from History of Sexuality
Living power
In the past, the power seen in monarchies was the right to freely restrain people’s bodies and to freely take their lives, the right to death. However, in modern times, people’s bodies are managed softly, not in the name of the monarch, but in the name of the nation. This is a power over life, not death, a power over life - “biopower”. I see, that’s what it means (blu3mo).
Through the management and operation of life, it is a means to restrain and control people with the threads of power. For this purpose, sexuality, which is a fundamental impulse towards life, is utilized. This power over life mainly manifests itself as population control and disciplining of bodies. It is about managing the lives of residents and disciplining their bodies in the name of protecting life. This includes managing the health, hygiene, birth, death, disciplining, adjustment, education, and socialization of the population.
This is also a condition for the establishment of the capitalist system. To establish it, a system of management was necessary to fit population phenomena into economic processes and incorporate people’s bodies as parts of the production machinery. In this context, the law is no longer power itself, but functions as a regulatory body (normalizing factor) to ensure the smooth operation of these systems. In managing people through biopower, the emphasis is placed on being “normal (typical)“. This leads to a discussion of normality (blu3mo).