Foucault's metaphor of the Panopticon as the "anonymous centralization of power" helps to explain the threads of power that touch every subject in some manner; however, the Panopticon fails to explain the source or sources of these threads, leaving the reader to conclude that power comes from nowhere--such a conclusion may not offer sufficient insights into past, present, and future. --Alli

In his discourse, Michel Foucault elegantly turns down all global assumptions on the nature and origins of social phenomena, otherwise assumed to be a representation of reason; instead, he becomes more concerned with history where each historical event is singular and unique, and the factors causing these events are multiple, complex, and contingent; stripping historical events of their conventional explanations (significations), he equates history with other previously unclassifiable social manifestations
such as literature, madness, etc., thus "allowing "—otherness "to speak"(Sarup 60).--Iana

Foucault's belief that "power is everywhere," that power is an open set of relations, and that all social relations are power relations neglects to explain the concept of resistance, and of class struggle; if power is positive and productive as Foucault conceptualizes it, then there is no room for opposition, because power itself has no foundation.--Jerry