The U.S.’ capitalist biopower must be combatted

U.S.

Sean Reichbach Opinions Columnist

The United States’ narratives are weapons aimed at those who are the most marginalized by capitalist institutions. The state seeks perpetual control through puppeteering — to tether itself to the stories of those who live on the gray border between freedom and oppression that is every square inch of this land. The state almost never releases its grip on those who, if some semblance of real individual power were possible, could be a threat to the state’s corporate mission. A simple analysis can conclude that the state’s mission to control minority populations and impose cultural subjugation upon the land’s original caretakers has been mostly or entirely successful. The capitalist class and the government have created a narrative that they must have the authority to command the right to life or death, and the right to limit life in order to increase the utility of the state. In this sense, we could say the concept of policing stems from the rule-utilitarian belief that less criminal activity brings the state more happiness, and thus we should promote a strong policing force to maximize our productivity to the state.

But the state doesn’t stop at using narratives of patriotism to justify its military-industrial complex or imperialist tendencies.

It also takes the stories and dreams of every oppressed citizen and twists them in order to promote its own goals and, indeed, impose more suffering. This is the idea of biopower, which confers the status of “living dead” upon every non-white citizen of this country.

Before I discuss biopower, I will first introduce the apparatus that births it.

Let us conceive the United States as an ideological state apparatus, one similar to the theoretical conception of the capitalist state by Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser. We might say there are important institutions that the state uses to maintain its power, such as religion, education, the family, law, communication and the military. Importantly, the ideology that is realized in these institutions is that of the ruling class. The ruling class uses narrative-control of these institutions in order to hold power and continue subjugation of the individuals who blindly follow these institutions in order to remain good citizens. The individual citizen participates in regular day-to-day tasks that are directed by the ideological apparatus of the state. You may go to a tax- exempt church and be told how to perform immaterial practices, such as devotion to a deity, through material practices, such as donating to the military or church.

If we are ideologically nurtured by the state, we can see that, from our start within the capitalist system, our narratives are manipulated in order to accomplish an objective of producing workers — who