In Discipline and Punish, Foucault describes the modern "soul" as the real correlative of a certain technology of power over the body.
"On this reality reference, various concepts have been constructed and domains of analysis carved out: psyche, subjectivity, personality, consciousness, etc; on it have been built scientific techniques and discourses, and the moral claims of humanism." (p.30)
(see subject )
In Discipline and Punish, he documented the shift in the techniques of punishment away from the body , "from an art of unbearable sensations" to "an economy of suspended rights." For Foucault, it is not just an issue of dehumanization (as Heidegger saw it) but the transformation of the body and of subjectivities.
See the panopticon as the diagram of modern power. (see also biopower)
The history of work is a history of discipline.