From The Punitive Society to Discipline and Punish: The Hidden Marxism in Foucault's View of Power_INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND CULTURE CENTER FOR ACADEMIC CONTACTS (ISCCAC)

Publisher:ISCCAC

From The Punitive Society to Discipline and Punish: The Hidden Marxism in Foucault's View of Power

Volume 22, Issue 4 (Part 2), 2026

Authors

Yanhong Wang

Corresponding Author

Yanhong Wang

Publishing Date

June 30, 2026

Keywords

Power, The Punitive Society, Discipline and Punish, Marxism

Abstract

From the history of madness to criminology, and from the archaeology of knowledge to the study of power, "power" is one of the most discussed topics in Michel Foucault's research. Foucault is skilled at analyzing power from a micro-perspective and is credited with founding biopolitics. His work Discipline and Punish delves deeply into this issue. While Foucault's ideas were influenced by numerous Western philosophers, he claimed to be a "disciple of Nietzsche" (Du Xiaozhen, 2002: 523) and undeniably inherited many of Nietzsche's methods and thoughts. However, in Discipline and Punish, besides Nietzsche, we can also detect a hidden Marxism. Looking back to The Punitive Society, we observe the use of concepts such as economic base, morality, and alienation.

Copyright

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license

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