Objectification and the contraditions of bourgeois power: Sartre and the modern prison

Abstract

The state, it is often and correctly said, is a social relation. The apparatuses of the state are not simply instruments for the use of one class or another, not just techniques of domination, but are themselves embodiments of bourgeois power relations. Thus the modern prison, for example, is bourgeois, not because of its uses or control, but in the very organisation of power that pervades it. Uncovering the bourgeois character of this power relation through an examination of Bentham's model prison, the Panopticon, is one task of this paper. Sartre's critique of objectification appears as a critique of the tyranny of society in general, and this is the way in which Sartre himself sees it. However, its real object of analysis is precisely the power relations of bourgeois society. Sartre's genius lies in the clarity of his perception of the contradictions inherent in these relations; his failure lay in his inability to see their historical character. As a result, his critical humanism reflects, but never ge...