Consent to punishment arises from the carceral continuum, not the social contract

Evidence

The question is often posed as to how, before and after the Revolution, a new foundation was given to the right to punish. And no doubt the answer is to be found in the theory of the contract. But it is perhaps more important to ask the reverse question: how were people made to accept the power to punish, or quite simply, when punished, tolerate being so. The theory of the contract can only answer this question by the fiction of a juridical subject giving to others the power to exercise over him the right that he himself possesses over them. It is highly probable that the great carceral continuum, which provides a communication between the power of discipline and the power of the law, and extends without interruption from the smallest coercions to the longest penal detention, constituted the technical and real, immediately material counterpart of that chimerical granting of the right to punish. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 463

Categorization

• XREF: Explains the telescreen’s efficacy in Oceania: consent to constant surveillance is manufactured by material continuity, not by a political fiction. — connects to: Disciplinary punishment operates by comparing, differentiating, hierarchizing, homogenizing and excluding rather than by expiating. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 281; Social control includes winning consent, not just coercive punishment; Legal obligation differs from mere coercion by threat of force — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 40
• DEEPTHINKING: Reframes the foundational problem of political legitimacy away from contract theory toward material institutional practice — a paradigm-defining move.

Broader Connections

• Social control includes winning consent, not just coercive punishment #expands (0.78)
• Legal obligation differs from mere coercion by threat of force #corroborates (0.72) — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 40