Biotechnology, neoliberal politics of life and the spirit of biocapital

摘要

The inextricable relationship between biological science and capitalism has become a subject of epistemological excavation and theoretical exploration in the past few years. Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era by Melinda Cooper (2008) is a recent addition to a growing body of literature that explores with renewed energy the inter-relationship between biological reproduction and capital accumulation. Cooper's book brilliantly captures the economization and politicization of life in neoliberal capitalism. It is distinguished from others by its deeply moving narrative on the 'intense traffic between the biological and the economic spheres' (p. 4) that brought dramatic transformations in the North American commercial life sciences. Cooper adroitly traces its ensuing effects on property law and global trade rules, biological reproduction and growth, neoliberal theories of accumulation, US debt imperialism, and neofunda-mentalist politics of life and nationhood in the last three decades. The book also reveals 'a particular facet of life science politics in the neoliberal era', either in the form of promissory and transformative potential of speculative biocapital, or 'the forms of violence, obligation, and debt servitude that seem to be crystallizing around the emerging bioeconomy' (p. 14).