Liu Pengfei and Gu Yongchun: 21st-Century Critiques of Biocapitalism by Foreign Left-Wing Scholars

Since the beginning of the 21st century, alongside the widespread application of biotechnology at the levels of production and daily life, the life sciences have permeated every layer of capitalist society with unprecedented scale and speed. Against this backdrop, several insightful and forward-looking Western left-wing scholars have attempted to examine the development of contemporary life sciences and biotechnology within the horizon of the critique of capitalism, seeking to theorize and systematize it. In 2006, the renowned American scholar Kaushik Sunder Rajan published his representative work, Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life. Grounded in the frontier perspective of life science and biotechnological development, this book organically integrates the theoretical core of Marxist political economy into the organizational framework of Foucault’s biopolitics. It endeavors to elucidate the interactive relationship between biotechnology and contemporary capitalism, thereby constructing a brand-new theoretical category for researching contemporary biotechnology and its systems of exchange and circulation: "biocapital." So-called "biocapitalism" is a new existential form of capitalism in which biocapital, leveraging life sciences and biotechnology within the contemporary world capitalist system, continuously extracts profit and realizes capital valorization. Subsequently, the issue of biocapitalism has attracted broad attention from Western scholars, and several left-wing scholars have sequentially conducted research and judgment on biocapitalism from the perspective of the critique of political economy, opening a new horizon for the critique of contemporary capitalism.

I. The Newest Modality of Capitalist Dominance in the Era of Life Sciences

Rajan argues that the emergence of biocapital does not signify that capitalism has entered a distinct epochal stage; this phase does not leave the capitalism we are familiar with behind, nor does it fundamentally undermine capitalism. On the contrary, biocapitalism is a continuation, an evolution, a subset, and a form of capitalism distinct from what preceded it. Biocapitalism arises from the process of the modernizing transformation of capitalism and is the newest modality of capitalist dominance in the era of life sciences. As a new contemporary form of capitalism, it conforms to the developmental law of the unity of universality and particularity.

(1) Biocapitalism remains a political-economic system dominated by the will of the bourgeoisie. By appropriating "genetic codes" to obtain ownership of life information and biological products, it utilizes economic advantages to place living organisms within an inescapable "biological shadow of existence," ^[1] ultimately seizing economic and political global dominance.

1. From the perspective of generative logic, biocapitalism is the result of capital seeking rent from biotechnology; its ultimate goal remains the maintenance of capital valorization and the reproduction of capitalist relations of production.

Over the past thirty years of biocapitalism’s vigorous development, the life sciences have become increasingly dependent on the capitalist mode of production, becoming a naked tool for maintaining capital valorization and capitalist relations of production while carrying out a new round of expansion, penetration, and profit-seeking. Nikolas Rose points out that contemporary molecular biomedicine requires years of large-scale capital investment to produce results: purchasing expensive equipment, maintaining fully staffed laboratories, conducting multiple clinical trials, and covering the costs of overcoming regulatory hurdles. Similar to previous forms of capitalism, most of this funding comes from venture capital provided by private companies and capital raised through the stock market. Consequently, these investments naturally have the power to demand that the investee comply with all the urgent needs of capital, such as guaranteeing a certain output of profit and meeting shareholders' demands for returns on value. In this context, life sciences and capitalism exist in a symbiotic relationship: on one hand, the life sciences rely on the support of capital to develop and grow; on the other hand, capital needs to form monopolies in the field of life sciences to obtain surplus profits. Under the continuous rent-seeking of capital, biotechnology is easily controlled and coerced by capital, eventually losing its scientific neutrality and degenerating into a profit-making tool for capital.

2. From the perspective of operational logic, biocapitalism is the product of a "collusion" between the logic of capital and the logic of power it drives.

Since its inception, the development of biocapitalism has always been influenced by the combined forces of the logic of capital and the logic of power, a major manifestation of which is the application for and use of patents related to life sciences. In her investigation of the history of patents in the field of life sciences, Breske Ashleigh found that global demand for pharmaceuticals has led to a continuous increase in "biopiracy" ^[2] in the Global South. Once biological companies discover a drug they deem profitable, they immediately apply for the relevant patents so that no other company can profit from it. Because the "tool" of life science inherently requires high levels of sustained capital investment and all-around political support, those who can utilize this "tool" for a new round of profit-seeking are often capital oligarchs with deep pockets and strong political lobbying capabilities. In fact, patents protected under the laws of various countries can be seen as a form of "legal monopoly." Due to the existence of patent barriers, any economic entity intending to participate in world trade cannot infringe upon patents belonging to others; otherwise, they will face severe sanctions and be denied entry into the capitalist world trade system. This results in biological companies in most developing countries generally being unable to compete directly with the numerous multinational corporations in developed countries that possess ample capital reserves and state policy support. To a large extent, this divergence increases the prices of patented drugs, allowing multinational corporations and developed countries to obtain immense economic benefits and political hegemony while simultaneously leading to more severe inequality on a global scale. Taken as a whole, biocapitalism has developed gradually alongside the birth of neoliberalism. It is a community of capital and power composed of the scientific practices of capital and life-science technology, supported in all aspects by the state apparatus. It seeks to make biological life part of economic growth, thereby "capturing the latent value in life processes." This community of capital and power has not changed the nature of capitalism—which has always used every available means to pursue surplus value. Through life sciences, it utilizes various life forms (such as genes, cells, reproductive organs, plant compounds, etc.) to further construct a "powerful production system" for capitalism. In this way, the logic of capital and the logic of power continue to "collude" in the era of biocapitalism. Not only has the fundamental nature of the private ownership of the means of production in biocapitalism remained unchanged, but it has shown an increasing trend toward centralization in industries related to life sciences.

3. Within the architecture of biocapitalism, the relationship of production in which a minority bourgeoisie exploits the majority proletariat remains unchanged.

The equal exploitation of labor power is the primary human right of capital, and the stage of biocapitalism is no exception. Johanna Oksala points out that while the life science industries and markets have welcomed rapid development, they have also brought an urgent problem: they have created a demand for new types of biological services and biological products (for example, surrogacy, the sale of body tissues, and participation in clinical trials). However, the providers of these services and materials are often the unemployed or underemployed from the Global "South." This means that in the biocapitalist mode of production, if capitalists are to obtain profit, they still need to rely on extracting the surplus value of the vast masses of "biological laborers," which is essentially no different from the era of industrial capitalism. Generally speaking, biological labor includes two parts: technical practitioners with biology-related knowledge, and "volunteers" who use their physical bodies to participate, directly or indirectly, in biological experiments for various biotechnological enterprises and institutions. Both groups primarily provide their physical or mental labor to obtain compensation from capitalists. Compared to the former, the latter often endure greater exploitation while receiving the least benefit. Clearly, this has not changed the class relations between people under the capitalist system. When profits are distributed, the big capitalists still pocket the vast majority of the income; what biological laborers receive are merely a few "leftover scraps." ^[3] Specifically, the field of biotechnology is often funded by major capital consortia, and thus it likewise acquires the monopoly inherent to capital: once a biotechnology enterprise has achieved a de facto monopoly in a certain aspect of the industry, it simultaneously acquires the power to set prices for related products in that field, such as new drugs. New drugs and therapies also imply massive costs such as research and development funding; by virtue of their monopoly status, the product pricing of many biotech companies is beyond what the general public can afford. Similarly, profit distribution is entirely controlled by monopoly capital. Compared to the capitalists who sit back and "clip coupons," ^[4] the biological laborers involved in biotechnological R&D can only obtain a meager income that is disproportionate to their amount of labor.

(2) Although biocapitalism has not changed the essence of the capitalist mode of production, it shifted the path of exploiting surplus value from "man as labor power" toward "man as a biological organism." This shift has not only brought about a revolutionary change in the way biocapitalism realizes capital valorization but has also significantly increased the degree and scope of the progressive accumulation of capital. Therefore, biocapitalism, born in the new era of life sciences, possesses certain new changes and exhibits the particularity of the times.

1. In the stage of biocapitalism, the mode of capital valorization has undergone a revolutionary change.

In general, the form of value acquisition in biocapitalism is more virtualized. It is not satisfied with exploiting only the present value of human beings; rather, it is based on creating "concepts of the future" to produce "future products," with the aim of exploiting the future value of human beings as well. Clayton Pierce points out that the common driving force for the development of biocapitalism originates from investment in biotechnological products such as virtual drugs, gene therapy drugs, and plant compounds. To some extent, these biotechnological products are regarded as potential exchange value contained within the "imaginary production zones" under the horizon of expectation unique to biocapitalist society. Pierce calls this investment in "potential future" and "virtual" biological products and their exchange value the "expectational value framework" of biocapitalist production. One of the most important characteristics of this framework is its ability to "manufacture" commodities that have not yet formed but possess value. In terms of value realization, the final realization of the "future value" invested in by biocapitalism is similar to the final realization of value under traditional capitalist relations of production—that is, it must be completed through the circulation (exchange) phase to achieve social reproduction. The potential consumers of these "future products" full of biotechnology are often the laborers mentioned above. According to Rajan's research, based on the development of pharmacogenomics or "personalized medicine," the medical "risks" faced by current or future patients are entangled with the hope for new treatments developed through life science innovation. Every individual, due to the different risks in their genomic profile, is a potential target for therapeutic intervention: "In the precise calculations of biocapitalism, everyone is a patient-in-waiting, and simultaneously a consumer-in-waiting." Therefore, when the discourse of "high-risk" patients and consumers is entangled with investment in life science R&D, relevant companies no longer need to manufacture concrete products to make money. On the contrary, patented knowledge is sufficient to increase the market price of their stock, thereby benefiting shareholders. This is the source of the virtualized characteristic of capital valorization in biocapitalism.

2. In the stage of biocapitalism, the degree of capital's expanded reproduction and the scope of its expansionary penetration continue to increase.

The scope of the extraction of surplus value in biocapitalism has expanded further; no longer content with merely appropriating human labor time, it attempts to appropriate the entirety of human life-time, regarding life itself as the source of value. According to the formulations of classical Marxist authors, under the capitalist system, the composition of labor time after a worker sells their labor power to the capitalist is generally divided into two parts: necessary labor time and surplus labor time. Generally speaking, workers reproduce the value of their own labor power during necessary labor time and produce surplus value for the capitalist for free during surplus labor time, while time outside of work should be time for the workers' own rest and development. In her research on the issue of human "well-being" in the era of biocapitalism, Ilyushenka Nadzeya found that in the traditional capitalist model, workers indeed had a clearly defined division between work time and leisure time. In the era of biocapitalism, however, this situation has changed: as the production of immaterial labor gradually becomes dominant, the importance of so-called "Fordist labor" has significantly decreased; key value originates not only from labor in the workplace but also from human life itself. Consequently, labor has begun to continuously extend into and "capture" all spheres of life. A new characteristic of the biocapitalist era is the blurring of the boundaries between work time and leisure time. This blurring of boundaries is a manifestation of the shift in the source of value in biocapitalism. Trigo Abril similarly points out that biocapitalism, in the form of commodities, turns both the objective and subjective spheres of human social life into sources for the extraction of surplus value; human life is not merely a source of value, but has become value itself. Biocapitalism extracts value not only from the body as a "material tool of work" but also from the body as defined by the entire dimension of life. It is not satisfied with merely utilizing people's work time, but attempts to increase its appropriation of the free time that people use to define their social identities. This characteristic of biocapitalism is equivalent to a new "Great Transformation" ^[5] of the capitalist system—a pivotal revolution from within the capitalist system, marking the arrival of a New Era.

II. Instrumentality and Redemptivity of Biocapitalism from the Perspective of the Logic of Capital and the Logic of Power

Fritsch Kelly points out that biocapitalism is "dependent upon deregulation, privatization, the shaping of individualized risk, and the re-aggregation of wealth creation activities around immaterial financial transactions." Biocapitalism, which has not changed the essence of capitalism, remains an exploitative entity created through the collusion of the logic of capital and the logic of power for the purpose of acquiring surplus value. The implementation of its economic strategies must be guaranteed by strong political power, and the operation of political power is in turn nourished by the surplus value it exploits. In the continuous interaction between the logic of capital and the logic of power, biocapitalism exhibits instrumentality because it is used for exploitation and profit, and acquires redemptivity due to the inherent qualities of the life sciences. In the deep collusion between the logic of capital and the logic of power, biocapitalism continues to develop by virtue of its instrumentality and redemptivity.

(1) Under the collusion of the logic of capital and the logic of power, capital and power holders continuously increase investment in biocapitalism—represented by the life sciences—and use these investments to control and utilize biocapitalism for exploitation and profit, thereby endowing it with instrumentality.

1. Because capital and power holders share the same fundamental interests in the era of biocapitalism, the development of biotechnology has received dual capital injections from both capital and power. After capitalism developed into the new form of biocapitalism, the renewed growth of profits in the field of biotechnology urgently required policy preference from power institutions—represented by the governments of capitalist states—and continuous capital injections from large capitalists. Having experienced the deregulation of finance in the 1970s and 1980s and the development of neoliberal policies of privatization and individualization, the economies of Western countries generally operate under "the guidance, support, and protection of laws and policies, and the protection of the spread of social norms that promote competition, free trade, and rational economic behavior." Market values and market rationality have already become deeply rooted in the minds of the people. Taking the United States as an example, Melinda Cooper argues that the deregulation of the banking and financial industries in the U.S. during the 1970s, combined with a highly liquid stock market and the increasing trend toward the securitization of pensions, led to a substantial increase in the funds available for investment in emerging and high-risk biotechnology enterprises. To ensure the rapid development of the post-industrial economy, the U.S. government has invested massive amounts of capital into the life sciences; the federal budget for scientific research is higher than that of any other member state of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In 2003, the prospects for the biotechnology sector fell to an all-time low. At this juncture, the U.S. government intervened with a massive plan to provide funding for "Biodefense" research over the following decade. While this plan provided generous subsidies for drug development, it ensured through biodefense legislation that any "national health emergency" would become an excellent opportunity to launch drugs that had not undergone clinical trials. This is merely a microcosm of how Western countries use the power of capital and authority to invest heavily in the life sciences.

2. Capital and power holders, by virtue of their massive investment in the life sciences, turn the high-tech outputs brought by the continuous development of the life sciences into tools for capital to exploit and profit. In investigating the U.S. Bayh-Dole Act passed in 1980 and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, Rajan found that a very complex relationship often exists between the private and public sectors in capitalist countries. One manifestation of this relationship is that the private sector is able to obtain huge profits from projects funded by the public sector. Taking Iceland as an example, there exist excellent national medical records and rich, accurate genealogical information dating back to the early 20th century; therefore, by virtue of its so-called genetic homogeneity, it became an ideal location for population genomics experiments. Rajan's investigation found that the Icelandic Parliament granted a genomics research company named "deCODE genetics" an exclusive right, allowing the company to establish a genomic database of the Icelandic population by collecting DNA samples and elucidating genetic sequences, and further combining genotype information with the national population health records. This project, known as the "Health Sector Database," claimed to have obtained the consent of the Icelandic people, but in reality, the company did not obtain the informed consent of every potential participant in the database, but merely allowed individuals to "opt out." Unless an Icelander actively chose to opt out of the database, their medical information would become part of it, and the company would eventually profit from these data. Thus, the genomic database became both a product of the intersection and integration of the logic of capital and the logic of power in pursuit of common interests, and a concrete manifestation of the instrumentality of biocapitalism.

(2) Under the collusion of the logic of capital and the logic of power, the inherent "saving" quality of the life sciences continuously deepens and develops into the redemptivity of biocapitalism, seeking legitimacy for the exploitation of surplus value.

1. The integration of the logic of capital and the logic of power effectively amplifies the "saving" characteristic inherent in the life sciences themselves, causing it to further develop into the redemptivity of biocapitalism. Pearce believes that in the era of biocapitalism, an increasingly strong conviction is forming within capitalist states: both capital and power holders increasingly believe that the continuous development of biocapitalism will ultimately enable their country to achieve the status of a global economic power. Consequently, they continuously utilize market rules and the public power of the government to develop biocapitalism in hopes of occupying a dominant position in the highly competitive global economy. After prolonged practical observation, Rajan found that these biotechnology companies, which rely on futures investment and capital operations, increasingly tend to maintain a "pseudo-religious ideology" that links the success of life science technology research with the salvation of the nation. Specifically, this "pseudo-religious ideology" is constructed at the intersection of life science research and national security guarantees, casting a vague political veil over science. Under this veil, biocapitalism—based on a discourse system of technological messianism and nationalism—roots its exploitation of biological resources in the redemptive "salvation stories" unique to the life sciences. This "pseudo-religious ideology" also attempts to make both biotechnology practitioners and ordinary citizens believe that with the development of biocapitalism, not only will the national economy gain a powerful new engine, but it will also "bring about products filled with a sense of powerful nationalist discourse, such as security, territorial hegemony, and citizenship," which collectively support the redemptivity of biocapitalism.

2. "Capital" and "power" utilize the redemptivity of biocapitalism and label it with "national interest" and patriotism to seek universal legitimacy for the exploitation and expansion of biocapitalism. Along with the continuous development of biocapitalism, capitalist states have gradually included the goal of achieving progress in the life sciences within their national security strategies. This shift has not only greatly enhanced the subjective initiative of biotechnology research but has also, while obtaining developmental legitimacy at the national level, given rise to a "messianic" thought. Its typical manifestations are mostly found in the production bases of biocapitalism, such as biomedical research laboratories. In analyzing biotechnology laboratories in India, Rajan found that these laboratories generally combine "highly individualized stories of personal motivation, national calling, and human interest with the structural messianism inherent in the market, science, or the state." This combination "integrates the responsibility for saving lives into corporate interests, and in the case of India, allows a 'Third World' country to leapfrog into becoming a 'global player'." To a considerable extent, the logic of power implicit in biocapitalism labels scientific research work and the continuous development of the market for life science products with "national interest" and "national glory." Through the logic of capital—namely, the neoliberal ideology and the belief system of developed capitalist country supremacism—it reshapes the values of citizens. By means of reshaping values similar to that in India, capitalist states can further increase political investment in the development of biotechnology to avoid being at a disadvantage in fierce international competition, enabling biocapitalism to develop continuously through the interaction of the logic of capital and the logic of power.

III. The Biological Interpretation of Neoliberalism and New Imperialism

Biocapitalism needs to take on the dual tasks of the expansion of capitalist power and the growth of capital. Pearce points out that the birth of biocapitalism is related to "the elimination of restrictive barriers in markets and labor through government, military, and corporate intervention" and that it "originates from a series of complex relationships between scientific and technological research and the neoliberal practices of economic development." It can be seen that biocapitalism emerged during the process of capitalist states shifting toward neoliberal policies and flourished accordingly. While finding new space for the survival of capitalism, it has also caused greater exploitation and developmental imbalance due to the influence of neoliberal policies. On the other hand, because the monopoly of biotechnology is continuously strengthening and its integration with power departments is becoming increasingly close, new forms of imperialism such as "bio-imperialism" and "biocolonialism" have already emerged.

(1) The development of biocapitalism follows the inherent logic of capital, and under the influence of neoliberal policies, capital—in order to extract more surplus value—has extended its tentacles into the spheres of human and natural life, causing new global exploitation and unbalanced development.

With the continuous development of biotechnology and the ever-increasing public focus on longevity and health, fields related to biotechnology have become the next investment "hot spot" most anticipated by various forms of capital. Due to the "innate monopoly" characteristic of the biotechnology sector—defined by high levels of investment and high barriers to entry—capital investment often achieves a "kill two birds with one stone" effect. It not only enables the rapid development of the bioeconomy, yielding massive returns on investment, but also allows for the cultivation of relevant enterprises into capital providers for biocapitalism. This enables them to continuously expand their biotechnological advantages, thereby further strengthening the monopolistic nature of biocapital. For example, prior to the advent of the era of biocapitalism, major chemical and biopharmaceutical companies in Western societies held dominant positions within their respective fields. However, following the influx of massive capital into the biotechnology sector in the early 1980s, only a few multinational corporations now remains globally that "effectively control every link of the world's food and pharmaceutical production." As this monopoly intensifies, biocapitalism—as a community of capital and power—has, like previous forms of monopoly capitalism, increased the exploitation of human beings and exacerbated the imbalance of social development. In exploring the relationship between individual health and risk, Joseph Dumit traced the formation of the "concept of risk" within pharmaceutical companies. He found that these companies no longer define themselves as traditional pharmaceutical firms as they once did, but instead choose to define themselves as "financial firms." Dumit argues that this shift is partly because these companies' understanding of "health" has been influenced by the neoliberalized concept of individual "risk": the human body is consistently defined as an inherently pathological body that always requires enhancement or improvement, rather than an inherently healthy one. This fosters a sense in individuals that they are perpetually "at risk." Similar to the conceptual "capitalization" shift of pharmaceutical companies, as biotechnology—whose discourse is controlled by capital—continues to develop, this technology will increasingly reveal its exploitative and unjust dimensions. While investigating a research hospital in Mumbai, India, Kaushik Sunder Rajan discovered that this private firm was conducting pharmacogenomics research for Western pharmaceutical companies, yet the majority of the research subjects were impoverished or unemployed individuals. They were willing to use their own bodies as experimental fields for biotechnological research in exchange for meager compensation. Ironically, most of these subjects will never benefit from any newly developed therapies, as they cannot afford the exorbitant costs of treatment. If biocapitalism is allowed to develop unchecked under the influence of neoliberal policies, exploitation and injustice will inevitably intensify.

(2) Competition in the stage of biocapitalism has moved beyond technological competition at the corporate or sectoral level to become a bio-hegemonic competition of state-against-state confrontation, forming a "bio-imperialism" that colonizes and plunders the realms of human and natural life.

After biocapitalism enters the imperialist stage, the ideological implantation of biotechnology as something that can "save the nation" and bring "national glory" becomes even deeper. To defend so-called national interests, bio-empires vigorously develop their own biotechnology while actively expanding their global bio-resource industrial chains, increasing the plunder of biological resources worldwide, and aggressively harvesting the surplus value produced by bio-laborers on a global scale. For example, the Human Genome Project has been characterized by some scholars as a form of "bio-colonialism" ^[6]. In the case of the Guaymi indigenous people of Panama, cells were taken from the cheek of a 26-year-old Guaymi woman by the genetic sampling procedures of the Human Genome Project. Testing revealed that these cells carried a virus capable of stimulating antibody production, which held potential commercial profit for treating leukemia and AIDS. Subsequently, a large biotech enterprise, for its own selfish gain, privatized and patented the woman's somatic cells. However, the profits generated were not returned to those who provided the raw resources but flowed instead into the company’s own pockets. If the above case is insufficient to illustrate the cruelty of bio-imperialism's exploitation of human life, then the example of what is termed "biopiracy" ^[7] provides ample and bloody proof. In this transnationally operated chain of exchange, Israeli entrepreneurs and South African doctors are linked with donors from Brazil, Turkey, or the Philippines. At one end of the chain are these organ donors, who surrender their kidneys for payments ranging from $1,000 to $10,000; at the other end are North American patients waiting for kidney transplants, who will pay as much as $200,000 for that kidney. Various forms of organized crime—such as human and organ trafficking, prostitution, migrant smuggling, and slave labor—link finance capital with high-end biotechnology, global poverty issues, and the commodification of life within the global market. Through globalized money-laundering networks, bio-imperialism realizes all the aforementioned forms of crime and reaps billions of dollars in profit, yet creates millions of people living under this "bio-slavery," of whom over 70% are women and girls. Through this cruel and bloody exploitation of life, bio-imperialism continuously develops and enhances its own monopolistic attributes, using this monopoly status to continue extracting surplus value from bio-laborers worldwide. This cycle constitutes the operational logic of bio-imperialism.

IV. Concluding Remarks

Viewed from the perspective of theoretical logic, the critical research on biocapitalism by foreign Leftist scholars allows us to achieve a multi-dimensional depiction of biocapitalism and gain insight into its hidden forms of exploitation and its cruel substance of plunder. Taken as a whole, the origin of biocapitalism is not merely the application of biotechnology in social production, but rather the result of capital's continuous rent-seeking toward biotechnology. The combination of the two has produced a transformative effect on social practice and social relations; it is both an advanced form within the capitalist economic model and a high-level stage of capitalist development. The many modern contradictions and problems brought about by biocapitalism find their fundamental crux in the fact that the logic of capital, and the logic of power it manipulates, has coerced and controlled biotechnology. This causes biotechnology to serve the expansion of capital and the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, thereby becoming a tool for profit-making by a minority of bourgeois interest groups. However, looking at existing research results, most foreign Leftist scholars remain confined by their positions and theoretical limitations. Their critique of biocapitalism remains at the level of phenomena and fails to interrogate the deep-seated structural social problems hidden behind these phenomena. Correspondingly, their solutions inevitably fall into the shackles of "reformism" and "Utopian" fantasies. In fact, following the critical path opened by foreign Left scholars, it is not difficult to find that the entire process of the generation and development of biocapitalism does not exceed the theoretical horizon of Marxism. Therefore, in-depth research on biocapitalism must possess a theoretical self-awareness of the "presence of Marxism." Only by properly wielding the sharp "surgical knife" of the Marxist critique of political economy can we reach the inner workings of biocapitalism and, on this basis, form scientific solutions and coping strategies.

From the perspective of practical logic, due to the influence and shaping of biocapitalism, the world has entered an era where biological threats are increasingly complex and diverse, and the field of biotechnology has become an important arena for the games played between major powers. China is currently at a critical moment in its "new journey" to build a socialist modernized country in all respects and to advance toward the Second Centenary Goal ^[8]. The importance and urgency of fully and accurately grasping the process, characteristics, and substance of biotechnological development in early-developing modernized countries—to promote China’s own biotechnological development and ensure national biosafety—has become prominent. Looking to the future, as an important force affecting the development of global biotechnology and bio-governance systems, what impact will biocapitalism have on global biosafety? Will it develop in new directions as the wave of deglobalization continues? Can it eventually trigger a transition toward "bio-socialism"? The answers to these practical questions depend on the continuous attention and deep reflection of experts and scholars at home and abroad on issues related to biocapitalism.