Postscript on the Societies of Control
"Postscript on the Societies of Control" is a seminal 1990 essay by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It outlines the transition from Michel Foucault’s "disciplinary societies"—which operated through physical enclosure and rigid molding—to "societies of control," which operate through continuous modulation, digital tracking, and the fluid management of data. The essay accurately predicted the mechanisms of modern algorithmic governance, surveillance capitalism, and the gig economy.
Context and Origins
Gilles Deleuze originally published "Postscript on the Societies of Control" (French: Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle) in May 1990 in L'Autre Journal, before it was later included in his 1995 book Negotiations and translated into English for the journal October in 1992.[1]
The essay serves as both an homage to and an evolution of Michel Foucault’s historical analyses. Foucault famously theorized that the 18th and 19th centuries were defined by the "disciplinary society."[2] Deleuze observes that Foucault himself recognized the transience of this model, prompting Deleuze to formally name the new paradigm that had begun accelerating after World War II. He credits the author William S. Burroughs with the term "control," and acknowledges Paul Virilio for his early analyses of "ultrarapid forms of free-floating control."[3]
Deleuze argues that we are in a "generalized crisis in relation to all the environments of enclosure." The prison, the hospital, the factory, the school, and the family are all breaking down. The reforms meant to save these institutions are merely managing their death throes as a new system takes their place.[4]
The Paradigm Shift: Discipline vs. Control
Deleuze contrasts the outgoing disciplinary societies with the incoming societies of control across several dimensions:
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Spatial Logic: Disciplinary societies operate through enclosures (the family, then the school, then the barracks, then the factory). Control societies operate in open environments where individuals are never truly finished with anything (continuous education, perpetual training).
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Mechanism of Action: Enclosures are molds (distinct castings that shape an individual once and for all). Controls are a modulation (a self-deforming cast or sieve that continuously changes from one moment to the next).[1:1]
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Language of Power: Disciplinary societies are governed by watchwords (commands, rules of integration or resistance). Control societies are governed by passwords (numerical codes that grant or reject access to information and spaces).[5]
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Animal Metaphor: The disciplinary society is the mole (working in enclosed, linear burrows). The control society is the serpent (undulatory, sliding continuously through networks).[6]
Core Concepts of the Control Society
1. The Death of the Individual and the Rise of the "Dividual"
In the disciplinary society, power managed the "mass/individual" pair. A person had a signature (designating their individuality) and an administrative number (designating their position in the mass). In the society of control, the holistic individual no longer exists. Instead, people are atomized into quantifiable fragments, samples, and data points. Deleuze terms this new entity the dividual.[7] Today, this is perfectly reflected in how predictive algorithms track our disparate data points (search history, biometrics, location) rather than treating us as cohesive human subjects.
2. The Corporation Replaces the Factory
The factory was an enclosed space of equilibrium that sought the highest production for the lowest wages. In contrast, the society of control replaces the factory with the corporation—which Deleuze describes as "a spirit, a gas."[8]
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The corporation does not mold workers; it modulates them.
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It operates in a state of perpetual metastability, pitting workers against each other through challenges, constant performance reviews, and the principle of "salary according to merit."[9]
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This competitive modulation divides individuals internally, forcing a state of constant self-optimization.
3. Cybernetics and the Machine of Control
Deleuze points out that different societies generate different technologies. Sovereignty used simple levers and pulleys; disciplinary societies used energy/thermodynamic machines (steam engines, facing the danger of sabotage and entropy). Societies of control operate with a third generation of machines: computers and cybernetics.[10] Their primary dangers are jamming, piracy, and the introduction of viruses. The control society functions as a vast information network regulating access.
Deleuze famously relates a concept from his collaborator Félix Guattari: "Felix Guattari has imagined a city where one would be able to leave one's apartment, one's street, one's neighborhood, thanks to one's (dividual) electronic card that raises a given barrier; but the card could just as easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours; what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each person's position—licit or illicit—and effects a universal modulation."[11]
Contemporary Relevance
Deleuze's essay was astonishingly prophetic. Written before the widespread adoption of the internet, smartphones, and algorithmic capitalism, the text accurately diagnoses the mechanics of contemporary power:
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Surveillance Capitalism: The gathering and monetizing of personal information, transforming users into "dividual" data points for predictive analytics and targeted marketing.[12]
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The Gig Economy: The removal of the stable factory job in favor of precarious, app-modulated freelance work where laborers are constantly tracked and ranked by algorithms.
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Debt as Control: Deleuze notes, "Man is no longer man enclosed, but man in debt."[1:2] Today, student loans, credit scores, and mortgages act as invisible leashes, dictating behavior without the need for physical confinement.
"There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons." — Gilles Deleuze[13]
Deleuze insists that recognizing the society of control is not a reason for despair. Just as labor unions were the weapon against the disciplinary factory, new forms of resistance (like piracy, encryption, and data obfuscation) must be invented to jam the networks of control.
Backlinks
- Dividual — This essay is the primary source for the Deleuzian (philosophical) genealogy of the dividual. The concept of the "dividual" as a subject fragmented into data points by societies of control originates here, and the Dividual note draws on this essay as one of its two core genealogies.
- The Dividual and the Triṃśikā - A Comparative Analysis — This comparative analysis maps the Deleuzian dividual (from this essay) against the Yogācāra model of consciousness, showing how the surveillance-capitalist dividual is a technological amplification of the fundamental Yogācāra diagnosis of saṃsāric fragmentation.
References
Gilles Deleuze / Postscript on the Societies of Control / October 59, Winter 1992 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
James Brusseau / Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies of Control" Updated for Big Data and Predictive Analytics / arXiv:2509.18194 ↩︎
Social Ecologies / Societies of Control: Deleuze and Foucault / The Dark Forest ↩︎
The Times of India / Instant scholar: Societies of control - Understanding Gilles Deleuze's vision of contemporary power / Times of India ↩︎
Reddit Philosophy / What does Deleuze mean by "code" in Postscript on Societies of Control? / r/askphilosophy ↩︎
Qucosa Repository / Money, Technology and Capitalism in Deleuze's “Postscript” / Qucosa ↩︎
Katherine Braatvedt / The Dividual Interior: Surveillance and Desire / Idea Journal ↩︎
Louis Vrammout / Postscripts on the Societies of Control — a tiny hoard of notes / Medium ↩︎
Alessia Dokaj / Gilles Deleuze's Postscript: Rethinking Power and Control in the Digital Age / ResearchGate ↩︎
Voluptas ETHZ / Deleuze Translation PDF Archive / ETH Zurich ↩︎
IDRC / Living the Information Society in Asia / IDRC Open Books ↩︎
QUT / Computers tracking us, people as data points: Gilles Deleuze's 1990 Postscript on the Societies of Control was eerily prescient / QUT News ↩︎