The Problematization of Idleness

Juridical conception and practice of power occurs through policing which leads to confinement. The disciplinary power through confinement establishes control through punishment of behavior and socioeconomic status. Individuals are transformed into subjects by and subject to the government, notably in Europe during the pre-Enlightenment period. The confined are made subjects of the state through the practice of biopower. Individuals are confined or not based on how they are perceived to exist in relation to idleness versus productivity. 

In Paris, the Hopital General problematizes unemployment and begging and sets its task to defining idleness as the source of all disorders. One of the precursors to the problematization of idleness was the 1532 Parlement of Paris policy of arresting beggars and forcing them to work in sewers while chained to one another. Another precursor was the order given in 1534 to force the poor/idle from Paris and to forbid them from singing hymns on the streets. 

It was the wars of religion that grew the ranks of peasants from farmers, disbanded soldiers, unemployed workers, impoverished students, and the sick. At the time of Henry IV’s siege of Paris, 30,000 of the 100,000 inhabitants were beggars. 

There were other precursors to problematizing idleness as well and they spanned over one hundred years before the Hopital General was born as both a means of Parlement wresting power from the Church as well as providing a solution to the problems of unrest and unruliness created by what the state defined as idleness in its myriad forms.

There was an economic revival in the early 1600s which led to the 1606 decree ordering beggars to be whipped in the public square, branded, shorn, and driven from Paris; a 1607 ordinance provided for archers to prevent the exiled from reentering the city. It’s important to note that the state did not distinguish idleness from poverty.

The Thirty Years’ War provided yet another precursor to the state’s problematization of idleness. Mendicancy and tax increases inhibited “rustic” manufacturing which augmented the unemployment of the time. Guilds lost power as as new economic structures, enabled by technology, developed manufactories. The world of labor became disorganized by this revolutionary economic shift. A series of General Regulations prohibited worker assemblies, leagues, and associations. Rioting in Rouen led to Church intervention through the accusations that workers’ secret gatherings were practices of sorcery. In the latter case, the Church rose up to claim its political space within the state’s politics and economics by acting as a policing and propaganda force due to the failure of juridical power to regulate and disband such workers’ attempts to organize to create their own source of power within the state. The Sorbonne Decree of 1655 proclaimed that such worker associations were guilty of sacrilege and mortal sin.

…

Mom, please let me inside!

No. Not until you sign the contract. You provide nothing for your dad and I. You live in our house for free, you sleep in the bed we bought you, you eat the food we buy for you, we pay your health care costs, we buy your clothing, we give you toys. What are you doing for us? Nothing. You sign the contract and then I’ll let you inside and you can have all those things again, okay?

If I sign the contract I’ll owe you money for my entire adult life!

Yes, that’s the idea. 

But that is indentured servitude!

Yes. And?

That’s wrong!

According to whom? I have to pay the bank for the right to live in this house and to pay the bank I must work to gain income. I, too, am an indentured servant. Everyone in America is except those with enough money to not have to be indebted to others.

So you learned to do this to me by being taught by banks?

Yes.

But I have zero dollars.

Right now. Later, when you are legally old enough to work, you will begin paying us a monthly stipend for the loan we are granting you. 

I don’t want most of the stuff you provide for me. I asked for a train set for Christmas and you gave me a G.I. Joe. 

You never put that in writing.

But paying for gifts? Why do you call them gifts if I have to pay for them?

Good point. We’ll deduct the toys you received before your preschool years.

I also want Fruit Loops instead of vegetables.

I’m afraid that’s not negotiable. We need you to be healthy so you’ll live long enough to pay us back for our investment. 

Your investment?

Yes. We’ll be charging 10 percent annual interest to the principle you owe us.

When does this interest begin accumulating?

Oh, it’s been accumulating since I found out I was pregnant.

That’s not fair! I never chose to be conceived!

Those are nature’s rules. 

You could have practiced abstinence or used condoms!

True, but your father and I calculated our financial needs for the rest of our lives and determined that to be able to retire without living in poverty we would need a significant boost in income. That’s why we expect straight A’s from you. It’s also why we enter you into so many extracurricular activities. It will look good on your resume for college.

You bastards!

Now, now. No need for bad words.

Fuck you! My curse words come free. 

No, there is a linguistic and emotional harassment addendum in the contract so fines can be levied against you.

If that is so then nothing I have done or that you have provided previously should be in the contract.

Should? Ha! You have no bargaining power. It’s all in there.

I’ll go to social services. 

If you do you’ll wind up as an indentured servant to someone less welcoming than your father and I.

Maybe I’ll take my chances. 

In that case, I’m calling the police. You’re trespassing in our yard.

No! Okay, so in this contract, you’re charging me for everything you’ve purchased for me since birth and you will charge me for everything from now until I am eighteen. 

Until you move out of the house, but yes, that will probably be about when you are eighteen. When you go to college it will be best for you to get scholarships. We will pay for your education if need be, but I believe you can get better rates through student loans. 

So this you’ll be charging me a fixed rate at 10 percent?

Yes, honey. Only parents who don’t love their kids use APR. We love you very much.

Still, I will have to pay you much more than you will pay in providing for me.

Yes and no. Future interest is complicated. If you study economics you’ll find out.

It makes no sense. Right now I have zero dollars, but when I begin adulthood I will have negative dollars. 

Oh, honey, you have negative dollars now!

But I haven’t signed the contract yet!

I know that, but six years old is the age of consent. By law, you owe us for what we’ve paid thus far for your well-being. We’ve itemized everything.

How can I pay you now?

Pish posh. according to law, you’ll owe us monthly payments for the expenses of the first six years of your life once you enter adulthood. As I said previously, interest began accruing on expenses during pregnancy. You’ll owe not just us, but also whoever chooses to allow you to live with them. But they’ll only accept you if you sign a contract. 

I could live in the wilderness and survive there.

I’m afraid all land and water is owned by banks now, honey. You have to pay rent everywhere you may go. 

That’s crazy.

Some used to think so, too. They’ve been forcibly assimilated. 

That sounds terrifying!

Yes, it is, but it’s the only way.

So if I sign the contract, I’ll be agreeing to accumulating more negative dollars as long as I live with you?

That’s correct. 

How can there be negative dollars? 

Like I said, when you study economics you’ll understand.

Are there negative apples or negative trees or negative puppies?

In a sense, you could say that there are. It would depend upon the contract, though.

How could there be negative two apples in the house or negative four trees in the yard?

Well, if I made a contract with someone promising to bring two apples to the house and plant four trees in the yard, I would have negative two apples and negative four trees and until I brought two apples into the house and four trees in the yard.

Wait a minute. If we signed a contract for you to bring two apples to me in the house and to plant four trees in the yard and then you did those things … the two apples in the house would mean there were zero apples in the house and the four trees in the yard would be zero trees in the yard?

Contractually speaking, yes. 

That’s utterly insane!

Yes, dear, it is. Welcome to civilization! You’re a big boy now, the age of consent. Why don’t you come inside, sign the contract, and I’ll make you a salad. I got the ingredients from Whole Foods.

The fuck you did! You’re shopping at Aldi’s from now on. And you’re returning that damn Nintendo Switch you got me for my birthday, you bitch. 

Ah, ah, ah. Language. I’ll give you a pass on that this time since this is a difficult time for you. Believe me, it’ll all work out. Just think, one day you’ll be able to have kids of your own and you can start saving for your retirement. 

…

The advent of the Hopital General provided for the creation of truth. Truth, in this context, was the denial of worker gatherings as worker gatherings and identification of such gatherings as forms of idleness in their own right. Establishing this as truth within the state was a critical necessity in the triad of power with confinement now resting on the grounds of rationality and obligation. This was an essential process in the establishment of the problematization of idleness and the legitimacy of the state as the arbiter of truth. 

Idle persons were no longer exiled but controlled through the financial cost of the state and the loss of individual liberty. The right to food was was provided through the acquiescence to the physical and moral constraints of confinement (an acknowledgement by state subjects that the state and only the state had power over the body as well as defining acceptable behaviors of state subjects.

The Edict of 1657 formalized juridical power exercised by means of confinement. The granting of policing powers provided the militia with the legitimacy to hunt beggars and herd them into the buildings of the Hopital General. The population of the confined grew steadily in four years. Even married couples were arrested and confined.

Throughout Europe the triad of power—unity, necessity, and rationality (obligation)—carried the same meaning as it did in France. It either resulted from or was invented as a control mechanism because of the economic crisis affecting the entire Western world (Europe and its colonies) in the first half of the 17th century. 

The Truth of Idleness in its forms of poverty, unemployment, begging, and sickness was established through juridical power (decrees, edicts, and ordinances) for the purpose of controlling a substantial portion of the population that were feared as potential destabilizers of state sovereignty. The option of exile proved untenable as a solution because it created instability outside the cities and had the potential to provoke uprisings and the destabilization of state power to provide economic stability and growth. 

Though a portion of the population was not immediately needed for productivity, later possibilities for using the confined for necessary labor purposes that might arise justified (for the state) the physical, structural, administrative, and policing costs to the state. This new system of confinement provided a clever stabilizing system by bringing a formidable force of invested parties under the umbrella of state control which fortified state legitimacy and sovereignty.