Connection to Surveillance Society Theory (Foucault) - Voluntary Obedience and the Panopticon

Connection to Surveillance Society Theory (Foucault) - Voluntary Obedience and the Panopticon

The "Panopticon" presented by Michel Foucault in "The Birth of the Prison" (1975), modeled on 19th century prison architecture, is a theory that analyzes how modern society controls individuals with an "invisible gaze" and how people discipline themselves. In the background, from the late 1960s to the 1970s, there was the decline of the student movement, the strengthening of supervision in the corporate world, and the increasing sophistication of administrative control, and society began to face both the "expansion of freedom" and "invisible discipline.

This structure of supervision is rapidly becoming a reality in the 21st century, especially with digital labor after the Corona disaster. With the expansion of telecommuting, many companies introduced PC operation logs, constant online meetings, recording of time away from the office, and automatic screenshots of work screens. Here, it is not a question of whether a supervisor is actually watching, but only the "possibility of being watched" that makes it effective. Workers do not wait for the supervisor's instructions, but voluntarily become disciplined and behave themselves. This is the epitome of the "voluntary obedience" described by Foucault.

When this structure is read in conjunction with Marx's theory of labor alienation, the relationship between modern supervision and capitalist labor becomes clearer. Marx's picture of "alienated labor" refers to the condition in which workers are deprived of labor agency and made subservient to the means of production; while it was the rhythm of machinery and the segmentation of processes that intensified this in the 19th century factory, in modern times the role is taken by "surveillance interfaces" and "algorithms. The more visible the metrics and performance management becomes, the more workers are deprived of their true creativity and inner time, and are required to optimize their actions to the numbers.

Furthermore, in the 2020s, "algorithmic surveillance," in which platform companies seize control of vast amounts of data to predict and guide human behavior and choices, has become central to capitalism. This is an evolved form of surveillance that did not exist in Foucault's time, a structure that seeks to control consumption, labor, movement, and other aspects of life in an integrated manner. Here surveillance extends beyond spatial restraints to a "nudge-type governance" that shapes everyday behavioral choices themselves.

Thus, Foucault's theory of the surveillance society and Marx's theory of labor alienation overlap against the backdrop of digital capitalism to form a new system of problems. It is the phenomenon of "internalization of self-surveillance" in contemporary society, a lifestyle in which individuals are constantly evaluating and optimizing their own behavior. Structures such as the proliferation of online labor, the fragmentation of evaluation indices, and the induction of algorithmic behavior, while appearing to expand individual freedom, in fact constrain subjectivity at a deep level.

Understanding this background, it is easy to understand why the "Panopticon" and "capitalism" are being reevaluated today. It is to rediscover issues such as human subjectivity, the meaning of labor, and the dignity of life, which have become less visible in an age that emphasizes freedom and efficiency. The theories of Foucault and Marx, intersecting across disciplines, are revived as powerful ideological tools for making visible the "invisible structures of domination" of the digital age.