Capitalism does not work as a system without the existence of oppressing and oppressed groups. Since its nascence in the United States, the oppressed group has consisted of Blacks — then with slavery and now with the mask of a democratic and egalitarian government that keeps the oppressed in a stagnated position. The penal system in the United States is an example of the way in which capitalism represses a specific group in order to make a profit. The deep-seated feeling of inferiority blacks have felt since the 19th century with slavery is still present in the minds of Blacks in the modern day not because they are enslaved in the traditional sense, but because they still walk around with the threat of being under constant surveillance. The idea of constantly being watched is a product of capitalism and the prison system; capitalism creates the oppressed and prison serves as a constant reminder of what could happen if the vigilant eyes were to catch them doing anything they should not be doing. Capitalism creates the oppressed by way of institutions everyone finds themselves in from birth, but that happen to work to the disadvantage of Black progress. By repressing Blacks in such a way, the minority group that profits the most from capitalism and holds most of the power over American citizens can continue to make a profit uninterruptedly while Blacks are left struggling to find a way to make a living without facing any severe repercussions.
In his book titled Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault explores the beginning of the modern-day prison system and the culture of surveillance that it has created. Foucault argues that the modern penal system is one that executes mental and psychological punishment w...
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...they are not going to give up their money or status because the system happens to be flawed.
Capitalism is an economic system and as such, is geared towards making a profit. Those who make a profit off of capitalism and the penal system are affluent white men who do not want to endanger their wealth by cracking down on those of their own race and giving Blacks the opportunity to advance in any way. The prison system is one of the methods the judges of normalcy’s use to keep Blacks repressed to the types of situations they have lived in in the past so as to continue benefitting from the system of capitalism. The prison system, along with capitalism, the education system, and other institutions in charge of molding children into functioning citizens of society have condemned Blacks to economic slavery by not allowing them the ability to prove how adept they can be.
The ideologies morphed into a different type of racism that is still connected to that from the 18th and 19th centuries, which is set up into the contemporary carceral state and prison-industrial complex in the terms of black criminality, black inferiority, domination of black people, and white supremacy. In Angela Davis’s lectures on liberation, she states the conditions of freedom include: physical or violent resistance, resistance of the mind, and recognition of alienation (Narrative of Frederick Douglass, p. 58, 64). In order to maintain the institution of slavery, “black people were forced to live in conditions not fit for animals,” in which “white slave-owners were determined to mould black people into the image of the subhuman being which they had contrived in order to justify their actions” (50 - 51). The slaves were under the condition of alienation, reducing them to “the status of property; This was how the save was defined: something to be owned” (53). This produces the idea that his existence is subjected down to property, capital, and money. Under the conditions of slavery, they were stripped of their rights, treated repressively, forced into free labor, and treated as an object. The abolishment of slavery, enacted by the 13th amendment, was supposed to rid such treatment, yet the prison-industrial complex still holds onto that legacy; as Davis puts it, it is “reincarnated through new institutions, new practices, and new ideologies” (The Meaning of Freedom, 140). The prison system sustains sediments of slavery as it deals with the ownership over the prisoner, controlling their every move. Prisoners are “not able to participate in the political arena or in civil life,” stripping their right to vote and depriving them of human rights (140). Prisoners are forced into free labor: fighting fires, building materials and supplies for
Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish. New York: Random House Inc, 1978. Print. 3 May 2014.
Today, more African American adults are under correctional control than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began (Alexander 180). Throughout history, there have been multiple racial caste systems in the United States. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander defines a “racial caste” as “a racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom” (12). Alexander argues that both Jim Crow and slavery functioned as racial caste systems, and that our current system of mass incarceration functions as a similar caste system, which she labels “The New Jim Crow”. There is now a silent Jim Crow in our nation.
Capitalism has always been a double-edged sword for the United States. It began as the driving force in pushing along economic growth, but it came at the price of the African society. It was implied, and enforced, that Africans were of a lesser class through the means in which they were "used" by the slave owners to promote their wealth and stature. The larger their plantation, the wealthier and more successful people were seen. But in order to do this, the plantation owners needed workers, but if they had to pay workers reasonable wages, they could not yield a profit.
This is true not only in the workforce, but in their personal lives as well. They are placed back into fragmented populations, however, this time, it’s much worse. Their communities cannot sustain their emotional unravelling after the disturbing realities of serving time in prison. In the article “The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Poverty” written by Robert DeFina and Lance Hannon, they claim that the impoverished communities of color need the removal of imprisoned individuals for the improvement of local economics. However, the article “The Effects of Mass Incarceration on Communities of Color” claims that it does nothing to help these communities.
When black americans are convicted as criminals, which is the central ideology that is ruling, they are often stripped of all those rights that make them american, but more importantly make them human. Policing the Planet’s Patrise Cullors discusses her take on why the current discourse is divorced from abolition that summarizes 13th and the broken windows policing, she says “We live in a police state, in which the police have become judge, juror, and executioner. They’ve become the social worker. They’ve become the mental health clinician. They’ve become anything and everything that has to do with the everyday life of mostly Black and Brown poor people…Many of us understand that [police’s] original task was to patrol slaves.”(37) Broken windows policing was the ideological and political project that allowed for the criminalization of black bodies, resulting in mass incarceration that allows the prison system to reach the level where it could be considered modern day
In today's society, there are many forces that shape the world. Three forces that have a major impact are Capitalism, Globalization, and the Natural Environment. These forces all play major roles in either influencing or informing my lived experiences.
Foucault once stated, “Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests” (301). By this, he means that our society is full of constant supervision that is not easily seen nor displayed. In his essay, Panopticism, Foucault goes into detail about the different disciplinary societies and how surveillance has become a big part of our lives today. He explains how the disciplinary mechanisms have dramatically changed in comparison to the middle ages. Foucault analyzes in particular the Panopticon, which was a blueprint of a disciplinary institution. The idea of this institution was for inmates to be seen but not to see. As Foucault put it, “he is the object of information, never a subject in communication”(287). The Panopticon became an evolutionary method for enforcing discipline. Today there are different ways of watching people with constant surveillance and complete control without anyone knowing similar to the idea of the Panopticon.
To begin, capitalism is the economic ideology that everything is primarily focused towards making profit through the production and distribution of a product. In the article “Capitalism: Where Do We Come From?” By Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow, they provide insight on how capitalism has changed over the years and the impact it now has in today’s society. “There were no factors of production before capitalism. Of course, human labour, nature’s gift of land and natural resources, and the artifacts of society have always existed. But labour, land, and capital were not commodities for sale” (Para,17). Capitalism has an impact in my life because in the 21st century children are taught in school skills that will benefit businesses, so that they can continue to make a profit through the production and distribution
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that despite the old Jim Crow is death, does not necessarily means the end of racial caste (p.21). In her book “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander describes a set of practices and social discourses that serve to maintain African American people controlled by institutions. In this book her analyses is centered in examining the mass incarceration phenomenon in recent years. Comparing Jim Crow with mass incarceration she points out that mass incarceration is a network of laws, policies, customs and institutions that works together –almost invisible– to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined by race, African American (p. 178 -190).
Michel Foucault may be regarded as the most influential twentieth-century philosopher on the history of systems of thought. His theories focus on the relationship between power and knowledge, and how such may be used as a form of social control through institutions in society. In “Truth and Juridical Forms,” Foucault addresses the development of the nineteenth-century penal regime, which completely transformed the operation of the traditional penal justice system. In doing so, Foucault famously compares contemporary society to a prison- “prison is not so unlike what happens every day.” Ultimately, Foucault attempts to exemplify the way in which disciplinary power has become exercised in everyday institutions according to normalization under the authority network of individuals such that all relationships may be considered power relations. Thus, all aspects of society follow the model of a prison based on domination. While all aspects of society take the shape of prison, most individuals may remainignorant of such- perhaps just as they are supposed to. As a result, members of society unconsciously participate in the disciplinary power that aims to “normalize,” thus contributing to and perpetuating the contemporary form of social control. Accordingly, the modern penal regime may be regarded as the most effective system of societal discipline. [OK – SOLID INTRO]
The question remains, has punishment become a sufficient answer for deviance and crime, does it follow Foucault's fundamental principles that must be present for the system to be useful. Public punishment went away and prisons and chain-gangs replaced that and from that point to a new, moral based form of punishment. While some fundamental principles have been achieved, others have not. The transition moved punishment from a spectacle, with a gloomy atmosphere, to modern forms of re-education and reformation. The use of classifying inmates and costume fitting punishments to crime has further followed.
Many regarded the prison as a great failure of the penal justice. Accordingly, there have been many critiques of the prison. For instance, the prison fails to reduce crime. The prison induces recidivism; ‘the prison cannot fail to produce delinquents.’ (Foucault, 1984, p. 227).
Foucault, M. (1995) Discipline and Punishment The Birth of the Prison [online]. 2nd ed. USA: Penguin Books, Ltd. [Accessed 01 January 2014].
Foucault in his work ‘Discipline and Punish’ (1977) offered a critical approach towards transformations of society. He observed the shift of power that control individuals from sovereign to disciplinary power and warned us not to be misled by the emergence of new systems as humane system of control. His critique of transformations was related to the birth of imprisonment (the new system of penalty). For Foucault, in the old system of penalty, the body is tortured and pain was the central element of punishment. Torture is publicly exercised, everyone could see the power of the punisher and the control over the body lies in the hand of a single man.