No Absolute Control, but Convergences and Circumstantial Opportunities

Abstract

This chapter emphasizes the role of chance, the circumstantial element and therefore the fragility of state dispositifs. They only make sense when they are put into practice, and this, to put it differently, also depends on the actions undertaken by other institutions, other groups, other individuals, and on how the latter understand them. Often, more often than not, indeed, the exercise of domination is not the result of a policy implemented intentionally by the state, an illustration of the desire for control and efficiency of explicit mechanisms of surveillance. It is due, rather, to the encounter, often a result of the circumstances and vicissitudes of life, between these state endeavors and other interests or logics, other behaviors, other understandings and interpretations of reality—in other words, the integration of mechanisms of power into economic daily workings, in conflicts and the formation of compromises or less formal arrangements between actors. Through an analysis of the mundane, the everyday nature of economic behavior and ordinary existence, this chapter helps to offer, implicitly, a critique of ontological and ahistorical approaches to domination. It also highlights the element of contingency and randomness in the exercise of power and the difficulty in identifying decisions in good and due form, in knowing and controlling decision-making processes, and controlling their effects.