This article suggests that drugs offer a prime vantage point through which to view the history of Capitalist Modernity and its effects on our subjectivity in materialist terms. Contrary to the view that the socioecological pathologies of Modernity stem from its purportedly scientific and consumerist materialism, it argues that its driving force is in fact of a spiritual nature – namely, the capitalist law of abstract value. Coming from above in the form of God’s command to subdue and improve the earth, this law draws matter into global economic circuits that metamorphose it to fit its immaterial imperatives. This transformation finds expression in the abstract view of psychoactive plants as mere chemicals and in their use to alter our bodies and align our consciousness to capital. Fortunately, drugs’ alchemical capacity to transform experience and identity can also be deployed to challenge capitalist norms regarding who is properly human. Realizing this queer potential of drugs passes by a revaluation of drugs, modes of consumption, and users that are excluded as “Other” to licit drug regimes, for it is there that we can find inspiration to recreate the world under the guiding value of care, rather than profit.
Mateo Sánchez Petrement (Sun,) studied this question.