The Political Economy of Carceral Eugenics

This chapter follows the money, situating eugenics institutions in the political economic transformation of California at the turn of the twentieth century. Transitioning from laissez-faire, Progressives sought to establish a scientific, administrative state as the solution to the threats of economic greed of the corporate trusts and the growing population of defectives. Starting with an analysis of Frank Norris’s novel The Octopus published in 1901, this chapter examines how institutions were used to discipline labor. Eugenics institutions were places for the state to experiment with disciplining gendered and racialized labor and also extracting nonlabor surplus value from disabled populations. The history of institutions shows that the transition away from laissez-faire included developing the carceral system.