‘My Own Utopia’. The economics of Bentham'sPanopticon

Abstract

La fée Lionne [. . .] bâtit au milieu du lac de vif-argent un palais de cristal, qui voguait comme l'onde; elle y renferma la pauvre reine et sa fille; ensuite elle harangua tous les monstres qui étaient amoureux de Mouffette: Vous perdrez cette belle princesse, leur dit-elle, si vous ne vous intéressez avec moi à la défendre contre un chevalier qui vient pour l'enlever. Les monstres promirent de ne rien négliger de ce qui'ils pouvaient faire; ils entourèrent le palais de cristal; les plus légers se placèrent sur le toit et sur les murs; les autres aux portes, et le reste dans le lac.(M.me d'Aulnoy, Les Contes des fées)

Panopticon, Inc.: Jeremy Bentham, contract management, and (neo)liberal penality

“…“[I]s it possible that a man who has no interest in the business should be as much attached to it, as zealous to make it succeed, as one whose all depends upon it?” No amount of legislation could alter this fact, “till human nature is new made” (Bentham, 1843b: 128–30). In the terms of contemporary economic theory, Bentham believed that contract management solves the principal-agent problem (in which one actor makes decisions on behalf of another) (Guidi, 2004).…”

“…If the state is to yield to the entrepreneur’s superior knowledge, and succeeds only insofar as it obeys and imitates the market, the legislator’s role dwindles dramatically (Bentham, 1830; Brunon-Ernst, 2012b). Bentham erodes the legislator’s sphere still further by equating “economy” with the retrenchment of government spending (Gordon, 1991; Guidi, 2004).…”

“…Imprisonment became a favored means of disciplining unruly labor and for manipulating the labor supply (Melossi, 1976; Stanziani, 2009; Wacquant, 2009a). More subtly, Marxist critics have compellingly seen in carceral discipline “an instrument for creating a docile workforce ready for employment in modern factories” (Guidi, 2004: 407; Melossi and Pavarini, 1981). Foucault, too, speaks of disciplinary regimes “as techniques for making useful individuals” (1995: 211).…”

“…Samuel Bentham’s landmark reforms to naval administration, for instance, were inspired by utilitarian axioms of management and by the example of leading industrialists. Disciplinary power was expressed and exercised in the terms of private enterprise and according to the dictates of the market, a phenomenon William J. Ashworth has dubbed “accountocracy” (1998: 78; Guidi, 2004; Parrott, 2012).…”