Making Live and Letting Die in COVID-19: A Biopolitical Review

Abstract

This article applies discussions of biopolitics and rationalities by governments to <i>make live and let die</i> as a heuristic for the speculative sorting of bodies and their antibodies as state governments lurch toward reopening. It considers how governments rationalize the elimination of certain populations in the name of improving the vitality of the dominant group. This article is based on the theory by sociologist Michel Foucault, who called biopolitics the application of “life-producing techniques” by the state.