Earthly Plenitudes: A Study on Sovereignty and Labor (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781592139798)

A fierce critique of productivity and sovereignty in the world of labor and everyday life, Bruno Gull1/4OCOs Earthly Plenitudes asks, can labor exist without sovereignty and without capitalism? He introduces the concept of dignity of individuation to prompt a rethinking of categories of political ontology. Dignity of individuation stresses the notion that the dignity of each and any individual being lies in its being individuated as such; dignity is the irreducible and most essential character of any being. Singularity is a more universal quality.
Gull1/4 first reviews approaches to sovereignty by philosophers as varied as Gottfried Leibniz and Georges Bataille, and then looks at concrete examples where the alliance of sovereignty and capital cracks under the potency of living labor. He examines contingent academic labor as an example of the super-exploitation of labor, which has become a global phenomenon, and as such, a clear threat to the sovereign logic of capital. Gull1/4 also looks at disability to assert that a new measure of humanity can only be found outside the schemes of sovereignty, productivity, efficiency, and independence, through care and caring for others, in solidarity and interdependence.

Author: Bruno Gulli
ISBN-10: 1592139795
ISBN-13: 9781592139798
Publisher: Temple University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/01/2009
Pages: 200
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 12/11/2009 pg. 22