Public and Private in the Study of Biosociality and Biocapitalism

Abstract

The concept of biosociality is associated with the problematic of the role of knowledge about life and the laws of inheriting genetic information in the processes of the emergence and formation of social order and the transformation of social practices. An example of such changes can be considered the transformation in modern medical practice of the diagnosed risk of breast cancer to a disease that requires preventive treatment. This case reveals a radical change in the relationship between public health and modern biomedicine. Such changes in social practices are impossible without extrapolating scientific knowledge to the public sphere with its subsequent appropriation by various social groups. This appropriation is made possible by the diffusion of the public/private boundary. At this point, the concept of biosociality intersects with a popular notion of biocapitalism. The term itself is not conventional, along with it are also used concepts such as cognitive or communication capitalism, lively capital. The concept of biocapitalism is a product of development of the traditions of political economy, concerning the reduction of the problem of the genesis of the social order in the field of Economics. Observed in the theory “proven” and “universal” economical laws act as an important source of development of society. The well-known theorist of biocapitalism K.S. Rajan, trying to eliminate this latent universalism, introduces the concept of contingence, removing the strict economic determinism. However, the approach developed by Rajan does not make it possible to conceptually describe the problem of public/private because of the elimination of aspects related to the existence of the level of global capital. Following J. Damit and T. Tanner, the author of this article seeks a solution to this problem in the analysis of new forms of commodity fetishism inherent in biocapitalism.