At this point we can finally see what's really at stake in our peculiar habit of defining ourselves simultaneously as master and slave, reduplicating the most brutal aspects of the ancient household in our very concept of ourselves, as masters of our freedoms, or as owners of our very selves. It is the only way that we can imagine ourselves as completely isolated beings. There is a direct line from the new Roman conception of liberty — not as the ability to form mutual relationships with others, but as the kind of absolute power of "use and abuse" over the conquered chattel who make up the bulk of a wealthy Roman man's household — to the strange fantasies of liberal philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, and Smith, about the origins of human society in some collection of thirty- or forty-year-old males who seem to have sprung from the earth fully formed, then have to decide whether to kill each other or begin to swap beaver pelts. David Graeber
About This Quote

In this quote, Foucault says that the ancient household became the basis for modern society. When we look at our modern society today, we can see how it is the same as the ancient household. We have a master and a slave. People have to obey their masters and they have to obey their governments.

If someone does not, they might be put in prison or even killed. The ancient household was a way of organizing a society so that everyone had a place and people who were not treated well would suffer for it. It is also a system that puts people into specific categories such as master and slave.

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years

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