Andreas Urban - Velhos Supérfluos

Thos book brings together two essays published in the critical theory journal EXIT!: “Old Age and Value-Dissociation” (2018) and “Superfluity as a Total Institution” (2020).

Drawing on the critique of value and value-dissociation by Robert Kurz and Roswitha Scholz, Andreas Urban analyzes how capitalist society is structurally hostile to old age and how the elderly are seen as superfluous because they are not producers of value. Touching on issues such as the “activation” of older people through active aging and anti-aging programs and discourses that deny this advanced stage of life, or the nursing home as a custodial institution for the unwanted, in the wake of others such as workhouses and correctional facilities, the author exposes how capitalism tends to exclude all human beings who prove incapable of actively participating in the market economy of the working society.