Postmodern commodification: The conceptual frame of Marx and Heidegger

The author of this article considers postmodernity as a stage of the development of capitalism. The difference between modernity and postmodernity is explained in relation to the new sphere of commodification and resourcification, namely that of human body and life with all natural living processes. The analysis of the transition from modernity to postmodernity is based on some Marxian an Heideggerian insights. It is supposed that these insights form a powerful conceptual frame for the analysis of the so called "onthologies of presence" and related phenomena. Wihout any attemp to grasp any lines of a possible Marxian influence on Heidegger, the stress is laid on the corespondence between the commodifying power of capital and the metaphysics supporting the modem times, or modernity. The main question is - in what image of human condition both lines of thinking converge. The human condition is characterised by the processes of commodification and resoursification. The authors' main point is that the power of capital which commodifies the human Lebenswelt establishing guidelines for human activity and human self-creation corrsponds with the unity of sciece, technology, and production established by the process of calculative projection which transforms the Lebenswelt and man himself into various materials and resources. The article claims that the commodification and resoursification of the human being are the two processes supporting and promoting each other and that these processes attain the global and universal form in postmodernity, when in the life itself, in the human body and also in spiritual activity inexhaustible resourses are discovered. The author comes to the conclusion that the patenting of genes, proteins, and biotechnologics are forms of expropriation and exploitation of these resourses and that the genetic discourse becomes a new worldview.