Abolishing Human Capital: From Human Relations to Trans-human Liberation

Centre for Philosophy and Political Economy and CSE Midlands research seminar

November 17th 16.30

Abolishing Human Capital: From Human Relations to Trans-human Liberation
Professor Peter Bloom

This talk is based on a range of different research I am undertaking seeking to unhumanise theory, politics, and organisations. It combines contemporary perspectives of abolitionism, the commons, and post-humanism in order to understand the conceptual and practical possibilities of replacing human-centric capitalist relations with an emancipatory form of trans-humanism. Historically, it traces out the construction of the “human” to a racial capitalist discourse of “resourcification” which has its roots (at least partially) in the production of human capital linked to slavery. It then connects these discourses to present day notions of human resources and its linking of moral and ethical existence to racialised values of personal development. It will, further, explore the rising logic of competition that predominately shapes “human” and “machine” relations. In its place, it considers ideas of trans-human solidarity and the concrete capacity to draw upon these “artificial” relationships to abolish the reliance on human capital within organisations, economies, and societies.

All invited.

Professor Peter Bloom
Head of Management and Marketing Group, EBS
University of Essex