Prison expresses bourgeois labor’s logic rather than rehabilitation’s aim

Evidence

Man in prison is the virtual image of the bourgeois type which he still has to become in reality. Those who cannot manage outside are forcibly held in a terrible state of purity in prison. The rationalization of the existence of prisons by the need to separate the criminal from society or to “improve” him does not strike at the heart of the problem. The prison is an image of the bourgeois world of labor taken to its logical conclusion; hatred felt by men for everything that they would themselves wish to become but is beyond their reach, is placed as a symbol in the world. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 204

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Prison disciplined workers for industrial capitalism — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 115; Imprisonment emerged with capitalism’s need for disciplined manpower — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 204; Penal labour reshapes convicts mechanistically into docile, regularized workers — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 370 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Imprisonment became the primary punishment because it suited capitalist bourgeois ideology, not superior merit. #corroborates (0.90) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 107
• Prison disciplined workers for industrial capitalism #corroborates (0.88) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 115
• Imprisonment emerged with capitalism’s need for disciplined manpower #corroborates (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 204
• The prison disciplined convicts into an industrial labor force #exemplifies (0.84)
• Penal labour reshapes convicts mechanistically into docile, regularized workers #exemplifies (0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 370
• The prison boom was a way to concentrate and manage a capitalist human surplus #expands (0.75)
• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish #expands (0.72) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 209