Dead Labor, Homo Sacer, and Letting die in the Labor Market

Abstract

Within philosophy, a long-standing debate has addressed the moral distinction between ‘taking life’ and ‘letting die’. In this paper I re-situate this debate within the context of the capitalist labor market. Drawing on insights from both Marx and Agamben, I re-theorize the figure of figure of homo sacer as a (potentially) dead laborer to argue that an ideology of ‘letting die’ is systemic to capitalism; however, our legal, spiritual, and moral values, and the privileging of ‘negative rights’, continue to promote the belief that killing is morally worse.