who have been ‘lod astray, We must fad a way of putting this so as to clariy this struggle agaist thse forms of alenation, this fon of ideas coming rom all the diferent Taclons of the eople—a fusion of Meas whith enables. the divided Fractions of the people tobe weunted™—ecaus ft a mat with ideas that story made to move forward, bt wiht (On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Mavisis 25 material force, that of the people reunited in the streets. We: Gan fake a5 an example the Slogan used by the Communist Party in the early years of the occupation, to jusiy the looting of shops, particularly those on the Rue Buct “Housewives, itis right to steal from the thieves’. This is perfect. You can see how the fusion works: you have a Lemolition of the system of bourgeois values (thieves eo trasted with honest people) but is a particular Kind of emotion, because when you get down to it there are faways thieves, But now we have a new classification. The whole people are reunited; they are the non-thieves: and it Js the cass enemies who ae the thieves. This is why Lhave no hesitationin saying, for example, "To jailith Rives-Henry’? we [ook to fundamentals we see thatthe revolutionary process is always the fusion of the rebellion of those classes {whieh are constituted as such, with that of classes which are Fragmented. But this fusion comes about in a very specific Girection. The "vagabonds', and there were millions upon Inillions of them sn semi-colonial and semi-feudal China, were the mass basis ofthe first Red Army. The ideological problems. within this army derived precisely from the mnercenaty ideology ofthese ‘vagabonds”. And Mao— from Tis red base where he vas surrounded—sent appeals to the Central Commitee ofthe Party, saying roughly, ‘Sendmejust three cadres froma factory, to counteract abit the ideology of rll my "bare-foot™ people, The dseiplie ofthe war against the enemy was nol enough. It was necessary to counteract mercenary ideology with ideology from the factory. “The Red Army under the leadership ofthe Party, thats the peasant war under the direction of the proletariat, was the crucible which made possible the fusion between the fragmenting peasant clases and the proletariat, Therefore, in order to have modern subversion, that is @ rebellion as the first stage of a continuous revolutionary process, itis necessary for there t0 be a fusion of rebellious elements from among the notproetarianised people with the pro- Tetarianised people, under the leadership of the factory proletariat and is’ ideology. ‘There Is an intense class Etrugale between ideas which come from the non-prolet Snianised people and those which come from the proletariat the latter’ must be in command. The looter who joins the2% PoweriKnowledge Red An my must give wp looting. At the hesinning he was executed 0n the spot for stealing Single sewing needle Belonging to petunia wosde tees develops with the setting up of rules, of a dictatorship. To isi tomy sey rt cm a ofp Je ail he varius stat af the poor ace been subjected to material and emotional seein eke hands of clas enemy done devep ie feed movement whch avs theese the eval Syste of roles." whys ste appar eee apparatus which derives from the masses of the people but site n'a Senay eco dtc fr tem ‘hich sotto sy that Hbcromescutalf nee en) at this spparta in 8 certain way, has he ele ak at fot Between the mates andthe clas enon ou the ‘aring leas among te: muses, wih she eee resolving the conradcrons among the meats. Sen vera bate spun the clase nay Ma) bes eee focussed as possible. - . Ts ped of roca evouon it aeays comes about tat state apparats ofa esoatonry kind oy between the masses andthe class enemy, ecole alwage withthe possbiy tat thi apparate igh aeons a sreinelton othe maa Teche wld eer 3: peoples counts wiht these cous henge the” poople, and hence the pos a hee ey ‘challenged by the masses. : Fovenutr would ike to respon to you on two points, ‘You say that iti under the leadership ofthe prolctarot tat ihetonoreltranaed opi wal on mie enlanay wader th leadership of te eoto ofthe protean hen ‘want to ask you What you mean by the ideology win By the clog ot the Vitor: mean, by tat, the tought of Mo Teen ppFoveautr Fine. Butyou wll grantme that what thought the mast ofthe French polar ol te eat Mao Tse‘Tung and it is not necessarily a reveluenary ideology: Moreover, you say that tee nus be a ee, tionary state apprats We onder to rome en On Popular Justice: A Diseusion wih Maoiss 27 unity between the proletariat and the marginalised people UL bar gou wl iso gran e thatthe forms of sate JasSrtun wbleh we inher from the bourgeos apparatus seeeatin any way serve as a model forthe new forms of Stunsation ‘The court, dragging along with tthe ieology SrPoourgeo's justice. and those forms of relations between Sedae sn judged. between judge and the parties to the Jen between judge and itgunt, which typty Bourgeos ate, seems toe to have payed a Very siificant foe in e"Goinaton of the bourgeoisie. When we talk about Weeks were talking about a. place where the struggle Seiwccn the contending forces is willjnilly suspended Rinere in every ease te deciion arrived at is not the BS of ts struggle but of the mterention of an cuizority which necessarily stands above and is foreign to raenetending forces: an author wich isn poston of RS ay between them and consequently can and mst in Sears ease decide whic pat othe pute has justice on its SUE? Ene court implies; therfore, that there are categories {tte common to the pares present (penal eategores “ih othe aud: mora categories sch as honesty and Sishonesty) and that the partes to the dispute agree t0 ini them. Now ital ths thatthe bourgeois wants tana believed in relation to jisice, 10 i justice, All tRece idcus are weapons which the bourgeoisie has put to ine fas exer of power. This why {nd the wea of 3 Pose court aieut To accept, especially if intellectuals ree ay the roles of prosecutor or jade ini, Deane is mei te intletunis who have bee the intermediates Pe the bourgeoisies spreading and imposing ofthe We Togiel themes that I'm taking about Af josie must therefore Bethe target ofthe ideoogic sirup ofthe proletariat, and ofthe non proletariansed People: hus th form of hi eit Be eat wh Peo Rey greatest suspicion by the new revolutionary sate wre alu ‘Tere are to forms which must not under any ePRsfastances be adopted by this tevolutionary epparatus Gieuucency and jaa appratos.TWstasthere must be no Bureaucracy ints there must be no court it The cou ihe uraucrasy ofthe law If yo ureaueratise popular Justice then you give ithe form Of a cour.28 Power!Knowledge Victor Then how isco be is it be regularisoa? _Faueneut TH reply ttt wn ofcourse, an evasion’ i remain tbe Gacoveed Th ae pet Ita ad nm protaran--have sre og mach the cette fom ts uel som fori Os ato he imposed pos them ven witha ne coma ey fate Siugaed since the Mile "Ages sit ths see oe Hunter al the French Revolution vas tebelon jc "spparatus”"The Commune nas te pata, against the judicial system. eee crashes wil Usconer 4 way of dealing with problem of thet enemies of howe wo nid ee Selectively have harmed them, methods of wt which wil ange trom punishment ro education, without involing he fem of he cou which" aye nour societ lon't know about China—is to be avoi a nits hy Twa gat he people's sot sb ema 1, designed to shaheste ope sl oe ka rule abst the ual jen seed tne re-legitimate a form which drags along with it too much of the idole imposed ty the barge wa he eee, which est rom ths bebween he pioeanat aed ge foreland peop A the pte tine fs willbe dangerous Iver on, within's escneeeee sen pra enue ms ofippecedng ease spray ens roceedings nil Sets ined ino hihi ccf elas Vieror: I'm going reply 0 youin a proves is fkely that socialism weil vent something eileree font the assembliline. Saif someone were to) a erat gn themenbiin he woul espa ica dea beaute Diels oct wom ow te anole ut woud be a nention hey inhaneed bythe ps Goel isMansotdca enews Yous}, "The masses wl discover something” Present time there mobe eed ei 2 practal problem to bol ‘ure ha lie orms te poe of popu sie ould need o be new ta tere would nS age eae On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 29 the bench or the robe. What remains is @ regulatory stance. Its this that we call the people's court. Foucavit: If you define the people's court asa regulatory instance—I would prefer #9 sa, an instance of political ‘ueiation—on the basis of which acts of popular justice Gin be integrated with the overall political line, of the proletariat, then | entirely agree, But I feel some dfiulty fh calling such an institution a ‘cour. Tehink, just as you do, that acts of justice by which the class enemy is repaid cannot be limited to a kind of thoughtless, instant spontaneity, unintegrated info an over- Ett stuggle, It is necessary to find forms through which this heed for reteibution, which is i fact real among the masses, tan be developed, by discussion, by information... In any ise, the court, with its triple division into ovo disputing partis and the neutral institution, which comes to decisions Pathe basis of some concept of justice which exists in and for scl seems to me # particulary disastrous model fo the ‘sification and politial development of popular justice. Vicio Ira States General were convened tomorrow where all groups of etizens involved in struggles were 10 be epresented (groups such as action committees, anti seeiatism committees, committees for the investigation of the prisons, and soon, in short all those who happen 0 De at present representatives of the people, the people in the Rfarxist sense of the term) would you be against this on the grounds that it invoked an old model? Foucault: The States General have often enough atleast functioned as an instrument, not of course of proletarian evolution, but of the bourgeois revolution, but we well Finow that there were revolutionary processes inthe wake of this bourgeois revolution, Alter the States General of 13 there wat the peasant uprising; after 1789 there was 1793. Consequently this might be a good model, On the other hhand, i scems to me that the bourgeois judicial system has Ulways operated to. increase oppositions ‘berween the proletariat and the now-protetarianised people. This isthe Feason that is 8 bad instrument, not because it sold ‘The very form of the court contains the statement 0 the two parties, Before the proceedings your case isneither just hoe Unjust. Te wil only be so on the day when I pronounce it0 PoweriKnowledge so, because I will have consulted the law oF the canons of eternal equity. This isthe very escnce ofthe court and 88 in complete contradiction wth the point of slew of popular itstce Gites: The court says two things: “There isa problem’ And then, ‘Being a thi party 7 wil make a deciion about this problem, ete." The problem is thatthe power te ‘exercise justice i inthe hands of lotes which Work agains Popular unity. Tas is why Wis necessary for thee tobe & Fepresenation of this popular unity when it comes te snes justice Fovcauir: Do you mean that popular unity. mast Fepresent and make manifest that thas provisionally of definitively taken possesion ofthe power to judge? Gute: | mean thatthe question of he cout at Len’ was not settled exclasively by the miners and the Houloes {Savional Coal Boaed). wes a matter which concemed a {he popular clases Foucwuir: The necesty that unity be affirmed does not have to take the form of Gust I would even say though ethaps the analogy is a bit strained— that the court sets up again a ind of dvson of labour Taee ae those no judge—or who pretend to jadge--with tol tanguii Without being many way involved. This tenforces the ies that for juical proceedings to be Just they mnt fe cone ducted by someone who can remain quite detached by to intellectual, an expen inthe realm of Wes, Wem inte the bargain, the people's cout i organised or presided over by intellectuals, who come alo to heat what onthe de Band the workers and on the other hand the boses have wot ro Say, and to pronounce: ‘This one is innocent that one gully’. then the whole thing infused with Kealiom: When AT comes to proposing ths as a general model of what Popular justice should be like, Tin atta that the worst Possible model has been picked Victor: I would like us to summarise the results of our discussion, The fst conclusion this: an act of popular Iasi an aim cd out bythe muses homer enous fraction of the people-agnnst thelr inmedtane enemy identified as such eS : Foucavi: «In response to some spect injuay (On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 31 Victon: ‘The full range of presentdy acts of popular justice ineludes all those subveive ations which are atthe Present time being led by the various suata among the cope i. ‘Second conclusion: the transition of pop justice iad higher foum presupposes the sting up Of epuations which tito ese th coacions song te people distinguish between ‘authentic cass of Justice and cases which ‘are merely settling of accounts, which can be Thunipulated by the enemy soa to sre popular sti, tovtacture the unity ofthe mases, thereby to impede the fevolutonary movement. Do we ares? Foueauct, Not que wen i comes to talking about regulations, I would prefer to say that an act of Popular JBstice cannot achieve ts fl sgnincance uns itis lariied Fotticlly, under the supervision of the anaes themselves. ‘Vicroe: Actsof popular justice enable the people to start, to seize power whan they take place within te context of & Soherent overall ine, thas hen they ate ue poiical Somnmand: on condition that this pois! leadership isnot External te mass movement, ad thatthe popular masses She unig avound This what {mean by te eng Up St equations the setting up of new state apparatuses. FoucAULT: Imagine that in some factory or other there is. a con tec rk and ae afte owes and tat ibis worker suggests to his comrades that some reuibution is Cai Ths woul or Be areal popu jase Sle the target and the potential outcome were integrated Into the overall police struggle of the workers that factory ‘Victor Yes, but in the frst place it must be that the action toa jt one This presses that ll he Workers Spree that tha oss i as Foveautt, This assumes that there will be discussion among the workers and a collective dedsion, before any Smut taken ean see any embryonic sate spparatus ete, and yet we've gone from some pertcular demand for Fetribution to an ac of popula justice ‘Vicon I's a matter of stages Fut these is rebellion, following that here uprising, and finally revelation. What Yow are saying is orret forthe fst sage2 PoweriKnowledge Foucavut: I had got the impression that you thought that only the existence ofa state apparatus could changes desire {or retribution into an act of popular justice. Victor: At the second stage. At the fist stage of the ideological revolution I'm in favour of footing, I'm in vour of "excesses. The stick must be bent in the other direction, and the world cannot be tumed upside down without breaking eggs Foucautt: Above all itis essential that the stick be broken Victor: That comes later. At the beginning you say, ‘Put Dreyfus on the assembly-line’, later on you break the assembly-line system. At the frst stage there can be an act Of retribution against & boss which is an act of popular justice, even if not everyone in the workshop agrees with i because there are informers and ereeps, and even 2 small hhandful of workers who are shocked by the idea: “He is the boss after all. Even if things go too fat, ihe gets three ‘months in hospital when he realy only deserved two, it Still an act of popular justice. But when all these actions ake the form of a movement, ofthe growth of popular justice — Which for me only makes sense with the constitution of @ people's army— then you have the setting up of regulations, of a revolutionary state apparatus Foucavir: I understand perfecily as far as the stage of farmed strugele is concerned, but lm not so sure that after wards it will be s0 absolutely necessary for there to be state judicial apparatus in order for the people to perform acts of justice. The danger is that a state judicial apparatus would take over acts of popular justice. Victor: Let’s restrict ourselves. to questions which confront us here and now. Let's not talk about people's courts in France during a period of armed struggle, but about the stage we are actually at, that of ideological revolution. One thing thats typical of this that as a result Of rebellions there is an inerease in acts of subversion, of justice, of real alternative power, And these are instances of Alternative power in the srit sense, that is, where things are tured upside down, with that profoundly subversive ‘message that itis we who are really powerful, that itis us ‘who are setting things right Way up, and that iis the World (On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 33 ‘This is how st would be understood atthe level of the "athe context of a city, where the masses are hetero the ath has oe won, where te un fhe pele hs 6 Sans th pomer ofthe judalsystent and prevent i fomu PowertKnowledge being exercised: for example, escaping from the police, heckling in the courts, demanding that judge be mae account for what he's done. These are all anid Operations, but they ae lil nota counterjustee, A ‘counter justice would be one that enabled one to put into ‘operation, in relation to some person who would in the normal course of events get avay with what es done, some Kind of judicial proceedings (that, to seize hi, bring hi before a cour, persuades judge, who would judge he by feference to certain forms of equity, and who, would efetvely sentence him to some punishment which the Person would be competed to undergo). In this way one Would precisely be taking he place the jul sytem inure that a Lens tere ayn fea etree of alternative judicial power but primary of the power {0 disseminate information. Information which had been with. held from the masses was seize from the bourgeois, fom the colliery management, from the technical staff. Secondly, the means fOr dtbating nan nthe hands those in power, and the people's court made It posible 10 break this monopoly on information, 30 t¥o mporan Kinds of power Were put into ellect here the power of Knowledge of the tru and'the power to dseminate this knowledge. This 's very important, but its notte same 28 the powe to jug The tl for ofthe out mas notin realy a true expression of the powers that were cutee Now witema kindof poweris exeteied, te manner in which itisexeresed~ which must be visible, solemn symbole ‘ust only refer us otha kindof poner which exeresed in realty and not to some other kind of power which i not ers in teay ot hat prelate ‘cron: Your example Of counterjusice is completely idealist. : nea Foucauti: Exacty think that iis impossibie for there to be @ counisunice in the set seme "The jul system asi operates, as. state apparat, can only have the fimetion of dividing the masses’ therefore the idea of 9 proletarian counter justice a contradiction, there can be ho sich thing ‘Victok If we conser the court at Lens, in fact the most important thing was not the selaire ofthe power of know On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists 35 ledge and its diseminaton, It was that the ide “Coley Cots murdres boume power n,n ook he rice peoples minds ofthe tes “The bikes wo threw The Molto coekat ave the ay ney mann hat this power to pronounce an unenforceable sentence is ae power, which has igs material expression in an ideological [Gnstormation inthe minds of those people to whom its Muresea, Tein aot 4 juical power, this goes without Saying i is ridiculous to imagine a counter justice because thereean be no such thing a4 counter-juical power. But there a countertibunal which can operat effectively at the Tevel of the revolution in people's minds. Foucault: {accept thatthe Lens court expressed one of the forms of antjudical struggle. Te played an important Tole Infact ito pace athe sey same time that another {Bal was going on, In which the bourgeoisie was exeresing [elpower to judge, as i really can ekeree Ata singe ting i was posible t0 take word-by-mord, factbyfat resting thet was sla this court inorder Co expose what San ral going on The court at Lem wt here Of Mitra ging on nthe bourgeois court what as back Theater war made to ook white by the former, Ths dss Sem to me a pertecty appropriate form fr geting to know Sndto tamarse people wh what realy oes on in the ‘tomes on the one hand and inthe courts on the othe. Ls Snexcelent means of informing people about the way that ices ered inflaton othe nog ae Vicion So. we apice on a third point) conducting & counier-wial peoples court, inthe very specie sense of Se tna operates a the inverse ofthe Dourgeos cout. as thatthe Bourges press calle “parody of justice’ the Retebe of a counter power Foca 1d otk iat he hee hese whieh You have put forward adequately represent the discussion, oF the'pats on which we are im agreement For my party the {sa that wanted fo introduce into the discussion thatthe fourgeos judicial state appara, of whigh the vibe, Symbolic form is the court, has the basic function of iroducing and’ sugmenting, conctaictions among the ihawes, principally between the proletariat and the non uoletarioined people, and that follows rom this thatthe6 Power/Knowledge forms of this judicial system, and the ideology which is associated with them, must come the target of our present Struggle, And moral ideology—for what are our moral values but those which are over and over again associated with and re-confirmed by the decisions of the courts— this, ‘moral ideology, just ike the forms of justice operated by the bourgeois apparatus, must be submitted to the scrutiny of the most rigorous eitcism Victor: But there ean be created a counter power in relation to morality as well: “the Feal thief is not who Jou think he is, FoucaUti: Flere the problem becomes very dificult. It is from the point of view of property that there ae thieves and sealing, [ would lke to say in conclusion that re-employing a form lke that ofthe cour, wit all hat is implied in it— the third-party place of the judge, reference to la or impartiality, effective sentencing must also be subjected to very rigorous criticism; and, for my part, T cannot se using this form as valid except in case where one can, in patallel with a bourgeois tial, conduct an alternative tial {which can expose as lies what taken as truth inthe former, land its decisions as an abuse of power, Apart from this Situation, T can see thousands of possibilities on the one hhand for antijudicial guerrilla operations, and on the other hand for acts of popular justice; but neither ofthese involve using the form of the cour, Victor: I think we are in agreement about the interpreta sion of actual practices, But perhaps we have not really got to the bottom of our philosophical differences 5 February 1972 Notes LE. Engels, The Condition of the English Working Clr, Chapter 1 2 A hoe student rested Par in Fbrunty 194 dry a demo lon aginst the prisons 3 Gala depuly charged wth faudlen prope wpeclators and Svcd Irom pron by hs partment sane 4g Monaging Director o Renal § Avcadtiing tows a Nonhern France where x group of Mats togetner mth Jan-Pal Sartre, et ops peoples our aera mining 2 PRISON TALK Interviewer: JF, Brochier One of the concerns of Discipline and Punish is to criticise certain blank areas in historical studies. You remark for instance that no one has ever written, of even thought of writing the history of the practice of examining, This is hard to believe Historians, like philosophers and literary historians, have been accustomed 10 a history which takes in Only the summits, the great events. But today, unlike the others, historians are becoming more willing to handle “ignoble™ materials. ‘The emergence of this plebeian clement in history dates back fifty years or more. This means that 1 have fewer problems about taking to historians, You would never hear a historian say what someone or other wrote about Buffon and Ricardo in an ineredible journal called Raison Presemie: "Foucault concerns. himself only. with In your study of the prisons, you seem to regret the absence ofa certain kind of source material, of mono: Braphs on particular prisons, for instance, At the moment, people are returning increasingly #0 the ‘monograph form, but-no longer so. much in terms. of studying a particular object as-of rendering apparent the point at which a certain type of discourse is produced and formed. What would it signify today to write a study of a particular prison or psychiatric hospital? Hundreds of such Studies were written in the nineteenth century, mostly of hospitals, dealing ‘with the histories of the institutions, chronologies of their ditectors, and so forth, Today, writing a monograph history ofa hospital would involve making thePoweriKnowledge whole archive ofthe hospital emerge in the movement of is formation asa discourse inthe process of constituting itself, and interacting at the same time with the development of the hospital and its institutions, inflecting and reforming them, What one would thus try 10 reconstitute would be the enmeshing of a discourse in the historical process, rather on the lines of what Faye has done with totalitarian discourse. Establishing a corpus of source data does indeed pose a problem for my research, but this s undoubtedly a different problem from the one encountered in linguistics, for Example, With linguistic of mythological investigations iis first necessary t0 take a certain corpus, define it and establish its eriteria of constitution. In the much more uid fea that I am studying, the corpus isin a sense undefined. ‘ill never be possible to constitute the ensemble of dis courses on matiness as a unity, even by restricting oneself to {given country or period. With the prisons there would be fo sense in limiting oneself to discourses about prisons; just as important are the discourses which arise within the prison, the decisions and regulations which are among its Constitutive elements, its means of functioning, along with its strategies its covert discourses and ruses, ruses which ute fot ultimately played by any particular person, but which fre none the less lived, and assure the permanence and functioning of the institution, All ofthis has to be brought together and made visible by the historian, And in my view this task consists rather in making al these discourses visible in their strategic connections than in constituting them a Unities, 10 the exclusion ofall other forms of discourse ‘You determine one moment as being central in the history of repression: the transition from the inflicting ‘of penalties to the imposition of surveillance ‘That's correet—the moment where it became understood that it_was, more efficient and profitable in terms of the economy of power to place people under surveillance than to subject them to some exemplary penalty. This moment in time corresponds to the formation, gradual in some respects and rapid in others, of a new mode of exercise of power in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. We all know Prison Talk 2” bout the great upheavals, the institutional changes which Constitute a change of political regime, the way in which the Uelegation of power right to the top of the state system is, ‘modified. But in thinking ofthe mechanisms of power, Lam thinking rather ofits capillary form of existence, the point where power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts ise into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives. The eighteenth century invented, sot speak, & synaptic regime of power, a regime ofits exercise within the Social body’ rather than from above it The change in oficial forms of political power was linked to this process, but only via intervening shifts and displacements. This more-or-less coherent modification in the small-scale modes of exercise ff power was made possible only by a fundamental structural change. [tas the instituting ofthis new local, capillary form fof power which impelled society. to eliminate certain tlements such asthe court and the king. The mythology of | the sovereign was no longer possible onee a certain kind of| power was being exercised within the social body. The Sovereign then became & fantastic personage, at once Archaic and monstrous Thus there isa certain cortelation between the two processes, global and local, but not an absolute one. In England the same capillary modification of power occurred as in France. But there the person of the king, for example, ‘was displaced within the system of politcal representations, rather than eliminated. Hence one can’t say thatthe change at the capillary level of power is absolutely tied to in- Stitutional changes at the level of the centralised forms of the State ‘You show that as soon as the prison was constituted in {ts form as surveillance, it began to secrete is own raw ‘material, namely delinquence My hypothesis is that the prison was linked from its beginning toa project forthe transformation of individuals. People tend to suppose that the prise was kind of refuse ‘dump for criminals, a dump whose disadvantages became apparent during use, giving rise to the conviction that the0 Power/Knowledge prisons must be reformed and made into means of trans forming individuals, But thi is not true’ such text, pro- ‘grammes and Slatements of intention were there from the beginning. The prison was meant to be an instrument, comparable with—and no less perfect than—the school, the barracks, or the hospital, acting with precision upon its individual subjects, The failure of the project was immediate, and was realised virtually from the start. In 1820 it was already understood that the prisons, far from transforming criminals into honest citizens, serve only to manufacture new criminals ‘and to drive existing criminals even deeper into criminality It was then that there took place, as always in the mechanics ‘of power, a strategic utilisation of what had been ex. perienced as a drawback, Prisons manufactured delin Quents, but delinquents turned out t© be useful, in the {Economic domain #8 much as the politcal. Criminals come in handy. For example, because of the profits that can be ‘ade out of the exploitation of sexual pleasure, we find the establishment in the mineteenth century of the great prostitution business, which was possible only thanks to the elinguents who served as the medium forthe capitalisation of everyday, paid-for sexual pleasure. Another example: everyone knows that Napoleon HL was, able to seize power only with the help of a group consisting, at least on i lower levels, of common-law eriminals. And fone only needs to see the workers’ fear and hatred of Criminals during the nineteenth century to understand that the criminals were being used against them, in social and political struggles, as agents of surveillance and infiltration, Preventing and breaking strikes, and so forth. So the Americans in the twentieth century weren't the first to use the Mafia for this sort of job? Absolutely not TThere was the problem of penal labour as wel: workers feated the undermining of their wages by competition fom cheap prison labour. Prison Talk 41 Pethaps, But I wonder whether the issue of penal labour was not ofchestrated precisely so. as to constitute this hostility between delinquents and workers which was of such importance for the general workings of the system, What worried the bourgeoisie was the kind of amiable, tolerated illegality that was known in the eighteenth Century. One should be careful not (0 exaggerate this: ‘criminal punishments in the eightecath century were of great ferocity. But it is nonetheless true that eviminals, certain ‘of them at leat, were perfectly tolerated by the population. There was no autonomous criminal class. Aman like Mandrin® was received wherever he went, by bourgeoisie and aristocracy as well as peasantry, and protected by al. But once capitalism had physically entrusted wealth, in the form of raw materials and means of production, to popular hhands, it became absolutely essential to provect this wealth, Because industrial society requires that wealth be dicecty in the hands, not ofits owners, But of those whose labour, by putting that wealth to work, enables profit tobe made from It How was this wealth to be protected? By a rigorous morality, of course: hence the formidable layer of moral isation “deposited on the nineteenth-century. population, Look at the immense campaigns to chistianise the workers daring ths period. It was absolutely necessary wo constitute the populace as a moral subject and fo break its commen with criminality, and hence to segregate the delinguentsand to show them 10 be dangerous not only forthe rich but for the poor as well, vice-ridden instigators of the gravest social perils. Hence also the birth of detective literature and the Importance ofthe fits dives, the horriie newspaper crime You show that the poorer classes were the principal Victims of exime ‘And the moze they wete is viet, the more they feared i. ‘Bur criminals were recruited from among these classes. ‘Yes, and the prisons were the great instrument of recruit ment. The moment someone went to prison a mechanism2 PowerlKnowledge ‘came into operation that stripped him of his civil status, Wwhen he came out he could do nothing except become & Criminal once again. He inevitably fell into the hands of a system which made him either a pimp, a policeman or an Informer. Prison professionalised people. Instead of having magic bands of radbers-—often of great ferocity — roan ng about the countryside, asin the eighteenth century, one had this closed milieu of delinquency, thoroughly structured by the police: an essentially urban miliew, and one whose Political and economic value Was Tar from negligible. ‘You rightly remark that penal labour has the peculiarity of being useless. One wonders then what its role can be tn the general ecomomy. AAs it was initially conecived, penal labour was an appren- ticeship not so much inthis or that trade as in the virtues of labour iself. Pointless work, work for work's sake, was intended to shape individuals into the image of the ideal Tabourer. [twas achimera, pethaps, but one which had been perlectly worked out and defined by the American Quakers, ‘withthe founding of the workhouses, and by the Dutch, But then, from the late 1830s, it became clear that i fact the aim ‘was not © retrain delinguents, to make them virtuous, but to regroup them within a clearly demareated, caré-indexed milieu which could serve as a tool for economic or political tends, The problem therealter as not to teach the prisoners Something, but rather to teach them nothing, so as to make sure that they could do nothing when they came cut of prison, The futile character of penal labour, which was Tinked initially to a didactic plan, now came to serve a different strategy. Don’t you find it striking that today people are etuin- ing from the schema of erime as delingueney toerime as fan infraction, an illegality, reversing, thats, the course taken in the eighteenth century? believe thatthe great intolerance ofthe population for the delinquent, which the morality and politic of the nineteenth century set oUt to establish, isin fact now being eroded. Prison Talk a Certain forms ofilegality or iegularity are becoming more and more accepted: not just those which were presiously tolerated and accepted, such as ical and financial irregu- larities, things which the bourgeoisie had been able to get along with on the best of terms, but ako the sort-of isregularity that consists, for example, in stealing something from a shop. But isnt it because everyone has got to know about the fist kind of irregularities, the fiscal and financial ones, that the general altitude to "minor irregularities has ‘changed? Some time ago, Le Monde published statistics comparing the considerable economic damage caused by the frst kind of offences and che small number of ‘months oF years of imprisonment with which they were punished, and the small amount of economic damage aused by the other sort of offences (Ineluding violent ‘crimes sth as hold-ups) andthe substantial number of years of prison given the offenders. The article ex Dressed a Sense of scandal at this disparity This is a delicate issue, one which is currently under discussion among the ex prisoners” groups. It is quite true that is popular consciousness, and_also in the present economic sjstem, a certain margin of illegality isnot Seen as 4 serious problem. put rather as pertectly tolerable. In ‘America, people know that hold-ups are a. permanent business risk for big stores. They work out roughly what it costs, and find thatthe cost of an effective surveillance and Security system would be too high, and thus uneconomical They leave things as they are. The insurance pays frit, its all just part ofthe system Regarding this sort of illogality, which seems 10 be spreading, are we dealing with « questioning ofthe line of Semarcation between tolerable, tolerated Breaches of the Jaw and serious erimes, or is this not rather a simple relaxation on the part ofthe system which, aware of ts own Soliity, can afford to accept at its margins something which afterall poses absolutely no threat to i? Tere has also clearly been a change in people's attitude to wealth. The bourgeoisie no longer has that proprictorial46 PoweriKnowledge exploits of Mandrin or of some great murderer. There are these two completely separate genres ‘Then, around 1840, there appears the figure of the criminal hero wha isa hero because he is criminal, and is neither aristocratic nor plebeian. The bourgeoisie begins to produce its own criminal heroes, This isa the same moment Wwhen the separation is effected between eriminals and the popular classes: the criminal cannot be allowed to be a popular hero, he must be an enemy of the poor. The bourgeoisie constitutes for itself an aesthetic in whieh erime ro Tonger belongs fo the people, buts one of those fine ars, Of which the bourgeoisie alone is capable. Lacenaire isthe model of this new kind of criminal. True, his parents have been guilty of certain misdeeds, but he-has been properly brought up, has been to school and fas earned to read and write. This enables him to act asa leader in his milieu. The Way he talks about other criminals is typical. They are brutal, animals, cowards and incompetents; he, Lacenaire, is the cold, lucid brain. Thus the new hero is created, displaying all the signs and tokens of the bourgeoisie. That leads us in turn to Gaboriau and the detective story, in which the criminal i always of bourgeois origins. You never find & Working class hero in nineteenth-century detective novels ‘The criminal is always intelligent, playing & sor of game on equal terms with the police, Whats funy is that in reality Lacenaire was pathetic, ridiculous and inept. He always reamed of killing, but never got as far as doing it. The one thing he could do was blackmail the homosexuals he picked up in the Bois de Boulogne. The only real crime he committed was abit of dirty business with ite old man in prison. If Lacenaice came within a hait’s breadth of being Killed by his fellow forced-labour coaviets, it was because they thought, no doubt wih god reason, that he was an When you say criminals are useful, couldn't it be argued that many people view crime more as part ofthe rature of things than a5 4 politco-economic necessity? It might appear that for an industrial society criminals are a less socially useful resource than working-class labour power? Prison Talk a In the 1840s, unemployment and short-time working were fixed economie conditions. There was a surplus of labour power. ‘But to think that crime was part ofthe order of things was part of the cynical intelligence of nineteenth-century Bourgeois thought, One had to be as naive as Baudelaire 0 think that the bourgeoisie is stupid or prudish, Rather i is intelligent and cynical. You only need to read what it said about itself and, better stil, what it said about others. ‘At the end ofthe eighteenth contury, people dreamed of society without crime, And then the dream evaporate. ime Was too useful for them to dream of anything a erazy —or ultimately as dangerous—as a society without crime, No crite means no police, What makes the presence and conttol ofthe police tolerable for the population, if not fear fof the criminal? This institution of the police, which is 0 recent and so oppressive, is only justified by tht fear. If we fecept the presence in our midst of these uniformed men, Wwho have the exclusive right co carry arms, who demand out papers, who come and prowl on our doorsteps, how would Eny of this be possible if there were no criminals? And if there weren't articles every day in the newspapers telling us hhow numerous and dangerous our criminals are? You ate very hard on criminology, its “garraous dis course’, its ‘endless repetitions Have you ever read any criminological texts? They are staggering. And I say this out of astonishment, not aggres siveness, because [fal to comprehend how the discourse of ¢riminology has been able to g0 on at this level, One has the impression that it is of such wity, isneeded so urgently and rendered so vital forthe working ofthe system, that it does not even need to seek a theoretical justification for itself, oF ‘even simply a coherent framework. Itis entirely utiltaian 1 think one needs to investigate why such a ‘leamed* discourse became so indispensable to the funetioning of the hinetecmihcentury penal system, What made it necessary ‘was the alibi, employed since the eighteenth century, that if fone imposes a penalty on somebody this i notin order to punish What he has done, but to transform what he is. From