A similar argument is made by Giorgio Agamben (1998) in his consideration of what he calls “bare life.” For Agamben, modern political systems and imaginaries are underscored by the capacity to strip individuals and groups of all social belonging and value and reduce them to a purely biological existence. Not only is this spectre of raw humanity a threat (“do what we say or else you too will be denuded”), it is also an image and a reality that reaffirm our (those of us fortunate enough not to be reduced to bare life) sense of worth and belonging to our imagined political community.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 220