six: 19 JANUARY 1972

Abstract

A remarkable system of repression for several reasons. I. Internal coherence: interplay of differentiated sanctions aiming to break the previous alliances of social groups; financial profit given to the privileged in return for maintenance of order; formation of a third (neither military nor juridical) instance as (juridico-military) administrative instrument of the State, but basic lack of a specific apparatus of repression. II. Visible precariousness: differentiated arming (problems of bourgeois militias and popular arming), ruinous intervention by the army; drop in income from property as from tax levies; rent/taxes antinomy; bringing two contradictions into play. III. Resolution of the rent/taxes antinomy and stabilization of the army. From 1640, setting up of a new institution and distinct repressive apparatus within the State apparatus (intendants of justice, police and finance), acting as administrative tribunal and exceptional jurisdiction; establishment of a centralized and local police; a levy on the “dangerous population”, confinement and deportation. ~ Birth of the prison conjointly with birth of capitalism.