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On Life as a Fictitious Commodity: Cities and the Biopolitics of Late Neoliberalism
Author(s) -
Rossi Ugo
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of urban and regional research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.456
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1468-2427
pISSN - 0309-1317
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2427.12063
Subject(s) - biopower , neoliberalism (international relations) , commodity , grassroots , ideology , financialization , political economy , state (computer science) , sociology , economics , neoclassical economics , capitalism , market economy , political science , politics , law , algorithm , computer science
Abstract Building on a biopolitical understanding of the economic crisis, this essay contends that the occurrence of the crisis warns that life is not a real commodity but — to put it in K arl P olanyi's terms — a ‘fictitious commodity’. This means that life cannot be integrally subsumed within the economy, and therefore the crisis is to be seen as a pathological way in which societies react to the pervasiveness of capitalist relations, showing the illusory character of self‐regulating markets and ownership ideologies. Two mutually contradictory biopolitical responses to the neoliberal crisis, led by the state and grassroots movements respectively, are discussed in the concluding section of the essay.