The biopolitical economy of the COVID-19 pandemic and the possibilities for an affirmative biopolitics

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is in threefold. First, it focuses on the workings and operations of the biopolitical economy. Second, it explores how the pandemic has exposed the thanatopolitical tendency of neoliberal capitalism, particularly in the form of herd immunity. Herd immunity deploys death as one of the instruments, making plain that the valuation of life is based on its sacrificability to capital. The final part engages with Roberto Esposito’s affirmative biopolitical perspective that strives to avoid the thanatopolitical tendency Agamben (over-)emphasized. I claim that while Esposito’s affirmative biopolitical perspective puts pressure on the thanatopolitical position, it could nevertheless be invoked for the reconstitution or reconceptualization of the future commons.