‘Political Economy’ of the Body- Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish

“[T]he body is . . . directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs.” (25)

~This reminds me of the colonies in the New World because those people were given precise rules to be followed by. The regulations were forced by King James and they had to carry out the tasks. So the body of a person is controlled by a higher person in order to be trained and fulfill the tasks given.

“[I]t is largely as a force of production that the body is invested with relations of power and domination; but, on the other hand, its constitution as labour power is possible only if it is caught up in a system of subjection . . . the body becomes a useful force only if it is both a productive body and a subjected body.” (26)

~I think that this quote means that the body is useful only when there is higher authority over it, forcing it to be productive. This way, the body can bring use to whatever the master rules it to do.