The naked life and the subject of law

a dialectic of opposition

Abstract

The paper proposes to carry out a brief ontological critical reflection, from a Marxist perspective, on the concept of naked life (homo sacer), as exposed in the work Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life by Giorgio Agamben, articulating it with the notion of category subject of law, from the work General theory of law and Marxism by Evguiéni B. Pachukanis. This paper supports the hypothesis that there is an oppositional dialectic between the two categories, since, while they differ and oppose each other, they present elements that intersect and relate to each other. Naked life, killable body, and the figure of the subject of law, both are captured by the sovereign power, therefore, they are exposed to the state of exception. The conclusions point to the urgency of thinking about new strategies for social, political and cultural resistance to abstract forms of domination and alienation of the subject.

Keywords: Naked life. Subject of law. Death. Commodities. Agamben.