The capitalist economy is driven by an accumulation activity that has gradually freed itself from natural constraints. As a result of human and social action, it assumed artificial and discretional forms that, starting from the industrial revolution, would have taken on the structure of manufacturing. Being unable to keep a constant form in time such an activity varies according to the dialectic process that accumulation itself triggers. During the XIX century, the accumulation process depended upon the combination of two factors: the factory workers’ knowledge and the early processes of mechanization attached to the development of heavy and textile industries. In the subsequent phase, namely during the development of the Taylorist-Fordist model, the accumulation process, via the complete expropriation of workers’ knowledge and the consequent implementation of the production of goods, brought to its apex the process of the Smithian division of labour. At present, with the advent of cognitive capitalism, the accumulation process rests upon and takes shape from the exploitation of an individual’s vital faculties via a net-shaped structure of social cooperation. Hence, in this context, it is fair to say that it is the very same knowledge that is to be[come] the expression of the bios. In other words, the accumulation process presupposes the existence of a power mechanism (dispositif) able to transform existential activities into productive relations. From this point of view, bio-economics is the complementary and symmetric aspect of bio-politics: if by bio-politics is meant here the ability to put in place a mechanism of social and juridical control, by bio-economics we mean its analogous vis a vis productive, accumulative and redistributive mechanisms.

Bioeconomics and the Valorisation Process

FUMAGALLI, ANDREA MARIA
2010-01-01

Abstract

The capitalist economy is driven by an accumulation activity that has gradually freed itself from natural constraints. As a result of human and social action, it assumed artificial and discretional forms that, starting from the industrial revolution, would have taken on the structure of manufacturing. Being unable to keep a constant form in time such an activity varies according to the dialectic process that accumulation itself triggers. During the XIX century, the accumulation process depended upon the combination of two factors: the factory workers’ knowledge and the early processes of mechanization attached to the development of heavy and textile industries. In the subsequent phase, namely during the development of the Taylorist-Fordist model, the accumulation process, via the complete expropriation of workers’ knowledge and the consequent implementation of the production of goods, brought to its apex the process of the Smithian division of labour. At present, with the advent of cognitive capitalism, the accumulation process rests upon and takes shape from the exploitation of an individual’s vital faculties via a net-shaped structure of social cooperation. Hence, in this context, it is fair to say that it is the very same knowledge that is to be[come] the expression of the bios. In other words, the accumulation process presupposes the existence of a power mechanism (dispositif) able to transform existential activities into productive relations. From this point of view, bio-economics is the complementary and symmetric aspect of bio-politics: if by bio-politics is meant here the ability to put in place a mechanism of social and juridical control, by bio-economics we mean its analogous vis a vis productive, accumulative and redistributive mechanisms.
2010
9783631604618
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11571/404531
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