Deleuze's "Control society"

anon

Clarification activity	Utopias and the information society
Author(s)	Christopher Scharnagl
Creation date	Jun 2025
Status	🟡 Open
Reviews	Rev.1

Background: Deleuze, Foucault and the disciplinary society

Gilles Deleuze was a well-known French philosopher who was born in Paris in 1925 and committed suicide in 1995 by jumping out of a window after a long period of lung disease. His texts are relatively abstract with a rather anarchistic way of thinking. He was sympathetic to the 1968 movement and taught at the reform university Paris 8, but he was not a classic political activist. He wrote a lot about other philosophers and reinterpreted them, but also about topics such as psychoanalysis or cinema.

In his essay “Postscript on the control society” (1990), Deleuze writes about how capitalism and social structures have changed in the second half of the 20th century. He refers to Michael Foucault's concept of the “disciplinary society” and develops it further. The disciplinary society can be seen in institutions such as schools, factories and, above all, prisons. Deleuze sees these institutions in crisis after the Second World War: “We no longer belonged to disciplinary societies, we were about to leave them.” The disciplinary society merges into the control society: a form of society with a seemingly liberal appearance

Michel Foucault and the "disciplinary society"

Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984) was another famous French philosopher of the 20th century. Among other things, he criticized classical philosophy and humanists (such as Plato, Kant, Freud) for presenting their ideas as timeless, universal truths. In reality, however, they turned out in retrospect to be influenced by the ideas, language and norms of the society of the time. He was not only ineterested in typical philosophical questions but also writes about homosexuality, violence and madness.

In his book "Surveillance and Punishment" (1975), he describes the change in society after the French Revolution in terms of how criminals are punished and treated. Instead of analyzing the basic principles of a state by looking at the constitution or important political speeches, Foucault prefers to look at how criminals and prisoners are dealt with in practice:

He contrasts two methods of punishment: Robert-Francois Damiens attempted to assassinate the king in France in 1757. As punishment, he was publicly placed on a stage, then had skin torn from his body with rakes, his wounds filled with molten lead and then quartered. In this way, the king showed his power and ensured retribution. Foucault compares this to a prison 80 years later, after the French Revolution: the prisoners are locked up in a prison and there is a schedule to work and pray, mealtimes, times to wash their hands an face. The desire is not only to punish, but also to educate the criminal to become a better person. The prison is thus symbolic of an entire era: the transition from a “sovereignty society” to a “disciplinary society”. Why did this change develop in this way? For Foucault, not out of humanity, but: “to punish less, perhaps, but to punish better”

Another example Foucault gives of how modern disciplinary societies function is the panopticon: an ideal prison designed in the 18th century by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Here, too, the aim was not only to punish the prisoners, but also to control and change their behavior through constant surveillance.

This works according to the following principle: an observation tower stands in the middle of a round building, with the cells around it. The guards can look out through slits without being seen themselves. For the inmates, this means that they never know whether they are being watched or not and therefore always behave in accordance with the rules.

A concrete realization of this was the “Presidio Modelo” in Cuba, which was built in the 1930s under the dictator Gerardo Machado. Each building housed 465 cells for 1000 prisoners. There were no doors and every prisoner could be seen by everyone else; there was no privacy. Talking was forbidden in the canteen and a moat with crocodiles was built around the building to prevent escapes.

Fidel Castro also spent two years there before later sending political opponents to this place himself. After several hunger strikes and uprisings, the prison was finally closed and now serves as a museum.

The panopticon symbolically represents the typical exercise of power in disciplinary society: above all through observation and control. The aim is not punishment, but education and the modification of behavior. To achieve this, the individual is treated much like a broken machine—first analyzed and then repaired. This form of control extends into the psyche: attention is directed toward the thoughts, motives, and emotions of offenders. These mechanisms do not affect only criminals. They also operate in schools, workplaces, and families. For example, through school tests or, more recently, in discussions about (including mental) health in the workplace, often with the aim of maintaining productivity.

The control society

Starting from this disciplinary society, Deleuze describes what had changed in society by the 1980s. He describes these changes using various examples: “These are very small examples, but ones that will allow for better understanding of what is meant by the crisis of the institutions, which is to say, the progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination.”

Work

Today, people often no longer work in factories, but in (service) companies. While the industrial factory knew clear times, spaces and tasks, work is h - workers took up firmly defined positions and behaviors - today the company functions like a gas. It expands, adapts and changes shape.

In this new setting, stability can no longer be taken for granted. Fixed-term contracts, constant project changes, internal competition and rivalry (“contests”, “highly comic meetings”) characterize everyday working life. People no longer take on a clear role, but compete for visibility - the company shouts loudly: “Whoever emulates wins!” Competition is celebrated as an innovative driving force and simultaneously elevated to the norm.

But this flexibility is accompanied by a new discipline. It is no longer the physical constraint that quietly admonishes - it is the prospect of exclusion, dismissal or missing out on the next promotion. The company becomes a permanent testing and selection machine.

Modulation: the new formal principle of control

Foucault's disciplinary society resembled a cast - hard and firm, with clear, narrowly defined forms. Deleuze, on the other hand, describes an almost limitless modulation in the control society. Control is a flexible network that is constantly changing. It adapts, opens, closes, transforms - depending on the situation.

Changing forms are a good image: A sieve whose mesh widens or narrows as required; a form that reshapes itself in a matter of seconds. Schools, companies, hospitals, prisons - they all use the same control techniques: Data collection, psycho-social control, emotional standardization. The boundaries between these institutions are becoming increasingly blurred - what began at school continues in the workplace. Universities are mentally merging with the economy, clinics are becoming social spaces for self-optimization.

Society as a machine: input, interruption, output

Deleuze invites us to understand our society as a series of machines: The school is an educational machine, the judiciary a legal machine, the company a labor machine. These machines take input, interrupt the flow, transform the raw material and spit out a modified “product” - people who are optimized, evaluated, categorized.

The disciplinary society showed these processes openly - with uniforms, guards and clearly defined hierarchies. In the control society, on the other hand, these processes disappear: They run in the background. Access is determined by codes such as passwords, credit scores, insurance risk - or simply by algorithmic filters. People are no longer disciplined by their physical presence, but by their digital shadow, which is constantly generated, recorded and evaluated.

The shift from the individual to the “dividual” subject

Deleuze coined the term “dividual” - an existence that can be simultaneously divided, fragmented and reassembled. Unlike the classic individual, the dividual is nothing stable: it offers different pieces of data in different contexts - creditworthiness for the bank, grades for the university, genetic risk markers for insurance companies, surfing behavior for social media.

This data determines your future: access to jobs, loans, education - no longer primarily by human decision-makers, but by programmed systems, algorithms and filters. You don't have to actively behave “well” - it's simply impossible to act badly. Control is automatic, through self-regulation. Your scope of action is limited in advance, your options are already defined by data. You decide freely - only within what the system allows you to do.

Technology, feedback and control technology

Control is not just social or medial - it is technical. Feedback loops from control technology are embedded in algorithms. A thermostat measures temperature, compares it with the setpoint, makes corrections - analogously, digital systems measure deviations from the setpoint (the desired behavior), automatically compensate for them and reduce them over time.

This logic is now appearing in everyday language: “feedback”, ‘flow’, “process diagram” - normal terms that originate from measurement technology. AI and statistics take responsibility for functioning, even if the data is imperfect - because it is better to make mistakes than to do nothing at all. Facebook's hate speech filters are an example: no human judge decides - a program blocks or allows. You act cleanly without being noticed - or are simply filtered out.

New capitalism

For Deleuze, the control society is a new form of capitalism. The industrial capitalism of the 19th century with its factory halls, fixed hierarchies, work routines and trade unions had workers and means of production as capital. In the control society, on the other hand, capital is information, data and services. In the financial world, too, the “stable” gold currency has been replaced by a flexible currency system based on exchange rates

However, the problems remain: Many are in debt, three quarters of humanity live in poverty, living in slums and ghettos.

Control Society in Everyday Life

Identification documents

Today, identification documents are so highly digitalized that they have become a central instrument of access control. Identity is no longer verified by personnel; instead, card readers function as keys to entry. They are used, for example, in companies, banks, and libraries. Passports can also be read digitally, and cameras assist in identification, enabling entry and exit without direct control by border police.

In the granting of visas, the interests of governments, corporations, and universities intersect. Changing entry regulations determine whether foreign students and workers are permitted to stay. Refugees, meanwhile, often have to wait in a state of uncertainty due to lengthy procedures before a decision on entry or rejection is made. Here, a combination of traditional confinement in camps and modern control systems can be observed.

Coronavirus

During the coronavirus era, there was also a mix of a disciplinary and control society. Attempts were made to contain the pandemic with lockdown discipline, and the population in many states accepted the lockdown. The states had issued different orders. Some, such as China, used state force to enforce them, while others, such as Sweden, left it up to each individual to act sensibly and responsibly. After the lockdown, the disciplinary society turned into a control society. Vaccination cards and test certificates enabled access to social life. Health data could be stored in an app and people could be warned if a contact person developed symptoms. The vaccination card was also stored digitally and could be scanned in the same way as a passport when traveling abroad, for example. It has been shown that both forms of society can intermingle in our everyday lives.

Digital control organization

Companies such as Uber and Airbnb are typical examples of current control systems. Uber drivers are monitored using GPS, algorithms and customer ratings. His digital ID not only contains his identity but also his rated performance. A ranking constantly evaluates his performance and his orders depend on it. Airbnb is also constantly rated on the platform, you have to collect good ratings, these are your digital ID. The ratings can be described as access controls. Platforms have become established. They provide access to the job market, applications are submitted via them and algorithms filter profiles. Access to profile platforms, e.g. LinkedIn, can be granted or denied. These platforms are digital ID cards. In the education sector, they regulate the qualifications of people, who are recorded as "individuals". Control is exercised with algorithms, via access to accounts.