Michel Foucault – The Punitive Society – Lecture 8 (21 of February 1973)

 Questions

1. What does Foucault mean by a transition from fraud to theft (148-149)? Can we track all the illegalisms that are at play in this lecture?
   
   
2. Are oppositions key entry-points into understanding or uncovering the underlying conditions of possibility for the punitive society (145)? Is this part of genealogical method?
   
   
3. "A law functions, it is applied only within a field of illegalism that is actually practiced and, in a way, supports it" (145). What is does the "field of illegal practices" that allows the law to be applied refer to? 
   
   
4. What is the role of the State apparatus in the transition from the penal system to the penitentiary system (139-140)?
   
   
5. What is the origin of the term "illegalism" (140) and what is the relation to the "anarchist ideology" at the end (151)?
   
   
6. Foucault tracks the transition from the compatibility to incompatibility of popular illegalisms to bourgeois economy. What is the relationship of in/compatibility with the concept of "tactic of the bourgeoisie" (149)?
   
   
7. How does the moralization of the worker connect with the development of the penitentiary (149)? How is this related to the prison-form vs the wage-form?
   
   
8. Why is "depredation" inevitable once the worker is exposed to material wealth (147)? Can "depredation" be a site of counter-conduct?
   

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Anarchism refers to illegalisms in order to articulate a justification for looting and other activities but it seems that Foucault has a much broader conception than this. 

There has been a contemporary resurgence in relation to assassination (e.g. Luigi Mangione) and other forms of direct action and/as violence.

Foucault, however, seems is trying to emphasize the "productivity" of illegalisms and avoid a more traditional focus on repression and the quelling of sedition (this is his debate with Althusser but, in this case particularly, with E. P. Thompson).

Different kinds of illegalisms in terms of classes: (1) lower-class/popular illegalisms; (2) "privileged" illegalisms (aristocracy); and (3) merchant, business or bourgeois illegalism. However, Foucault also mentions illegalisms in terms of spheres/styles(?): economic (machine breaking), social (formation of associations), civil (rejection of marriage), political (riots) – p. 151.

Illegalism in contrast to sedition  – other possible names: crimes (but it could be anachronistic). This would make this a functional distinction vis-à-vis the responses of power: illegalisms calls for a disciplinary response versus sedition calls for repression (sovereign response).

Foucault uses a practice-based description of illegalism: "lower strata practicing illegalisms" (150), especially in order to avoid "the criminal" as a figure or status.

Important to note his notions of "ambiguous" and "oscillating" between illegalisms as practices and the law. Illegalism is a "game" within which legality is a "strategy" (144). There appears to be some mutual benefit or some kind of reciprocity.

In some sense there is an account of class struggle, but the emphasis here is in the "struggle" in terms of strategies and tactics in order to give a more nuance account of the workings of power beyond repression and (mere) prohibition.

Prison separates the delinquency from the general lower-class of illegalisms and it is there that criminalization (or the appearance of crime) becomes salient (see p. 150). Delinquents in that sense are autonomous but at the same time are "soaked up" as "recruits for the police" (151). It is possible to see these discussions in relation to moralizing account of the lumpenproletariat.

Delinquency is useful, therefore, as a theory and a practice because it helps to manage and solve the problem of the worker in relation to fortune/wealth. Delinquency is a tactic of population management.

2 open questions: (1) what happens to these non-delinquent illegalisms (and what is an example); and (2) is this strategy or a tactic? Is it intentional (seems too clean for Foucault) or is it an effect? If it is not planned in advance, then how and why did it persist? What stabilized it? What is the social environment that makes that possible?

Maybe the bourgeoisie does not have an interest in repressing illegalisms and therefore there is a question: what do we do about it? The prison: we need to discipline them and inculcate the work ethic.

There is a methodological tension because there is a lot of function language (very useful in social theory) and even teleology (p. 150), and also a resistance to it. Is there value in choosing which one to lift or use, or maybe maintaining the ambiguity between them...?

This is also complex when we consider conceptions of "appearance" and of things "appearing" that also points to the emergence of phenomena or events. 

Concern with "revolt" (150) in relation to the stability of...the nation? Again: how are we to understand the role of the State apparatus here.