The Biopolitical Body of Capital

Originally published in French, this English edition translated by Jacques Bidet offers a rigorous and interdisciplinary reading of Capital, challenging dominant mainstream interpretations that overlook Marx's critique of capitalist society. Centring on the chapter "The Working Day," the book reveals Marx's analysis of labour exploitation as a biopolitical struggle between capital and living labour. Drawing on Foucault's concept of biopolitics, it reframes wage labour as a conflict over bodily autonomy, social reproduction, and the limits of capitalist control. Through a meticulous reconstruction of Marx's method - moving from abstract to concrete - eminent Marx scholar Jacques Bidet identifies three distinct levels of labour analysis (general, commodity-based, and wage labour), bringing clarity often lost in mainstream commentaries. He critiques influential interpretations by Harvey, Negri, Postone, and others, while acknowledging Marx's limits in theorizing race, gender, and nation. To address these gaps, Bidet proposes a "Marxist metastructural theory of modernity" that extends Marx's emancipatory vision. Accessible yet scholarly, The Biopolitical Body of Capital is ideal for students and researchers in politics, philosophy, economics, sociology, and history. It speaks to readers seeking a politically engaged, analytically precise understanding of Marx's work - one that resonates with today's global crises and the urgent need for transformative change.

Jacques Bidet is former Emeritus Professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre, France, and founder of the journal Actuel Marx. Throughout his research since the 1980s, he has been developing a theory of modern society and history known as a "metastructural theory of modernity", mainly inspired by Marx, in the light of Althusser and Habermas, Bourdieu and Foucault, Wallerstein and others.

Introduction. 1. The Three Bodies of the Modern Worker 2. Mortal Body and Legal Body, Social Body and Proper Body 3. National Body, Species Body, Foreign Body. Conclusion: Rereading Marx from Foucault's Perspective. Afterword: A Battle on Seven Fronts