RED QUILL BOOKS
New Social Control
"..This book transforms our view of social control. It is undoubtedly
the first work to expose a decisive social mutation and reveal to us the
logic and the disturbing power of a post-disciplinary, new social
control, just as Foucault masterfully revealed to us the logic of
disciplinary control."
- Robert Castel, École des hautes études en sciences sociales."
The New Social Control: The Institutional Web, Normativity and the Social Bond
By: Michalis Lianos
Translated by: Richard Nice
Translated by: Richard Nice
ISBN: 978-1-926958-17-0 2012 $32.50 USD
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Freedom and control are usually understood as opposites but what if they
merged? Consumption, management and administration are everywhere. We
are no longer supposed to depend on one other. Instead, institutions and
organizations form a dense web that radically transform our past
relations into ready-made, fragmented norms.
Thus, we are increasingly controlled not by coercion but by competition and efficiency, aspiration and fear, to the point where a new era in human sociality is starting. Moving beyond existing critiques, Lianos argues that capitalism does not show itself as a conspiracy of the powerful but rather manifests as the lowest common denominator of our collective weaknesses. Control, therefore, lies in practice and freedom lies in consciousness.
Thus, we are increasingly controlled not by coercion but by competition and efficiency, aspiration and fear, to the point where a new era in human sociality is starting. Moving beyond existing critiques, Lianos argues that capitalism does not show itself as a conspiracy of the powerful but rather manifests as the lowest common denominator of our collective weaknesses. Control, therefore, lies in practice and freedom lies in consciousness.