Foucault; Power; and American Empire
A patch of cognition related to the right…
The question is not if there is a Power Elite. It is how you conceptualize power. I just do not think that it is fruitful to understand the dynamics of power – control and discipline – in a pre-Foucauldian fashion. I do not think there is necessarily a collaborative effort on the part of the elite in society to coordinate their actions in an ongoing effort to preserve their status in society. The implementation of power results from a complex process that involves a system that extends beyond the individual agents involved in propagating the imposition of structure upon the populace.
The grammar school teacher who practices discipline and punishment over the subjects of his or her pedagogical practices is surely not cognizant of the consequences of his or her actions beyond the scope of their immediate effect. Nevertheless, the unintended consequences of the grammar school teacher are to implant the subjects with behavioral dispositions, which homogenize the population in order to render individuals docile and confirmative and skilled. In other words, ripe for the exploitation of the processes involved in the various modes of production in society.
However, if power in society circulates in such a fashion, and the interests of the elites extend to every crevasse our lives, through the operations of those we do not necessarily want to blame, then towards, whom do we direct our energy, in opposition? Journalists? CEO’s? Lou Dobbs? Grammar school teachers?
Globalization, which is spurred by free-trade and other universalistic discourses, is merely proliferating the discipline and punishment, which is tantamount to the concrete manifestations of power, that effectively maintain Empire. What I am proposing would help to diminish the supply of fuel that energizes Empire, which relies on an ever increasing number of subjects for the purposes of exploitation.
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As an augmentation to this essay, which was originally a letter sent in the context of communications with figures in the Green Party, I should offer some claification: This polemic was written in response to the Green Party’s position on undocumented immigration. I was pointing out that by expanding the free-trade zone by deconstructing any semblence of a boarder with Mexico was, essentially, an act that furthered the interests of the multinationals who have a grossly dispropotionate impact upon American public policy. In short, although the Green Party is officially opposed to globalization, many of its policies are, in fact, in promotion of the conditions conducive to the furthered expansion of globalization.