Nanotechnologies and the Commodification of Human Life

This study analyzes the relationship between the achievements in the field of nanotechnologies and the process of commodification of human life. We call the commercialization of the fundamental constituents of the human body, i.e. genes, hormones, organs, tissues and body fluids, the "commodification of human life". This process is historically associated with the implementation of eugenic measures by national states from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century and the emergence of market eugenics, with the reduction of the role of national states in macroeconomic decision-making processes, in the second half of the 20th century. Pointed out as irreversible by its advocates, the process of commodification of techno-scientific innovations, which includes the commodification of human life through the economic appropriation of advances in nanotechnology, is limited both by state regulations that respond to demands from sectors of civil society and by consumer rejection, spontaneous or organized, which can make the production and/or distribution of merchandise developed from these techno-scientific innovations unviable.