Human rights become market-dependent floating signifiers of personhood

Evidence

The old juridically defined self, the self-owning subject, now becomes problematized. Who is to be counted as human, what the capabilities are of the human subject, will be decided through the global market in which property rights and cost-benefit analysis are central. Human rights become floating signifiers that can be attached to or detached from various subjects and classes constituted by the market principle and designated by the most powerful nation-states. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 765

Categorization

• XREF: Asad’s ‘who counts as human decided by the market’ thread parallels Cooper’s account of how legal/neoliberal framings redefine personhood and rights. — connects to: Neoliberals reframed human rights as instruments of market submission — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 120; The market produces rights rather than individual rights enabling markets — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 41; Treating human rights as endlessly polyvalent masks the systemic constraints shaping them. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 62 (+1 more)