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Violence in Capitalism: Devaluing Life in an Age of Responsibility / James A

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Violence in Capitalism: Devaluing Life in an Age of Responsibility / James A VIOLENCE IN CAPITALISM VIOLENCE IN CAPITALISM Devaluing Life in an Age of Responsibility JAMES A. TYNER UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS LINCOLN AND LONDON © 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Tyner, James A., 1966- author. Title: Violence in capitalism: devaluing life in an age of responsibility / James A. Tyner. Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015033085 ISBN 9780803253384 (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN9780803284562 (epub) ISBN 9780803284579 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Violence. | Violent crime— Social aspects. | Crime— Sociological aspects. | Capitalism— Social aspects. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society. Classification: LCC HM1116 .T963 2016 | DDC 303.6— dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015033085 Set in Lyon by M. Scheer. Designed by N. Putens. For Belinda CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix 1. The Abstraction of Violence 1 2. Materialism and Mode of Production 33 3. The Market Logics of Letting Die 79 4. The Violence of Redundancy 131 5. The Reality of Violence 199 Notes 213 Bibliography 235 Index 251 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When my family asked about my current book project, they were mildly disappointed. A book on violence? Didn’t you already write a book on violence? Yes, I must plead guilty. In an earlier book I applied a geographic perspective to the study of (mostly) direct violence; at the time, I believed that the geography discipline (as a whole) was largely silent on the subject of direct, interpersonal violence. In this book I remain concerned with violence— but violence of a differentsort. Here, my concern is on the meaning and making of violence, for it is my argument that violence does not exist but rather is abstracted from particular, concrete practices. Violence, in other words, is very much a product of its time. So too is this present manuscript. It was written during a time of my life in which various political and economic debates raged across the United States: debates over health care and terrorism, unions and voter representation, marriage rights and school shootings. I was, and remain, struck by the unevenness of media coverage and general public awareness of these topics, by the vicissitudes of violence, which seem to defy any consensus in our comprehension of them. Where I saw violence, others saw justice, or nothing. It became all too apparent that much violence was hidden in plain sight and that there was a pervasive indifference to life in the abstract. Television programs, for example, were often based on individual pain and suffering; one person’s misfortune was another ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS person’s source of amusement and entertainment. Tragedy and loss were increasingly commodified and capitalized, but rarely were these shows viewed as violent. These observations formed the kernel of this work and provided the foundation for my initial proposal and contract with the University of Nebraska Press. Accordingly, I must first thank Derek Krissoff, as well as the entire staff at the University of Nebraska Press, for seeing this book through to completion. Derek in particular was exceptionally sup- portive at the beginning of the process, and I appreciate his insight and encouragement. Special thanks are extended to Courtney Ochsner, Ann Baker, and freelance copyeditor Maureen Bemko. This book, of course, did not appear in isolation. Over the years I have benefited from my interactions with colleagues both at Kent State and beyond. These individuals have helped shape my understanding and interpretation of a wide range of topics and issues. Thanks are owed to Stuart Aitken, Derek Alderman, Gabriela Brindis Alvarez, Noel Castree, Pamela Colombo, Alex Colucci, Gordon Cromley, Michael Dear, Melissa Gilbert, Kathryn Gillespie, Sam Henkin, Joshua Inwood, Sokvisal Kims- roy, Scott Kirsch, Audrey Kobayashi, Philippe Le Billon, Patricia Lopez, Nick Megoran, Don Mitchell, Joe Nevins, Shannon O’Lear, Richard Peet, Chris Philo, Chris Post, Laura Pulido, Stian Rice, Estela Schindel, Savina Sirik, Simon Springer, Dave Stasiuk, Joel Wainwright, Bobby Wilson, and Melissa Wright. I am grateful, also, to Richard Peet for permission to use a revised ver- sion of my previously published article, “Dead Labor, Homo Sacer, and Letting Die in the Labor Market,” which appeared in Human Geography: A New Radical Journal 7, no. 1 (2014): 35– 48. Outside of academia I thank my parents, Dr. Gerald Tyner and Dr. Judith Tyner, for their ongoing support and encouragement, as well as my brother, David, and my aunt, Karen, for their interest and inspira- tion. As always, I thank my now fourteen- year- old puppy, Bond, and my fifteen- year- old cat, Jamaica. Together, these two remarkable individuals have never complained about my idiosyncrasies or the piles of books and papers that appear in my wake. Most important, however, I thank my x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS immediate family. I am blessed with two wonderful daughters, Jessica and Anica. I am extremely proud of their academic success, as stellar sixth and eighth graders, respectively. I am even more proud of their kind- ness and generosity toward others. Lastly, I thank my friend and partner, Belinda. I am not easy to live with; as academics, writers, and husbands go, I am the embodiment of all clichés: the absentmindedness, the piles of books littering my desk and nightstand, the unexpected bill for a newly purchased book. Through it all Belinda has been my foundation, and it is for this reason that I dedicate this book to her and say, deeply, mahal kita. xi VIOLENCE IN CAPITALISM 1 The Abstraction of Violence Lives are legibly valuable when they are assessed comparatively and relationally within economic, legal, and political contexts and discourses, framed by a culture of punishment according to the market logic of supply and demand. — LISA MARIE CACHO, Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected Jessica Kate Williams was murdered on May 23, 2003.1 Twenty- two years old and homeless, Jessica (an African American woman) had been living in a street camp in Portland, Oregon, with a number of other runaway youths, most of whom came from white, middle- class homes. Jessica, in many ways, was different from the other youths. For one thing, there was her size. At six feet, four inches tall and weighing 230 pounds, Jes- sica was bigger than most of the other residents of the street camp. For another, Jessica had been determined to have the mental capacity of a twelve- year- old, having been born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Jessica had been adopted by Sam and Rebecca Williams when she was just nine months old. As a child, and later as a young woman, Jessica had desperately wanted to be independent but also to fit in. In 1999 Jessica graduated 1 THE ABSTRACTION OF VIOLENCE from high school and learned to ride the bus. Although she continued to live with her parents, Jessica would on occasion run away, sometimes to a friend’s house, other times to a homeless shelter downtown. But she would also always phone home, to let her parents know where she was. Unbeknown to her parents, Jessica began to hang out with a group of street youths in Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland. The youths were led by James Daniel Nelson, a convicted murderer who had been released from prison in February 2003. At some point, Jessica was accused by members of the street camp of spreading lies; because of this accusation, approximately twelve youths, including Nelson, repeatedly beat and stabbed Jessica before spraying her with lighter fluid and set- ting her on fire. Mark Price died on November 28, 2010, in a Tucson, Arizona, hos- pital from complications of leukemia.2 Gravely ill, Mark was awaiting a bone-marrow transplant that would never come— not because a suitable donor could not be found but because of budget reductions. On October 1 of that year Arizona legislators imposed drastic reductions on state Medicaid services to help balance the budget. According to the Arizona Republic, “Benefit cuts to the 1.3 million adults enrolled in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) include certain liver, bone marrow, heart, lung and pancreas transplants, as well as annual physicals, podiatry, insulin pumps and emergency dental care.” For 2011 savings were projected to be $5.3 million, with an additional $20 million in matching federal funds lost. Spokespersons for the AHCCCS explained that the cuts were calculated to “affect the fewest people or, in the case of transplants, represented the least effective treatment.”3 In other words, the treatments eliminated were the ones not considered cost- effective. These two examples suggest that violence, although seemingly self- evident, is not always as it appears.4 The brutal murder of Jessica Williams is readily grasped as a violent act; the death of Mark Price, perhaps less so. The difference, some might argue, lies in the fact that the killing of Williams was intentional; Nelson and his friends deliberately chose to take the life of the young woman. For Price, however, there is no apparent 2 THE ABSTRACTION OF VIOLENCE intentionality to his death; he was not singled out but rather was the victim of a tragic set of circumstances. Or so it would appear, for in the same year Price was denied a life- saving procedure because of budgetary cuts, public officials in Arizona raised more than $23 million to support their political campaigns.5 In other words, choices were made— by identifiable persons— to determine where monies would be spent. Could not sufficient funds have been found to maintain adequate medical services? The deaths of Williams and Price provide insight into the vagaries of violence but also, by extension, criminality, for the killing of Williams was criminal, while the death of Price was not.
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