A Macat Analysis of Discipline and Punish

How does a state control its citizens? Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish answers this question by investigating the prison system. Foucault argues that prison created and merged into a wider system of surveillance that extends throughout society. Today power is no longer exerted directly, through violence. Prisoners who were once executed are now monitored and controlled. And the fear of being watched leads them to behave in ways that those in power approve of. This insidious method has moved way beyond the bounds of prison walls. It is now part of all our lives. The old methods of discipline punished the body, Foucault concludes. The new ones punish the soul.