Surplus-Population and the Political Economy of Fear

Bibliographic Data

ID2370534
AuthorsSiyaves Azeri (0000-0002-3765-2489, École Normale Supérieure, France, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume45
Issue6
Pages889-905
Publication date2019-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0896920517737143
OpenAlexW2767980609
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited18

Fear, of which the fear of death is a variation, can be analysed in its relation to forms of societies. Pertaining to Marx's concept of 'surplus-population' and his analysis of the capitalist law of population, it is argued that the main source of anxiety and fear in capitalist society is the fear of life, which is expressed in the form of fear of the dead and of monsters. Capital posits the identity of every human individual through its law of population. What humans fear the most is the life that they live, which turns them into walking dead. Human's fear of life is twofold: on the one hand, she fears from being posited a zombie, a piece within the pile of human trash, that is, the surplus-population; on the other hand, she is scared of the dead, capital the spectre, which vampire-like sucks upon living labour

Aesthetics · Art · Capitalism · Economics · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Surplus value · Vampire · Demography · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Law · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics

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