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Abstract Life, Abstract Labor, Abstract Mind

In: The Capitalist Commodification of Animals

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  • Charles Thorpe
  • Brynna Jacobson

Abstract

Drawing upon Alfred Sohn-Rethel's work, we argue that, just as capitalism produces abstract labor, it coproduces both abstract mind and abstract life. Abstract mind is the split between mind and nature and between subject/observer and observed object that characterizes scientific epistemology. Abstract mind reflects an abstracted objectified world of nature as a means to be exploited. Biological life is rendered as abstract life by capitalist exploitation and by the reification and technologization of organisms by contemporary technoscience. What Alberto Toscano has called “the culture of abstraction” imposes market rationality onto nature and the living world, disrupting biotic communities and transforming organisms into what Finn Bowring calls “functional bio-machines.”

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Thorpe & Brynna Jacobson, 2020. "Abstract Life, Abstract Labor, Abstract Mind," Research in Political Economy, in: The Capitalist Commodification of Animals, volume 35, pages 59-105, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:rpeczz:s0161-723020200000035004
    DOI: 10.1108/S0161-723020200000035004
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