Capitalism and Immunity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2021.65.04Keywords:
Capitalism, Immunity, Affects, Desire, LifeAbstract
In his best-seller The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han maintained that the immunological dispositive is not compatible with global capitalism. In this article, I argue, against Han, that the capitalism we inhabit produces countless immunological devices, and not just in times of pandemic. In particular, I emphasize the affective dimension of these mechanisms, the configuration of desire they generate. When carrying out this reflection, I highlight the complexity of immunity: since it can be considered a defense system that activates forms of rejection towards the strange, identified as a risk for a body (individual and social) assumed in an identitarian way (this is what Han calls the ‘immunological dispositive’). However, immunity can also be understood in symbiotically terms, as a system of protection and care strategies, not tied to preserving the border between self and not-self, the proper and the improper, but dependent on a relational understanding of life.
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