Use Beyond Value: Giorgio Agamben and a Critique of Capitalism

摘要

Interest in Giorgio Agamben's work is related to concerns about law in the aftermath of September 11 and the global war on terror. This article redirects the critical engagement with Agamben by exploring his relevance for understanding the politics of inclusion and abandonment in capitalist economies. Taking accounts of abandonment in the global economy as a provocation, I offer a rereading of Agamben that makes visible the specificity of capitalism as a mode for establishing and transgressing the border between proper and abandoned lives. Such a reading is already operative in Agamben's work, specifically in his engagement with Walter Benjamin and Guy Debord and his assertion that the exception has become the norm in spectacular societies. Recognizing this relationship requires qualification of Agamben's claim of an originary link between sovereign power and bare life, and allows us to reconsider the usefulness of his thought for a critique of political economy.