Life as surplus : biotechnology and capitalism in the neoliberal era / Melinda Cooper.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cooper, Melinda.

Series:

In vivo (Seattle, Wash.)

In vivo

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Biotechnology--Political aspects--United States.

Biotechnology.

Life sciences--Political aspects--United States.

Life sciences.

Capitalism--Health aspects--United States.

Capitalism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (233 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Seattle : University of Washington Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Focusing on the period between the 1970s and the present, Life as Surplus is a pointed and important study of the relationship between politics, economics, science, and cultural values in the United States today. Melinda Cooper demonstrates that the history of biotechnology cannot be understood without taking into account the simultaneous rise of neoliberalism as a political force and an economic policy. From the development of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s to the second Bush administration's policies on stem cell research, Cooper connects the utopian polemic of free-market capitalism with growing internal contradictions of the commercialized life sciences.The biotech revolution relocated economic production at the genetic, microbial, and cellular level. Taking as her point of departure the assumption that life has been drawn into the circuits of value creation, Cooper underscores the relations between scientific, economic, political, and social practices. In penetrating analyses of Reagan-era science policy, the militarization of the life sciences, HIV politics, pharmaceutical imperialism, tissue engineering, stem cell science, and the pro-life movement, the author examines the speculative impulses that have animated the growth of the bioeconomy.At the very core of the new post-industrial economy is the transformation of biological life into surplus value. Life as Surplus offers a clear assessment of both the transformative, therapeutic dimensions of the contemporary life sciences and the violence, obligation, and debt servitude crystallizing around the emerging bioeconomy.

Contents:

Life beyond the limits : inventing the bioeconomy

On pharmaceutical empire: AIDS, security, and exorcism

Preempting emergence : the biological turn in the war on terror

Contortions : tissue engineering and the topological body

Labors of regeneration : stem cells and the embryoid bodies of capital

The unborn born again : neo-imperialism, the evangelical right, and the culture of life.

Notes:

"A McLellan book"--t.p.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-211) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9780295990316

0295990317

OCLC:

701103973