Mortality blocks property from becoming a true political principle.

Evidence

You know that in the classical theory of sovereignty, the right of life and death was one of sovereignty’s basic attributes. Now the right of life and death is a strange right. Even at the theoretical level, it is a strange right. What does having the right of life and death actually mean? In one sense, to say that the sovereign has a right of life and death means that he can, basically, either have people put to death or let them live, or in any case that life and death are not natural or immediate stant phenomena which are primal or radical, and which fall outside the field of power. If we take the argument a little further, or to the point are - ly where it becomes paradoxical, it means that in terms of his relationship with the sovereign, the subject is, by rights, neither dead nor alive. From the point of view of life and death, the subject is neutral, a and it is thanks to the sovereign that the subject has the right to be alive or, possibly, the right to be dead. In any case, the lives and deaths of subjects become rights only as a result of the will of the sovereign. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255 (#expands, via linked claim)

The right of life and death is always exercised in an unbalanced way: the balance is always tipped in favor of death. Sovereign power’s effect on life is exercised only when the sovereign can kill. The very essence of the right of life and death is actually the right to kill it 1s at the moment when the sovereign can kill that he exercises his right over life. It is essentially the right of the sword. So there is no real symmetry in the right over life and death. It is not the right to put people to death or to grant them lite. Nor is it the right to allow people to live or to leave them to die. It is the right to take lite or let live. And this obviously mtroduces a startling dissymmetry. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255 (#expands, via linked claim)

What a population constitutes is above all wealth, a living wealth that must not be wasted. Arguments concerning warfare coincided with those relating to taxation: one should not levy too many taxes, and contributions should be strictly proportional to public needs. Likewise, this formed the basis for a principle of savings applied to the spending of lives. In opposition to bad kings who, prompted by futile desires for personal glory, blithely sacrifice “the blood and treasures of their subjects,” it was pointed out that “the blood of the people can only be shed in order to save that very people in times of extreme need.” The legitimate exercise of sovereignty in warfare must be limited by the strict principle of necessity. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 568 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Proportionality’s incalculability serves to legitimize the deaths it governs; Sovereign power over life is asymmetrical, always weighted toward killing — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255; Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255 (+2 more)

Related

• Sovereign power over life is asymmetrical, always weighted toward killing (similarity 0.86)
• Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will (similarity 0.84)
• Classical political economy limited war by a principle of economy in spending lives. (similarity 0.81)
• Sovereignty inherently contradicts its protective mandate by holding power of death. (similarity 0.80)
• War exercises sovereignty through the right to kill. (similarity 0.80)
• Nineteenth-century power added ‘make live and let die’ alongside sovereign right to kill (similarity 0.79)
• Biopower replaces sovereignty’s power over death with power over life (similarity 0.79)
• Atomic power exposes the paradox of a sovereign power that kills life itself (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Sovereign power over life is asymmetrical, always weighted toward killing #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255
• Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255
• Proportionality’s incalculability serves to legitimize the deaths it governs #qualifies (0.75)
• Sovereignty inherently contradicts its protective mandate by holding power of death. #complicates (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 557
• Classical political economy limited war by a principle of economy in spending lives. #contradicts (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 568