From the industrial Spirit to the bioeconomic Cyborg: perspectives for a humanism of poverty

Abstract

The aim of this work is to show the features of the industrial and of the post-Fordist production. I will show that the first of them lets a world appear, where the distinction among humans, machines and nature is sharp. On the contrary, the second kind of production is correlated to a new configuration of the subject crossed by cultural, mechanical and natural traits: the cyborg. Starting from these assumptions I will, on the one hand, criticize the modern and traditional humanism, connected to the Fordist production, based on the presupposition of a separated human essence and of a teleological history of freedom.  On the other hand, I will try to point out the main traits of a new cyborg humanism, consistent with the effects of the post-Fordism. This new humanism, critical of the new forms of capitalistic expropriation, will be identified through the concept of “Poverty”.