“Biopolitics” by John Marks: Summary and Critique

Introduction: “Biopolitics” by John Marks

Table of Contents

“Biopolitics” by John Marks first appeared in Theory, Culture & Society, Volume 23, Issues 2–3, in 2006 is a critical intervention in the philosophical discourse surrounding the regulation of life, biology, and the body within late capitalist societies. Marks draws from Michel Foucault’s original concept of biopolitics introduced in The History of Sexuality (1978), where power shifts from the sovereign’s right to kill toward a systemic governance of life itself—its health, education, reproduction, and biological productivity (Marks, 2006, p. 333). The essay situates biopolitics at the core of a transformation in political rationality, where the state assumes responsibility not only for law and order but also for the optimization of life processes. Marks emphasizes how developments in molecular biology, genomics, and bioinformatics have amplified biopolitical governance, potentially leading to new forms of eugenics, genetic commodification, and a stratified posthuman society (Marks, 2006, pp. 334–335). He foregrounds concerns voiced by theorists such as Hardt and Negri (2000), who claim that control now permeates the entire social field, as well as critiques by Thacker (2004), who proposes a “cultural bioethics” that resists normative ethical protocols by embracing ontological and affective dimensions of bodily existence. In literary theory and critical thought, Marks’s article is significant for mapping how biopolitics interlaces with cultural production, ethics, and epistemology, thereby making it a foundational text for understanding the political stakes of life itself in both philosophical inquiry and global literary imaginaries.

Summary of “Biopolitics” by John Marks

🔴 1. Biopolitics as a Shift in Sovereign Power

“From the 18th century onwards, biological existence is no longer a neutral, unchanging substrate upon which political existence is superimposed” (Marks, 2006, p. 333).

Foucault’s concept of biopolitics marks a historical transition where politics begins managing life rather than merely wielding power over death.

Politics now governs the processes of life itself—birth, health, reproduction, and survival—through regulation and norm-setting.

🟠 2. Biopolitics in Industrial Capitalism

“Biopolitical processes… have become part of the fabric of everyday reality in advanced capitalist economies” (Marks, 2006, p. 333).

In capitalist states, biopolitics integrates health, education, and insurance with industrial organization.

As capitalism globalizes, welfare norms and labor rights are reconsidered, reshaping the biopolitical consensus of the industrial era.

🟡 3. Control Societies and the Multitude

“Power is expressed as a form of control that pervades the entire social field” (Marks, 2006, p. 334).

Hardt and Negri argue that modern power is no longer centralized but diffused throughout all social practices.

However, this total reach enables widespread resistance—not from the margins, but from a decentralized “multitude” (Hardt & Negri, 2000).

🟢 4. War, Genocide, and Biopolitical Violence

“The Second World War… was characterized by… the drift to ‘total war’… and eugenics as a racist state policy” (Marks, 2006, p. 334).

Marks shows how biopolitics took a violent turn during 20th-century wars, targeting entire populations.

Eugenics programs represented the dark side of governing life—life that could be optimized or eliminated based on ideology.

🔵 5. The Biotechnological Return of Eugenics

“Eugenics might make a return in new forms… a new, ‘liberal’ eugenics led by consumer choice” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

The new eugenics operates through markets, not states—privileged individuals may use gene editing to design offspring.

This consumer-driven enhancement threatens to revive social inequalities based on genetic attributes.

🟣 6. Biopolitical Problematization in the Genomic Era

“There is an increasing sense that we are entering an era of biopolitical problematization” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

Since the DNA double-helix discovery, life itself has become visible, measurable, and manipulable.

Rabinow (1999) warns that biotechnologies promise transformative outcomes, yet remain speculative—placing us in a “purgatorial” phase.

🟤 7. Human Integrity vs. Posthuman Futures

“The attempt to prevent… DNA… from being subject to modification” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

Genetic interventions raise moral concerns about human dignity and the sanctity of birth.

Habermas (2003) defends the randomness of birth as essential to human freedom, while Fukuyama (2003) fears the collapse of stable human nature.

⚫ 8. Genetic Enclosure and Environmental Risks

“Genetic enclosure… analogous to the land enclosures of the 17th century” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

Rifkin (1999) draws attention to the monopolization of genetic resources, echoing historical dispossession.

Gene patenting and crop modification could erode biodiversity, making life itself a commodity.

⚪ 9. Bioethics vs. Bio-Ethics: From Norms to Relations

“A form of bioethics… more genuinely philosophical in approach” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

Thacker (2004) contrasts rigid, Kantian bioethics with a Spinoza-inspired “bio-ethics” focused on affect, capacity, and relationality.

This framework emphasizes what bodies can do and how they interact, rather than prescribing universal moral codes.

🟥 10. Biopolitics as Critical Lens for Global Knowledge

“The conceptual resources of thinking on biopolitics have been seen… as a useful analytical tool” (Marks, 2006, p. 334).

Biopolitics allows for a critical interrogation of global governance, inequality, and scientific discourse.

Marks positions it as an essential method for analyzing the entanglement of life, power, and knowledge in the 21st century.

Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Biopolitics” by John Marks

🧠 Term/Concept	🧾 Explanation	📌 Example from Article	📚 Reference
🟥 Biopolitics	Political power that governs life itself—focusing on health, reproduction, and bodily regulation rather than death.	Marks explains the shift “from the sovereign right to take life to a politics of fostering life” (Marks, 2006, p. 333).	Marks (2006, p. 333)
🟧 Biopower	Foucault’s term for how modern institutions control life through norms, surveillance, and statistics rather than brute force.	The rise of welfare, education systems, and health management illustrate biopower at work in capitalist societies (Marks, 2006, p. 333).	Foucault (1978); Marks (2006, p. 333)
🟨 Dispositif	A network of discourses, practices, and institutions that collectively shape the governance of bodies and populations.	The industrial-era dispositif organized labor, welfare, and capital into a biopolitical formation (Marks, 2006, p. 334).	Marks (2006, p. 334)
🟩 Multitude	A decentralized, plural resistance to biopolitical control in post-disciplinary societies.	Hardt and Negri’s “multitude” replaces the proletariat as a dispersed but powerful collective force (Marks, 2006, p. 334).	Hardt & Negri (2000); Marks (2006, p. 334)
🟦 Liberal Eugenics	A market-driven form of eugenics where genetic selection is exercised through individual consumer choice, not state policy.	Genetic testing and embryo selection allow personal enhancement but risk social division (Marks, 2006, p. 335).	Marks (2006, p. 335)
🟪 Biopolitical Anxiety	Collective fears provoked by biotechnological power over life—ranging from ethics to identity and ecology.	Taguieff outlines anxieties over liberal eugenics, the erosion of the human, and ecological harm (Marks, 2006, pp. 335–336).	Taguieff (2001); Marks (2006, pp. 335–336)
🟫 Genetic Enclosure	Rifkin’s idea that gene patenting and biotech capitalism resemble the historical enclosure of common lands.	Privatization of genetic material may reduce biodiversity and commodify life (Marks, 2006, p. 336).	Rifkin (1999); Marks (2006, p. 336)
⬛ Posthumanism	A theoretical position questioning fixed notions of human nature in light of technological and genetic modification.	Silver imagines a genetically engineered elite (“GenRich”) dominating society (Marks, 2006, p. 336).	Silver (1997); Marks (2006, p. 336)
⚪ Cultural Bioethics	Thacker’s model of bioethics focused on ontology, embodiment, and affect rather than rigid moral codes.	It poses questions like: “What is a body? What can a body do?” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).	Thacker (2004); Marks (2006, p. 335)
🔵 Ontological Experience	A holistic understanding of experience where the whole is immanent in the part, contrasting with analytic, fragmentary knowledge.	Lash’s discussion of experience suggests culture and life must be encountered in their entirety, not as classified data (Marks, 2006, p. 335).	Lash; Gadamer; Marks (2006, p. 335)

Contribution of “Biopolitics” by John Marks to Literary Theory/Theories

🧬 1. Poststructuralism and Governmentality Studies

“Biological existence is no longer a neutral, unchanging substrate upon which political existence is superimposed” (Marks, 2006, p. 333).

Contribution: Marks builds on Foucault’s poststructuralist framework to show how power operates not through repression but through life-governing mechanisms—critical for understanding character, identity, and subjectivity in literature.

Implication for Literary Theory: Encourages reading texts for how bodies are disciplined and regulated by discourses (e.g., medical, racial, reproductive).
Theoretical Link: Aligns with Foucauldian literary criticism and biopolitical readings of texts.

🔁 2. Cultural Materialism and Ideology Critique

“Norms of welfare… were articulated with the demands of mass, organized industrial and commercial activity” (Marks, 2006, p. 333).

Contribution: Marks traces how state and capitalist institutions mobilize biopolitical norms to control populations—highlighting the entwinement of ideology and bodily life.
Implication for Literary Theory: Texts are read as part of ideological apparatuses that reproduce or resist biopolitical control (e.g., welfare novels, factory literature).
Theoretical Link: Reinforces cultural materialist approaches focused on the socio-political construction of the body.

🌍 3. Postcolonial Theory

“The globalization of capital means that previous biopolitical norms… are being reassessed” (Marks, 2006, p. 334).

Contribution: Marks connects biopolitics to globalization, suggesting biopower plays a role in regulating postcolonial subjects through labor migration, health discourses, and legal systems.
Implication for Literary Theory: Enables a reading of postcolonial texts that interrogate how bodies are racialized, pathologized, or exploited under global capitalism.

Theoretical Link: Intersects with Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics and globalization theory in postcolonial critique.

🧪 4. Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Literature

“From the discovery of the double-helix… a new dimension of matter… appears to be increasingly available for observation and manipulation” (Marks, 2006, p. 334).

Contribution: Marks draws attention to the biotechnological transformation of life—bringing scientific discourse into literary interpretation.

Implication for Literary Theory: Offers tools to interpret how literature reflects, critiques, or imagines genomic knowledge, artificial life, or biotech futures.
Theoretical Link: Bridges literary studies with STS and biofiction analysis.

🧬 5. Bioethics and Philosophical Aesthetics

“Thacker argues that this ‘cultural bioethics’… asks… What is a body? What can a body do?” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

Contribution: Introduces “cultural bioethics” as a framework for engaging with philosophical questions of embodiment and ontology.
Implication for Literary Theory: Encourages analysis of how texts ethically frame the body—especially in dystopias, medical fiction, or posthuman literature.
Theoretical Link: Connects with Deleuzian aesthetics, affect theory, and body theory in literature.

🧬 6. Posthumanism and the Question of Human Nature

“This new eugenics… threatens to create a radical new set of social divisions” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

Contribution: Marks interrogates how biotechnology reshapes human identity and agency—key issues in posthuman literary theory.
Implication for Literary Theory: Offers critical vocabulary for analyzing speculative fiction, cyborg narratives, and human enhancement themes.

Theoretical Link: Expands posthumanist theory, particularly through Fukuyama, Habermas, and Silver as discussed by Marks.

🔬 7. Risk and Dystopian Narratives

“These technologies promise much more… than they can currently deliver” (Marks, 2006, p. 335).

Contribution: Marks emphasizes the “purgatorial” quality of new life sciences—trapped between potential and uncertainty.

Implication for Literary Theory: Illuminates themes of risk, delay, and control in speculative and dystopian literature.
Theoretical Link: Ties to risk society theory (Beck, Giddens) in literary studies of biopolitics.

🦠 8. Eugenics and Historical Memory in Literature

“The elevation of eugenics to a brutally racist state policy” (Marks, 2006, p. 334).

Contribution: Marks links 20th-century wars with genocidal applications of biopower—essential for analyzing trauma and memory in literature.
Implication for Literary Theory: Offers tools to read how eugenic ideologies are remembered, resisted, or reimagined in narrative.
Theoretical Link: Resonates with Holocaust literature, memory studies, and eugenics discourse in fiction.

💡 9. Ontology and Experience in Global Literature

“A new politics emerges which relates to what it means to be a living species in a living world” (Marks, 2006, p. 333).

Contribution: Connects biological life with epistemological and ontological experience—expanding how we read world literature and cultural knowledge.
Implication for Literary Theory: Encourages holistic and experiential readings that foreground embodiment, ecology, and relationality.

Theoretical Link: Closely tied to phenomenology, ontological criticism, and world literature frameworks.

Examples of Critiques Through “Biopolitics” by John Marks

📘 Literary Work (with Symbol)	🧬 Biopolitical Critique via John Marks	📚 Key Concepts from Marks (2006)
🧬 *Never Let Me Go* by Kazuo Ishiguro	Explores how cloned individuals are biologically optimized and socially conditioned for organ donation—illustrating total biopolitical control over life, identity, and death.	“Government of life” (p. 333); “Biopolitical problematization” of cloning and gene science (pp. 334–335).
🦠 *Brave New World* by Aldous Huxley	Presents a society where citizens are bioengineered for productivity and compliance—exemplifying liberal eugenics and normalized life management.	“Liberal eugenics led by consumer choice” (p. 335); norms tied to capital and industrial efficiency (p. 333).
🟥 *The Handmaid’s Tale* by Margaret Atwood	Women’s reproductive functions are legally controlled to serve state fertility goals—revealing biopolitical control through gendered hierarchies and surveillance.	“Establishment of norms, hierarchies… in relation to legal frameworks” (p. 333); “biopolitical anxiety” over reproduction and autonomy (p. 335).
⚙️ *Oryx and Crake* by Margaret Atwood	Imagines a biotech apocalypse where gene editing, corporate biopower, and ecological collapse show the dangers of genetic commodification and posthumanism.	“Genetic enclosure” (p. 336); “Posthuman” futures and synthetic life elites (p. 336); bioethics and species extinction anxiety (pp. 335–336).

Criticism Against “Biopolitics” by John Marks

❗ Overreliance on Foucault’s Framework

Marks’s essay heavily depends on Michel Foucault’s biopolitical theory without sufficiently engaging with its internal contradictions or evolution over time.
Critics may argue that this results in a limited theoretical scope that overlooks alternative genealogies of biopolitics, such as Agamben’s concept of bare life or Mbembe’s necropolitics.

⚠️ Abstract and Condensed Analysis

The article compresses a vast array of concepts—genomics, posthumanism, bioethics—into a brief format, limiting in-depth exploration or rigorous critique of any single theme.
This conciseness might lead to a lack of clarity for readers unfamiliar with the foundational theories.

🧩 Insufficient Engagement with Material Contexts

While Marks mentions globalization, capitalism, and war, the article does not deeply explore the economic, legal, or political mechanisms through which biopower operates in real-world institutions.

The critique of neoliberalism remains implied rather than explicit, making it less effective as a politically grounded analysis.

🌐 Eurocentric Focus

The discussion primarily reflects Western and European philosophical traditions (Foucault, Deleuze, Habermas), with little to no attention to how biopolitics manifests in the Global South or in non-Western epistemologies.
This limits the global applicability of Marks’s argument in analyzing power, life, and resistance.

🧠 Theoretical Density vs. Accessibility

The philosophical vocabulary—“dispositif,” “posthumanism,” “ontological experience”—may make the article intellectually rich but inaccessible to non-specialist readers or students outside critical theory.
It presumes a high level of familiarity with multiple theoretical traditions.

🧬 Limited Ethical Pluralism

Although Marks introduces “cultural bioethics,” the discussion still centers on European thinkers like Kant and Spinoza, excluding feminist, indigenous, or decolonial approaches to bioethics and embodiment.

This narrows the ethical conversation around biotechnology and human life.

🕳️ Omission of Concrete Case Studies

The piece theorizes biopolitical control in genetic testing, reproduction, and warfare but offers no empirical or literary examples to support or illustrate its claims.
Critics might argue that this reduces its utility for interdisciplinary readers in fields like medical humanities, bioethics, or literary studies.

Representative Quotations from “Biopolitics” by John Marks with Explanation

🔖 Quotation	💬 Explanation
1. “From the 18th century onwards, biological existence is no longer a neutral, unchanging substrate upon which political existence is superimposed.”	Marks highlights Foucault’s core thesis: modern power governs life itself, not just territory or sovereignty. Biopolitics emerges through the administration of living bodies.
2. “Politics focuses increasingly on the fostering and direction – the government – of life.”	Power shifts from the right to kill (sovereign) to the imperative to manage, protect, and optimize life—a central idea in Foucault’s The History of Sexuality.
3. “Power in contemporary post-disciplinary ‘control’ societies has become entirely biopolitical.”	Drawing on Hardt and Negri, Marks emphasizes that in neoliberal regimes, power operates everywhere—through health, data, labor, and biological life itself.
4. “Resistance is no longer marginal, but rather multiple and active.”	Marks introduces the concept of the multitude, suggesting that widespread dissent can emerge from within systems of total control.
5. “The Second World War… was characterized by… the drift to ‘total war’… and the elevation of eugenics to a brutally racist state policy.”	Marks reveals the genocidal underside of biopolitics—where governance of life turns into governance of who deserves to live, especially during wartime.
6. “Biotechnology… raises significant biopolitical issues.”	Technological advances like gene editing, cloning, and genomics open new political questions: Who controls life? Who decides what’s ‘normal’?
7. “We are entering an era of biopolitical problematization.”	Contemporary biotechnology marks a new phase where ethical, legal, and philosophical assumptions about life itself are increasingly unstable and contested.
8. “This new eugenics… threatens to create a radical new set of social divisions.”	Marks warns that market-driven genetic selection risks reproducing old forms of inequality and exclusion in seemingly “liberal” ways.
9. “Genetic enclosure… is analogous to the land enclosures of the 17th century.”	Rifkin’s metaphor points to the privatization of the genome: genes, like land, are commodified, restricting public access to life’s fundamental building blocks.
10. “Bioethics asks… What is a body? What can a body do? What can you do to a body?”	Thacker’s “cultural bioethics,” influenced by Deleuze and Spinoza, reframes ethics not around rules but around embodied, relational, and affective capacities.

Suggested Readings: “Biopolitics” by John Marks

Elmore, Rick. “Biopolitics.” The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies, edited by Lynn Turner et al., vol. 1, Edinburgh University Press, 2018, pp. 80–93. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv2f4vjzx.11. Accessed 22 July 2025.
McMahon, John. “The ‘Enigma of Biopolitics’: Antiblackness, Modernity, and Roberto Esposito’s Biopolitics.” Political Theory, vol. 46, no. 5, 2018, pp. 749–71. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26509631. Accessed 22 July 2025.
Tierney, Thomas F. “Toward an Affirmative Biopolitics.” Sociological Theory, vol. 34, no. 4, 2016, pp. 358–81. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26382876. Accessed 22 July 2025.

A. Kiarina Kordela. “BIOPOLITICS: FROM SUPPLEMENT TO IMMANENCE: IN DIALOGUE WITH ROBERTO ESPOSITO’S TRILOGY: COMMUNITAS, IMMUNITAS, BÍOS.” Cultural Critique, vol. 85, 2013, pp. 163–88. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5749/culturalcritique.85.2013.0163. Accessed 22 July 2025.