As the globalized regime of neoliberal capitalism consolidates its grip on the world it
refines the micropolitics proper to the capitalist system and makes it more perverse. This
micropolitics involves the appropriation - what Suely Rolnik calls the pimping - of life as it
turns the life drive itself away from creation and cooperation and towards the deadening
destructive practice necessary for capital accumulation. This dynamic is the engine of what
Rolnik calls the colonial-capitalistic unconscious regime. She also identifies the conditions
necessary to fight against this regime - namely a reappropriation of the life drive the
energetic basis at the heart of all life forms human life included and the principal source
of extraction for capitalism. Drawing on examples from across the Americas including Brazil
and the United States Rolnik examines the circumstances that have given rise to regressive
reactionary governments throughout the world. These circumstances include at the macro level
an alliance between neoliberalism and extreme conservatism and at the micro level a crisis of
the hegemonic subject in the face of the emergent empowerment of marginalized communities that
practice other modes of subjectivation. This crucial book by one of the most prominent
intellectuals in Latin America today will be of great value to anyone interested in
contemporary politics and social struggles.
