The document discusses several key theses from Deleuze's Postscript to Societies of Control, including the transition from disciplinary societies to societies of control characterized by flows of data and dividuation of individuals. It analyzes the corporatization of education through increased datafication and loss of teacher professionalism. Finally, it argues new forms of grassroots, rhizomatic resistance are needed against the state machinery through networks, alternative schools, and university involvement.

1.  Theses put forward in the Postscript to Societies of Control
 Developing an educational critique through Postscript to
Societies of Control
 Corporatisation of education
 New forms of resistance

2. Theses put forward in the Postscript to
Societies of Control
o a short article written for L’Autre Journal (1990)
o set out a framework for understanding changes to society since World War 2
o begins by reviewing some of the main features of disciplinary societies (Foucault)
o prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries, and characterised by enclosed spaces each
with its own laws and rules.
o The spaces have the effect of ordering time and also of concentrating and distribute
individuals in space, leading to greater productive force, such as in the efficiency of
factory spaces
o these have been superseded by Societies of Control

3. Theses put forward in the Postscript to
Societies of Control
o where societies of discipline were static, enclosed, and characterised by inherent
stability, societies of control are open, and characterised by flow, change, particularly in
private capital.
o The society of control develops language which is simple and numeric, thereby
allowing the boundaries to be broken down between institutional spaces.
oFactories which were material and which allowed for the organisation of the mass by
both bosses and unions have been replaced by the corporation which encourages
individual competition within an organisation as being healthy, and which aids in the
division of individuals not only from each other but within themselves.
o the new language of society has become data – now more important than humans.
Leads to the loss of individuals and the development of ‘dividuals’, a physically
embodied human subject that is endlessly divisible and reducible to data
representations via the modern technologies of control

4. Theses put forward in the Postscript to
Societies of Control
o within a traditional factory setting (society of discipline) as described by Stiegler (2010),
‘The proletarian…is a disindividuated worker, a labourer whose knowledge has passed into the
machine in such a way that it is no longer the worker who is individuated through bearing tools
and putting them into practice. Rather, the labourer serves the machine-tool, and it is the latter
which has become the technical individual – in the sense that it is within the machine-tool, and
within the technical system to which it belongs, that an individuation is produced. (p. 37)
o Stiegler brings this process up-to-date in a way that speaks more clearly of the corporation
when he states that,
‘…the elites have themselves been proletarianized, that is, deprived of knowledge of their own
logic and by their own logic – a logic reduced to a calculation without remainder and leading as
well to a market of fools.’ (p. 47)

5. Developing an educational critique through
Postscript to Societies of Control
o Deleuze states,
‘The family, the school, the army, the factory are no longer the distinct analogical spaces that
converge towards an owner – state or private power – but coded figures – deformable and
transformable – of a single corporation that now has only stockholders.’ (p.6)
Deleuze is clear about the impact of the rise of the society of control,
‘For the school system: continuous forms of control, and the effect on the school of perpetual
training, the corresponding abandonment of all university research, the introduction of the
‘corporation’ at all levels of schooling.’ (p.7)

6. Developing an educational critique through
Postscript to Societies of Control
o rise of data management systems e.g. SIMS, which centrally record assessment,
behaviour and achievements making both students and teachers ‘dividuals’
o use of data as basis for Ofsted, league tables, Fischer Family Trust projections.
Therefore, ‘dataveillance’ extends temporally in all directions.
o dividuation becomes central to education, including improvement planning, self-
evaluation, target setting etc.
o loss of professionalism, due to the need for constant training based on data, which in
turn is due to ‘a logic reduced to a calculation without remainder and leading as well to
a market of fools’. Hence, the proletarianization of teachers.

7. Corporatisation of Education
o Govean policies of academies and free schools bring both centralisation and further
loss of professionalism. Makes privatisation of the sector easier, leading to further
corporatisation.
o Govean principles of school centred training encourage ‘corresponding abandonment
of all university research, the introduction of the ‘corporation’ at all levels of schooling.’
(p.7)
‘Thank you very much, Dominic, for that kind introduction. I’m delighted to be here at
BETT today.
And I have to start by congratulating all the companies in this Hall.
British companies are world-leaders in the field of educational technology, and going
from strength to strength – the members of Besa, for example, increased exports by 12%
in 2010. Crick Software, which has worked in the USA, Chile and Qatar and which already
supplies 90% of UK primary schools, recently secured their biggest single order ever,
supplying half of all schools in Moscow with Clicker 5 literacy software ‘

8. New forms of resistance
‘One of the most important questions will concern the ineptitude of the unions: tied to
the whole of their history of struggle against the disciplines or within the spaces of
enclosure, will they be able to adapt themselves or will they give way to new forms of
resistance against the societies of control?’
o Foucault sees power as emergent and within interactions, not held in a simple
hierarchy. Deleuze argues that the capital oligarchy continues to amass money and
power, but through geophilosophy is always conscious of the potential for
deterritorialisation.
o resistance can occur, but through conflict between the ‘nomadic war machine’
and the ‘state machinery’.

9. New forms of resistance
o Nomadic resistance needs to be:
- grassroots
- flexible
- rhizomatic
o Use of new media for collaboration and development of materials, e.g. Twitter, blogs,
wikis, App Inventor
o Greater development of networks (subversion of Govean Teaching Schools initiative)
o Free schools – developing an alternative view of education
o Greater direct involvement from university sector at grassroots level