Panopticism-It's Time To Monitor The Workplace

People have always value their privacy. From fence building, to secret keeping, we love to think our thoughts and conversations are as private as they can be. As our society evolves, our rights keep expending. In the past, the workplace was what we would determine to be strict rules and regulations. In order to preserve the peace and order at work, people would be be punished, in a way we would now consider that to be inhumane. Workplace; however has evolved as more and more regulatory agencies have been created to monitor the workplace are safe. This did not happened overnight, nor the company owners decided one day to make a drastic change. All these changes occurred because people revolted against the improper conditions at their jobs. This was not easy nor did it occurred overnight. These type of rebellion to make a situation more just is what Michael Foucault calls positive power. The …show more content…
Power does not necessarily means physical power or wealth. Power can come in multiple ways: rebellion, knowledge, information, etc. As companies became supervised by additional agencies to ensure proper work conditions were implemented, a new concept was discussed; panopticism.
Panopticism is the model of making people believe they are under surveillance, even when they are not. One of its major effects, for example to inmates, is to create a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power (201). What exactly does this do? It creates the sense one is at a constant surveillance. If people feel they are constantly under supervision, whether this is true supervision, they are more likely to behave according to the rules in place. Inmates are to assumed they are always being watch, even when they may not