Abstract:
The chapter explores the economic concept of extraction as both Science Fiction,
and economic reality. I use Marx’s concept of surplus extraction (Marx, 1975) and
apply it to fields outside of wage labour (Harvey, 2003; Lazzarato, 2011; Vercellone,
2006; Federici, 2004), but further develop the concept of extraction to take full
account of its economic and cultural potentiality. I will consider how the concept of
extraction is central to both capitalism (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013) and the
Science Fiction imaginary of capitalism (Freedman, 2000). Whereby both capitalism
and Science Fiction are wedded to the extractive impulse: capitalism through its drive
for profit and Science Fiction through the continued depiction of the abject and or
‘other’.
