Hierarchical surveillance needs relays, so the pyramid beats the circle.

Evidence

But, the disciplinary gaze did, in fact, need relays. The pyramid was able to fulfil, more efficiently than the circle, two requirements: to be complete enough to form an uninterrupted network – consequently the possibility of multiplying its levels, and of distributing them over the entire surface to be supervised; and yet to be discreet enough not to weigh down with an inert mass on the activity to be disciplined, and not to act as a brake or an obstacle to it; to be integrated into the disciplinary mechanism as a function that increases its possible effects. It had to be broken down into smaller elements, but in order to increase its productive function: specify the surveillance and make it functional. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 270

Categorization

• XREF: The pyramid’s relays — surveillance broken into nested levels — map onto Oceania’s layered informer and telescreen network, and onto Bentham’s inspector chain.