Acting Up with Hardt and Negri: Capitalism in the Biopolitical Context

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Abstract

Since the early 2000s, we have been witnessing the interpolation of the notion of biopolitics into the domain of radical thought. In this endeavour, Hardt and Negri’s contribution lies in locating the transformation of capitalism following its industrial form in the biopolitical context, which is largely attained through the infusion of Marxist concepts (i.e. living labour and real subsumption) into profoundly modulated Foucauldian concepts (i.e. biopolitics and biopower). The objective of this paper is to shed light on the key elements of Hardt and Negri’s philosophical and theoretical-political fusion between Marx and Foucault, whereby a promising argument is proposed for the subversive bodies who are eager to act up against the forces of capital, that is, the social powers of biopolitical production can no longer be contained in capitalist biopower.