Abstract

ExcerptModern government is essentially economic, disposing of its subjects by exposing them to the supposedly natural exigencies of capitalist exchange. To survive, the individual must “earn a living”—in other words, pay for the space that his life takes up. The payment is work, or tangibly effective action—action that proves, on an abstract and universal scale, the value of the subject's continued existence. The sheer necessity, for each individual, of such measurably valuable work is what forces his regular participation in the economy that is the liberal market-state. In order to challenge this system, it seems, one must challenge the hegemony…