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The Introduction of “Anti-Racist Legislation” in the Greek Legal Order: Political Strategies, Legalised Violence and the Formal Protection of Gender Identity.
Get PDFThe present article follows the introduction of the much-contested “anti-racist legislation” during a particularly dark era of governance in Greece. Within a context of deepening crisis, absolute legitimation of state racism and institutional violence against the nation’s racial, gender, religious and sexual Others, the politico-legal choice of a right-wing government to go through with this reform appears paradoxical at first glance. Even more so, the introduction of gender identity among the protected characteristics seems at odds not only with governmental actions that have directly targeted trans individuals but also with the overall gender-normative imperative of the law and the hostile institutional atmosphere that mirrors and reproduces it. In view of this seemingly paradoxical legislative choice, queried here is the concrete work performed by the “anti-racist law” reform in the context in which it unfolded. Utilising a broader problematisation of any legal regime’s authority to justify its own violence, it is suggested that a closer reading of the conditions under which the reform took place brings into light its instrumentalisation, during that era, to legitimise systemic racism and institutional gender/sexual violence materialised through operations against marginalised populations
WORK LIFE BALANCE
Get PDFMy submission (How effectively has the law since 1997 ensured a ‘work life balance’ for workers with family responsibilities? Answer this question with reference to the relevant statutory materials, case law, legal commentary and social science literature) is essentially about how the law in the UK can be used to help those within the workforce achieve an effective work-life balance, meaning they have ample time and energy to focus on their professional responsibilities as well as their family life and leisure time. This article outlines that despite an apparent long-standing commitment by successive governments to tackle this issue, the legal framework created has largely failed to ensure people have an effective work-life balance. This is especially true for migrant workers who are often exploited within the UK workforce, as well as women, who arguably are not effectively protected by this area of law after pregnancy/early maternity and increasingly are having to find ways to cope with the dual burden of paid work and childcare/homemaking responsibilities. This submission also considers how this area of law has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic as well as Brexit, both of which have created new challenges and exacerbated existing ones.
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Consider these two quotations from UK government White Papers/Consultation documents:
“Helping employees to combine work and family life satisfactorily is good not only for parents and children but also for businesses”. (Fairness at Work, White Paper, May 1998, para 5).
“The proposals in this document will bring benefits for employers as well as employees, by increasing participation in the labour market while also helping people to balance work with their family and personal responsibilities”. (Consultation on modern workplaces, May 2011).
How effectively has the law since 1997 ensured a ‘work life balance’ for workers with family responsibilities? Answer this question with reference to the relevant statutory materials, case law, legal commentary and social science literature.
Much like the other areas of labour and employment law, the legal framework used to help those in the labour market achieve an effective ‘work life balance’ has had to adapt to new challenges in society, which has in turn affected the realities of the UK workforce.[1] Primarily, this issue has become increasingly more prevalent since the latter half of the 20th century because of societal and legal changes that have meant the traditional model of a male breadwinner and female homemaker has become increasingly unrepresentative of the UK labour market.[2] The quotations contained in this essay question, although from different UK governments, suggest a firm and longstanding commitment to ensuring employees with familial responsibilities can use the law to achieve an effective work life balance. This essay will discuss and evaluate the various reasons for this commitment. However, it is arguable that since 1997 successive governments have failed to effectively tackle the UK’s long working hours ‘culture’, as well as the ineffective legal framework that seeks to help achieve an effective work life balance.[3] This essay recognises the fact that there have been some positive advancements since 1997 in the statutory entitlements employees have (or can obtain) that afford them greater flexibility at work in order that they can also fulfil their familial responsibilities.[4] Examples discussed later include the introduction of shared parental leave and the laws protecting and promoting the rights of women during pregnancy and early maternity.[5] However, this essay will seek to show how these positive policies have had a limited overall effect in terms of achieving an effective work life balance, especially for women and immigrants participating in the UK workforce.[6] This will involve a statistics-based criticism, employ case law and a feminist theoretical perspective, as well as give general ideas and propositions as to how the law needs to go further to achieve its aims. I will argue that the law is currently tempered too much by fears of damaging businesses or the UK economy as a whole. Furthermore, the impact of coronavirus will be considered, specifically how new problems have emerged and existing issues have been exacerbated.[7]
The Development of the Law Concerning Work Life Balance Since 1997: Changes and Problems
Although this essay is primarily concerned with the impact of the legal framework developed since 1997, there are some important contextual developments that occurred before this and are worth mentioning. Throughout the 20th century, the UK labour market moved from a laissez faire model to one characterised by increased regulation. This was controversial and different governments varied in their commitment to pursuing greater order in the labour market using the law.[8] This trajectory was reversed in the 1970s and afterwards, wherein the Thatcher government (influenced significantly by the ideas of neoliberalism)[9] pursued policies of de-regulation and privatisation. Moreover, from 1975 until 2020 the legislature of the UK was required to effectively implement EEC/EC/EU law and directives, which has had a profound impact on the labour market.[10] Furthermore, as previously mentioned the advent of feminism meant that more women than ever were entering (or re-entering) the workforce after having children, whereas before they would have been homemakers.[11]
In terms of the narrative of legal development this essay’s starting point is the introduction of the ‘New Labour’ government in 1997, led by Tony Blair. This government helped to produce the Fairness at Work white paper, Chapter 5 of which contained a number of ‘family friendly policies’ aimed at ensuring a more effective work life balance for those with families.[12] The New Labour government had a few reasons behind the implementation of such policies, but primarily they were utilised to increase competitiveness in the market to ensure its prosperity[13] and to implement the 1996 EC Parental Leave Directive.[14] This directive had ambitious aims that even with the margin of appreciation would have been hard for the UK, with its long working hours culture, to achieve. These aims included promoting equal opportunities; flexible working; greater women’s involvement in the labour market and; men taking an equal share of the responsibilities associated with family life.[15] Subsequently, Conservative led governments that published the Consultation on Modern Workplaces[16] and Good Work: A Response to the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices[17] were also driven by rationales based on economic prosperity. It was thought that this would increase productivity, worker loyalty, the quality of work and reduce the costs associated with high employee turnover.[18]
The culmination of this narrative, i.e., the current legal framework governing the work life balance people in the UK labour market can achieve, covers a wide range of situations and involves many protected rights. Yet, despite this scope it also has many failings, primarily because it is fragmented and lacks a unified approach. The focus of this area of law on using skilled workers to diversify and increase competitiveness within the market means that often those working in more flexible or atypical employment are denied some of these rights and protections.[19] For example, most women require some level of maternity pay to be able to afford to take maternity leave, yet to qualify for it there must have been 26 weeks of continuous employment before the expected week of childbirth as well as a paycheck of at least £116 a week. So, for women without provisions for maternity pay within contracts and who earn less than this because they are employed on a temporary basis, work in the gig economy or other types of atypical work, statutory maternity pay is unobtainable.[20] Evidence from the Office for National Statistics found that 55% of the people working on zero-hour contracts (one example of atypical work) were women in its report Contracts That Do Not Guarantee a Minimum Number of Hours, which is even more significant because women make up only 46.8% of those employed not on zero hours contracts.[21] By contrast, 87% of men are in full time work.[22] This means that women who are entitled to statutory maternity leave under the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999 are not always able to take it because the law fails to provide them with an adequate way of surviving financially: the only other option is a very low level of maternity allowance from the government.[23] Additionally, there are many scholars who argue that flexible working for women with family responsibilities is the way forward, yet the right to request this also requires continuous employment of at least twenty-six weeks.[24] Arguably, this is a cyclical issue: more women are in atypical work because it allows the flexibility to fulfil private domestic obligations, but these women lack statutory and contractual protections and so cannot achieve the same type of flexibility in full time, permanent employment which in turn excludes them from fully participating in the labour market.[25]
Additionally, the non-profit organisation Trust for London found that migrants were more likely to work “during night shifts and in non-permanent jobs”.[26] This means that similarly migrant women who are in types of atypical work, such as zero-hour contract hospitality jobs (which is very common for this demographic), cannot claim maternity pay and cannot have help at home from their husbands who cannot get paternity leave under the Paternity and Adoption Leave Regulations 2002 because this also requires 26 weeks of continuous employment.[27] Of course, because of the numerous, inflexible requirements needed for shared parental leave to be available under the current law this is also not a viable option for immigrant families or women in low skilled or low paid areas of work that are atypical in nature.[28] All of this demonstrates that the law has little interest in human rights or equality as a justification for an effective work life balance, and that this economic focus has resulted in a legal framework that ignores the problems and experiences of these key demographics that make up a significant amount of the population who have both work and family commitments. It will only go so far as not to damage the competitiveness or prosperity of the economy.[29]
Furthermore, if those working part time in the labour market or in atypical work wanted to make an application based on the Part Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulation 2000 because they were being excluded from such rights, they would have to use their own resources and time to make a complaint to the Employment Tribunal. Arguably, this is not a particularly effective form of remediation as it only offers compensation for losses incurred because of this “less favourable treatment” and hear that the employer has been recommended to stop this action.[30]
The Impact of EU Law
The law concerning work life balance has been significantly impacted by EU law both before and after 1997. Unlike the mainly economic rationales behind the UK law, the EU acknowledges these benefits whilst also having a focus on social equality, equality of opportunity between men and women, the socioeconomic rights of individuals as well as dismantling harmful societally imposed gender roles.[31] This was evidenced clearly by the ambitious Parental Leave Directive.[32] It has influenced both the legal framework of rights concerning workers and employees with family responsibilities as well as UK equality law, as the UK legislature and judiciary is obliged to implement the aims of these directives using domestic law (albeit with a margin of appreciation).[33] However, academic Nicole Busby in her article ‘The Evolution of Gender Equality and Related Employment Policies: The Case of Work-Family Reconciliation’[34] has argued that the focuses of the EU are conflicting, “parallel and incoherent”.[35] The dual focus of both on improving the market as a whole by using policies to allow more people to be involved and using the law to equalise equality between men and women has resulted in “a patchwork of provisions rather than an overarching framework”.[36]
This argument is an interesting one that definitely has its merits, especially the characterisation of familial responsibilities as a form of unpaid work because of its significant contribution to society - it re-frames the way these two goals are thought of.[37] Busby argues that this approach means the EU “subordinates gender equality to economic objectives”.[38] Additionally, Busby makes agreeable statements about how EU law and the Court of Justice has failed to promote the rights and roles of men in the domestic setting.[39] However, she arguably fails to account for the numerous and ambitious advancements in work life balance law that has been facilitated in the UK by the EU. The examples of directives that have, even in a de jure way, protected women in the UK workforce from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy or maternity and helped to facilitate a more gender-neutral approach to governing parenting responsibilities. For example, section 18(2) of the Equality Act 2010 which protects women from discrimination or dismissal on the basis of pregnancy or related sickness was influenced by the need to implement the Pregnant Workers Directive[40] and the Equal Treatment Directive,[41] which formalised the previous case ruling of Webb v EMO Air Cargo (UK) Ltd by removing the need for a male comparison in cases of discrimination.[42] The Pregnant Workers Directive also influenced the introduction of statutory maternity pay and the Equal Treatment Directive ensures a woman has a right to return to work after maternity leave.[43]
However, it is important not to overstate the influence or importance of EU law, especially because of the fact that the UK is due to leave the EU imminently. There is significant statistical evidence that EU law and UK equality law fails to tackle more “surreptitious” forms of discrimination against pregnant women.[44] The Equality and Human Rights Commission found in its report Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination and Disadvantage: Summary of Key Findings found that ¾ of mothers surveyed said they had a negative/discriminatory experience during pregnancy and maternity leave, 20% said they experiences harassment or negative comments because of pregnancy or flexible working and 11% felt forced to leave their jobs.[45] On the side of employers, 84% said it was in their interests to support pregnant women yet 70% also felt women should declare upfront if they were pregnant and 27% felt the cost of maternity leave put an unreasonable burden on them.[46] Despite this widespread discrimination, only around 1% of claims are brought.[47] This demonstrates how the de facto reality is that both EU and UK law fails to protect women from discrimination due to pregnancy, and remedies for this are few and far between because (like many other aspects of this area of law) there is poor take up of such rights.
Furthermore, in 2019 the EU introduced the Directive on Work-Life Balance For Parents and Carers which aims to do everything the current UK legal framework has failed to do: increase the participation of women in the workforce, increase the de facto use of family related leave and flexible working arrangements.[48] This would be incredibly influential in UK law, especially in terms of strengthening paternity rights and moving towards normalising men taking a more active role in familial responsibilities.[49] However, because of Brexit and the fact the transition period will not be extended again, the UK would have to choose to implement this directive,[50] and perhaps they will in the form of the Good Work Plan, which would have various implications in and of itself.[51]
The Good Work Plan – Gender Norms and the Legal Framework Beyond Pregnancy and Birth
In 2018, the UK government produced the Good Work Plan: Proposals to Support Families,[52] which was responding to the earlier Taylor Review and reiterated the same economic benefits that would be had from helping individuals to achieve a better work life balance.[53] There are definitely benefits to the approach that would be adopted. Recommendation 41 recognises that pregnancy and maternity discrimination remain a problem, and that an inherent cultural shift is needed to change this that the law should support and facilitate.[54] Overall, the idea of a “balance between flexibility and worker protections” sounds positive.[55] Arguably one of the most positive aspects of the Good Work Plan is that it recognises how the rights of atypical workers are often subverted under the current law and the fact that this needs to change. However, the reality is that the EU directive would have gone further because the UK still lacks a fundamental concern for a regulatory framework that is genuinely concerned with the rights of workers and not just the economic benefits of having more women in the workforce. Additionally, it does not directly relate the current law concerning pregnancy/maternity discrimination and an effective work life balance with the subversion of atypical worker’s rights, which would be a significant step forward in and of itself.[56] Furthermore, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has essentially argued that the Good Work Plan does not go far enough.[57] They point out that the reality is that the current legal framework reinforces harmful gender norms that continues to reproduce patriarchal ideas regarding gender roles. They quote an article by Helen Norman (‘Does Paternal Involvement in Childcare Influence Mother’s Employment Trajectories During the Early Stages of Parenthood in the UK?’ which essentially found that “mothers with preschool children are twice as likely to return to employment at nine months and at three years’ post-childbirth if the father is involved by sharing or doing the most childcare at these times”.[58] This area of law simply does not want to concern itself with supporting mothers in the workforce, which is yet again one of its primary downfalls.
This is significant in terms of establishing one of the least talked about but most problematic aspects of the current law concerning work life balance: it has a significant number of statutory rights and protections for during pregnancy and immediately after birth but fails to provide long term support for mothers.[59] This is because the law refuses to tackle the bigger issue of gendered norms in society that would allow women to be more active in the labour market and normalise men taking a more active role in the domestic sphere of life.[60]
Shared Parental Leave and the Feminist Perspective
Another important and influential source of criticism of the system governing work-life balance is the feminist perspective on how women are disproportionately affected and pushed out of the labour market as a result.[61] Primarily, feminist scholars of sociology argue that women, far from being freed from the oppressive nature of gender norms in society, now have a dual burden.[62] This is because the law concerning work life balance has failed to tackle these gender norms, which means the unpaid labour burdens of the domestic sphere and childcare is still disproportionately placed on women rather than men; women have the burden of paid work as well as those roles “associated with femininity and motherhood”.[63] This is because, as this essay has previously mentioned, the law concerning work life balance in both the UK and Europe has failed in substantially tackling these gender norms despite the fact societal changes have significantly decreased the relevance of the male breadwinner and female homemaker model.[64] Moreover, there are feminist scholars who argue that women have poorer long term career prospects because they need to be in part time/atypical employment to manage their familial responsibilities because the law has not created an effective system where they would be able to do this in full time employment.[65] This is another way in which the law concerning work life balance fails to support mothers in a long-term sense beyond pregnancy and its immediate aftermath.
However, there has been some argument amongst legal scholars and officials about whether such arguments have been abated by the introduction of Shared Parental Leave in 2014. This new regulation, in theory, “makes it possible for partners to share the entitlement to maternity leave and maternity pay between them”.[66] As Grace James put it in her article ‘Family-friendly Employment Laws (Re)assessed: The Potential of Care Ethics’ this has been added to the existing framework of rights for working parents and reiterates a commitment by the law to dismantling the gender norms that are keeping women from effectively and substantially engaging with the labour market.[67] Despite this, Grace James is right when she points out that this “package of rights” (including shared parental leave) is fundamentally flawed.[68]
Firstly, this shared parental leave package fails to deal with the continued discrimination against pregnant women and mothers that statistically feel pushed out of the labour market.[69] Furthermore, the refusal by the law on work life balance to place too much of a financial burden on the employers means that only a small proportion of the workforce are even eligible for this.[70] Both parents
POWER AND PROGRESS IN LATE CAPITALISM: AN EXPLORATION OF GILLES DELEUZE’S ‘POSTSCRIPT ON SOCIETIES OF CONTROL’
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The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics,
and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because
history does not deal with as many humans as physics
does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.
— Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.
That is the point that must be reached.
— Franz Kafka, The Trial
INTRODUCTION
How ought we characterise the exercise of power in our societies? Are they societies that confine and discipline our bodies, or ones that control us in potentially subtler ways?
This article adopts the framework for analysis used by twentieth century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in his short but defining essay on the subject, ‘Postscript on Societies of Control’.[1] It firstly considers the background to the concept of control, then provides a definition of the concept, and, finally, asks whether our society is one of control. It argues that Deleuze is correct to say control has replaced discipline as the primary mechanism of power in our era.
ORTHODOXY
In order to address the question of whether societies of control are increasingly replacing disciplinary societies, it is imperative first to understand what disciplinary societies are.
Discipline is a concept developed most powerfully by Deleuze’s contemporary, Michel Foucault.[2] Foucault’s philosophy primarily concerns the technologies of power operating within society and their effect on human autonomy. He pursues this study via a genealogical approach; that is, he employs a historical critique to interrogate the workings of powers at play in modern society. In this way—despite his vocal opposition to Hegel—Foucault is very much Hegelian in his belief that close examination of historical parallels and events can clarify and deepen our understanding of present-day technologies of power and how they shape or restrict our autonomy.[3]
Through his historical work, which spans various societal and public institutions, Foucault identifies a fundamental change in the mechanisms of power exercised by the state in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He articulates this shift as a transition away from sovereign power to technologies of discipline.
This notion of discipline and disciplinary society is perhaps best exemplified by Foucault’s enquiry into the French penal system in his Discipline and Punish.[4] The book opens with vivid depictions of public torture and execution in pre-eighteenth century France. Foucault explains that the physicality and the public nature of punishment in the French criminal system up until then was an essential aspect of the exercise of sovereign power. Yet, while brutal public spectacle instilled fear and awe, it also provided public fora for communities to revolt against the perceived injustices of the sovereign. By moderating power through the benevolent reform of the criminal, by the discipline of the docile body, and by the fragmentation of public space into discrete, segregated institutions, state power could be obscured and, thus, maintained. These forces are the hallmarks of a disciplinary society.
REVISION
In his ‘Postscript’, Deleuze—building on the work of Foucault—argues that the twentieth century has marked a shift from disciplinary societies to societies of control. A precise definition of control and societies of control has proven to be elusive;[5] it is therefore helpful to consider both the antecedents and critiques of Deleuze’s analysis in addition to his work itself.[6]
Antecedents
Deleuze has attributed the concept of control to William Burroughs.[7] Burroughs, in turn, provides not a definition of control, but brief observations as to its exercise; in truth, his analogies are of only limited assistance when read in the context of mechanisms of power within society at large.[8] Nevertheless, there are two salient points to note. Firstly, Burroughs establishes that when one maintains total or absolute power over the actions of another, they can more accurately be said to be using them rather than controlling them. Secondly, Burroughs shows that control requires concessions and illusions: controllers must make concessions to the controlled in order to maintain the illusion of choice and free agreement, obscuring their true motives in order to avoid revolt.
In contrast to Burroughs, Félix Guattari provides an analogy of control that usefully supports the conception Deleuze comes to advance: the gated home and community accessed and exited via electronic cards.[9] This has elements of discipline, as movement being granted or denied constitutes a form of confinement. But, as Deleuze argues, it also represents a departure from the disciplinary society, as ‘what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each person’s position […] and effects a universal modulation’.[10]
Among his identified influences, Deleuze contends that Foucault sees as ‘our immediate future’ societies of control.[11] Deleuze particularly emphasises that Foucault’s work on discipline is historical (focused on the exercise of power in the nineteenth century); we should, therefore, not be so naive as to assume Foucault would not have recognised the possibility of further historical change. Indeed, Deleuze says that Foucault concludes his Discipline and Punish with the explicit recognition that a prison as a physical space is becoming less important in the exercise of power. This, Deleuze suggests, presages a fuller analysis of a new sort of power.[12]
Deleuze makes these forceful arguments as to Foucault’s understanding of power in response to a critique by Paul Virilio that Foucault did not understand the nature of modern power. Ironically, that critique is also an important precursor to Deleuze’s analysis. Virilio argues that the patrolling of the highway—and not the prison—exemplifies the exercise of police power. Deleuze concurs, adding that modern authorities possess predictive technologies that anticipate the movement of subjects and consequently have less need for confining subjects.
Deleuzian societies of control
That predictive power is a hallmark of control. In his ‘Postscript’, Deleuze fleshes out this position polemically. It must be noted that Deleuze never attributes any concrete definition to the notion of control itself; he is primarily concerned with how a society of control operates. This section will similarly consider the features and modes of operation that constitute a Deleuzian society of control.
Much like with the disciplinary society, the technologies of power that govern a society of control cannot be boiled down to one single technology or mechanism. Instead, there are targeted and multi-faceted ways in which societies of control manage the lives of their subjects.
Most fundamentally, there are no enclosures or strictly delineated confined spaces (like, for instance, the disciplinary society’s schools, barracks, and factories, which are all subject to clear separation from one another). Instead, there is a single modulation, which allows for the coexistence and connection of various states (the corporation, the education system, and the army are all connected, one flowing into the other).
This brings us to the next point: exploring how these spaces or states are connected. The disciplinary society operates on the basis that its subjects start over when they move from one space to another. Though it does recognise analogies between the spaces (the discipline of the school may be similar to the discipline of the army), the spaces and norms are ultimately distinct from each other, with one having little bearing on the other. Societies of control, on the other hand, are predicated on connection between spaces, such that ‘one is never finished with anything.’[13] These connections encourage a culture of constant progression or improvement. The question this cultural attitude begs (to what ends is progression and improvement directed?) admits no answer.
There are also differences in the conceptualisation and treatment of the person. The disciplinary society takes the individual and subjugates her through discipline so that she will conform to the mass. No such subjugation is necessary in societies of control. The individual is not viewed as a member of a mass, but as a data point, a market audience, a sample.
This allows for targeted control to take shape, where compliance is not forced upon the individual (as with discipline) but facilitated. There are no overarching aims or requirements outlined by societies of control (no ‘watchwords’). The society is governed merely by way of codes that function as ‘passwords’; these can allow or deny the individual access to certain information or amenities. The control of access is presumably based on the conduct of the individual and is a means of exercising control over individuals’ choices: the individual self-disciplines because of incentives and disincentives encoded within herself as a data-point. This, in turn, suggests (perhaps even necessitates) a degree of technological surveillance that goes beyond that of the comparatively simple model of the Benthamic Panopticon Foucault famously employs.
Additionally, there are no clear hierarchies, if there are any at all. Unlike in disciplinary societies, power is not centralised or in the hands of a single ‘owner’ or state. Rather, control is exercised by a corporation—invested with its own personhood—comprising stockholders. The make-up of this corporation is transitory and fundamentally transformable.
All of these technologies—singular modulation across singular space, an ethos of the relentless pursuit of progress, the ‘dividualisation’ or ‘data-fication’ of the individual, the facilitation of compliance, the use of codes as passwords, technological surveillance, and the absence of clear hierarchies of power—together create a society of control.
Critiques
Here we will explore three critiques of Deleuze’s thesis: the privatisation of public space, the role of surveillance in control, and the telos of control.
Privatisation
Michael Hardt deals at length with the Deleuzian conception of societies of control, both in his joint work with Antonio Negri on Empire, as well as more specifically, in a piece titled ‘The Global Society of Control.’ Here, Hardt contends that there is an incompleteness to Deleuze’s work on control, and proceeds to elaborate on the operation of societies of control to fill in these purported gaps. He does so by situating these societies within his and Negri’s broader framework of Empire. The study is multifaceted, but here only one aspect of the critique will be considered: the erasure of the dialectic between public and private.
‘There is no more outside,’ insists Hardt.[14] This is to say, there are no longer any meaningful or permanent divisions between private and public spaces. Nikolas Rose, similarly, argues that inherently public spaces (like public parks, libraries, and playgrounds) are being abandoned in favour of privatised and privately secured places (like shopping malls and arts centres) for acceptable members of the public.[15] Those who have no legitimate, consumerised reason to occupy these new privatised ‘public’ spaces are denied access to them. Populations and classes of people deemed ‘dangerous’ or ‘undesirable’ are excluded from the private-public spaces and, so, from society itself.
Deleuze touches on this idea of exclusion as well, in saying that ‘three quarters of humanity’, who are too poor for debt (as in, those who cannot be managed through the mechanisms of ‘control’, because these mechanisms rely on monetary and consumerist incentives or ‘passwords’) and too numerous of confinement (which makes it logistically difficult to subject them to technologies of ‘discipline’ that rely on confinement) will have to face exclusion to shanty towns and ghettos.[16]
From this, we can take two points. Firstly, that neither the societies of control, nor disciplinary societies are or have ever been able to exercise control or discipline over every individual; when they are unable to, they simply exclude these potentially unpredictable and uncontrollable threats to order. Secondly, there is the implicit acknowledgment that technologies of control and discipline can coexist; to conceive of discipline and control as dichotomous notions would be inaccurate.[17]
In fact, the question posed by this essay itself may fall victim to a false dichotomy between Foucauldian discipline and Deleuzian control. These mechanisms of power are not necessarily mutually exclusive. We should, therefore, be wary to adopt a view that control represents a natural or irreversible progression (from discipline) in the exercise of power (as Hardt and Negri may be suggesting in saying that control is an intensification of discipline),[18] because they are contingent historical realities. That is what Foucault’s work—and Deleuze’s analysis of it—suggested of discipline, and it is no less true in the case of control. Thus, we can qualify our thesis by saying that while societies of control are increasingly replacing those of discipline, technologies of discipline (and even of sovereignty) are still employed in certain contexts.
Surveillance
Surveillance is implicit within Deleuze’s conception of control (in the understanding of the individual as a mere data point, not the member of a mass), but Oscar Gandy articulates this technology more explicitly.[19] Such an emphasis on surveillance is problematised, however, by Rose, who posits that societies of control are not predicated on surveillance but on the instilling of self-discipline and self-regulation in their subjects. That rather misses the mark, because, as we have seen, societies of control employ a range of technologies to exercise power. Nothing suggests an emphasis on self-discipline ought to exclude the technology of surveillance, which is implicit in the incentivisation of labour and use of passwords.
Telos
But Rose’s critique of surveillance does helpfully inform another point of discussion: the odd ideas prioritised within societies of control. Deleuze makes brilliant and incisive concluding remarks about this telos of self-improvement and self-actualisation. But what are the motivations behind this ethos of motivation? That is the question Deleuze poses in his conclusion, and it is a question that largely remains unanswered. In some ways, one can only hazard a guess at the mechanisms at work here. That is rather the point. Societies of control have evolved such that their technologies of power and their telos can be more obscure than that of disciplinary societies.
VALIDATION
With definitions—or, rather, understandings—of both disciplinary societies and societies of control to hand, this essay considers whether it can be said that the latter are replacing the former.
The institutions of the disciplinary society Foucault identifies in his body of work—the home, the school, the prison, the barracks, the factory—are all still extant. However, as we have noted above, there need be no ‘either/or’ as between societies of discipline and of control; the question is more accurately one of degree and we must identify whether a general movement may be occurring. Again, that movement need not be total or irreversible.
Such a movement seems to be taking place all around us. For example, remote working and learning, which Deleuze identified as increasing in the 1980’s and which has skyrocketed in light of the coronavirus pandemic, has weakened substantially the disciplinary segregation of physical space.[20] At the same time, it has strengthened the all-encroaching productivity ethos of societies of control by placing work or study (itself little more than a preparatory step towards work) within the walls of the private family home.
Whilst coronavirus may have accelerated a shift towards societies of control, this trend runs much deeper still. Below, we shall seek to validate the shift Deleuze identifies by employing and analysing four impressionistic vignettes.
Vignette A
In April 2021, Chinese state television broadcast an exposé of intolerable working conditions faced by food delivery drivers—long hours, meagre pay, algorithms that encourage dangerous driving and heavily fine lateness, and harassment from customers who have full and ‘live’ access to drivers’ locations and contact details. China’s couriers are estimated to contribute to close to 1% of the country’s economic activity, but the undercover government official earned just £4.52 over a 12-hour shift.[21]
The courier works in no strictly delineated or confined space, but everywhere, openly. He is the subject of constant surveillance. Customers have his precise location, his ‘ETA’, the corporation’s promised delivery slot, and his personal mobile phone number at their fingertips. The threat of an angry call or harsh review might appear in those circumstances to operate rather like a panopticon unconfined by space, enforcing conformity.
But that is only a minor part of this story; it is secondary to the algorithmic surveillance and control in which both the courier and the customer are merely variables. Drivers will be set timescales in which to complete a delivery determined by the average speed at which drivers have previously made that journey or a similar journey. If they beat that timeframe, they may be rewarded with bonus pay. If they fail, their pay will be docked. Both processes—the incentivisation of speed and disincentivisation of slowness—are automated. The algorithm does not care how the driver gets from A to B, only that he does so quickly and does not damage the customer’s goods in the process. So, drivers will travel recklessly in order to beat the clock to boost their meagre pay, but this only shortens the average time of journey completion, making pay boosts harder to achieve and pay docks more likely and contributing to an insane culture of paranoia and uncertainty.
Compliance with the requirements of speed in this system is facilitated, not forced. In paying the less perfect worker less and the more perfect worker more, the corporation is nudging the courier to an (ultimately ephemeral) standard of compliance. But it need take no further punishing or corrective action: it knows that the courier, impacted by these forces, will correct himself. The password operating here is that of a courier ‘score’ that determines the level of pay afforded for work done.
This is ripe terrain to consider Deleuze’s challenge as to whether the unions will be able to resist forces of control upon the breakdown of the workplace. China, where organised labour is met with fear and hostility, shows that the communist party will intervene by challenging monopolies and exposing low pay. They may moderate the technology of power, but they will not extinguish it; the work is too economically important for that. In the UK, there have been increased efforts by unions to protect insecure, ‘gig-economy’ labourers and they have had some success.[22] But here too the overall system of algorithmic control is not removed, but mollified.
Vignette B
A London-based junior employee at Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks in the world, has complained that staff face 18-hour shifts that mean they are earning less than the UK living wage and regularly take sick leave due to burnout. In 2015, US employee Sarvshreshth Gupta, who had been working 100-hour weeks, took his own life.[23] The company has a £50,000 entry-level base salary.[24] The company’s average employee takes home about £260,000 per year.[25]
It is at first blush surprising that employees at Goldman Sachs could be said to be subjects of control by twenty-first century technologies of power, and even more surprising to suggest that their situation is comparable to that of couriers in China. But this is precisely the sort of topsy-turviness that is to be expected from (and ultimately serves to legitimate) societies of control, where we all ‘work hard’.
The impetus to ‘get ahead’ is central to the ethos of self-improvement and motivation instilled by societies of control. That is perhaps nowhere more evident than amongst the new, highly-remunerated, highly-overworked, ‘meritocratic’, professional or upper class of managers, bankers, and lawyers.[26] Previously, elite status was maintained through generations by inheritance. That method of status-maintenance has now mostly been displaced by investments in ‘human capital’. This can be achieved directly—through funding private schooling, tuition, and even work placements paid for by the volunteer—or indirectly, through covering children’s rent and paying for their goods.
The crucial factor in bringing about this shift has been the rise of ‘meritocracy’, which purports that success (i.e. the rate of remuneration for one’s work) is a result and marker of an individual’s inherent drive and talent but which in reality allows ‘a relatively tiny segment of the population […] to transmit advantage from generation to generation’ because elite parents stack the odds in favour of their children’s advancement from birth.[27] This is the society of control in action: demanding, inequitable and possessing an obscured, democratically-papered-over telos, drive and skill directed at productive activities.
But the elite cl
This Planet Knows my Name: Cosmologies of Emancipation Against Ecologic Collapse
Get PDFIn the times of Reconciliation, more and more voices are challenging the myth of Canada as a benevolent nation towards racialised and Indigenous communities despite its celebrations of cultural diversity. Controversies like those surrounding the TransMountain pipeline expansion or the Taseko Mines trial reveal the contradictions of the settler nation-state in its relations with Indigenous peoples. Indigenous writers are exploring the possibilities of science fiction to envision possible Native futures, hopes, and to make sense of the present moment, expanding the expectations of indigenous writing beyond “reservation realisms” and surpassing the tropes of sf. From this Indigenousfuturism part Celu Amberstone’s “Refugees”. At a time of the global ecological collapse, aliens called "Benefactors" have abducted earthlings to repopulate a new planet to save the human race from extinction. What appears to be a pious act gives rise to a complicated dynamic between the narrator, her biased trust of the colonizers and the last comers from Earth, urban natives disconnected from indigenous modes of knowledge and relationality with the land.
Stemming from the indigenous modes of knowledge by Zainab Amadahi and Leanne Simpson, and contributions from the sociology of space by Doreen Massey, this article aims to address Celu Amberstone's “Refugees” to explore the possibility of articulating decolonial politics, exploring new forms of sovereignty in decolonization, and the interconnection with the land versus the impending ecological collapse and fiduciary gridlock exercised by the Canadian neoliberal, settler colonial state. Amberstone allows not only to imagine the existence of Indigenous communities in a future of ecological collapse but also to comment on the current situation and clash of cosmologies in the Canadian colonial context
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