Neoliberalism’s Love Affair with Innovation

Gig work in childcare, nursing, and transportation; non-invasive prenatal testing; gene editing; and space expeditions can all be attributed to one mistaken, pervasive assumption: that “we can innovate our way out of the thorniest problems, including reproductive ones” (22). In Reproductive Labor and Innovation: Against the Tech Fix in an Era of Hype, feminist political theorist Jennifer Denbow demonstrates why the U.S. has put so much of its hopes, and its money, on technological “innovations”––and why that hasn’t addressed crises in reproduction and caregiving. Through a close examination of what she calls the “innovation/reproduction binary,” Denbow argues that technoscientific innovation has become a new site in which the power of the dominant few (primarily male, wealthy, white) asserts itself over the many (often female, non-wealthy, non-white) who engage in the work of social reproduction.

Policy changes in the mid-to-late twentieth century that privatized science and decreased regulations enabled the current “discourse of innovation.” Operating in tandem with other neoliberal values and policies, these shifts frame innovation as socially responsible and inherently linked to the public good. As Denbow points out, however, many so-called ‘innovations’ in fact “tend to further enrich the wealth and increase the precarity of everyone else” (12). In the sphere of reproduction specifically, the neoliberal project embraces high-tech developments while simultaneously creating crises in fields related to reproductive labor, like childcare. Unmasking the neoliberal myth that innovations inevitably advance social good makes it clear why scrutinizing new repro-genetic technologies from social justice perspectives is essential.

In four chapters, Denbow tracks the obfuscating power of innovation discourse. The first chapter locates innovation in a longer trajectory of exploitation, from settler colonialism and racial capitalism to oppression related to disability, race, and gender (24). Through analysis of the Bezos Center for Innovation at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry, she shows how innovation discourse perpetuates European colonizers’ justification for taking land from indigenous peoples who they claimed were not using it “productively” enough (37). She highlights how prominent narratives frame innovations as symbols of societal advancement, while deeming those they disenfranchise (indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, care workers, warehouse employees -- the list goes on) as standing in the way of progress.

The second chapter considers how the emphasis on innovation––both in public discourse and education––shapes a construction of the “entrepreneurial self” that is attentive to branding and “appreciat[es] the value of the self as human capital” (58). This new understanding of the self sees education and childrearing as investments in “the speculative value of children” (62). By changing what constitutes “good parenting,” it contributes to the privatization of reproductive labor: families, rather than communities, are seen as the assumed beneficiaries of investments in children, and therefore also bear the responsibility for care work (67). In turn, care workers are encouraged to market themselves on digital platforms like Care.com. While pitched positively as a model that empowers them to become entrepreneurs, it leaves care workers vulnerable to and responsible for the inevitable failures that result from laboring in an unregulated sector with low wages.

Chapter Three focuses on noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) to illustrate how genomics “innovations” converge with neoliberal constructions of children as human capital (85). Drawing on reproductive justice and disability justice critiques, Denbow traces how “the curative imaginary” allows NIPT companies to present their tests with “a veneer of benevolence” (91). Denbow focuses her critique on the social contexts “that create and structure choice” rather than scrutinizing “individual reproductive decisions” (86). Companies frame disability as “a bar to progress” that threatens an otherwise promising future, and thus ought to be prevented. NIPT is pitched as a solution to the uncertainties of reproductive investments, shoring up ableist ideals and making pregnant people solely responsible for their own and their children’s health (90).

The fourth and final chapter assesses “innovations” in reproduction, including in vitro gametogenesis, and links them to transhumanist discussions of existential risk and genetic engineering. Denbow argues that the “speculative projects of space and fertility entrepreneurship,” while seemingly separate, are often embraced by the same usual suspects, such as Nick Bostrom and Elon Musk. One common denominator is the notion of “innovation as panacea,” which depoliticizes and obscures structural problems like climate change (112). Denbow also notes their similar animating motivations:

[B]oth are oriented toward transcending once taken-for-granted limits of the human condition: our confinement to Earth and the necessity of sexual reproduction and gestation in human wombs. They are also both animated by masculine, colonialist anxiety about the future of humanity (112).

Emphasizing the popularity of longtermism and transhumanism in Silicon Valley and beyond, Denbow critiques these intertwined ideologies and their support for repro-genetic engineering as a form of “neoliberal eugenics” (123). While this type of eugenics may not involve “outright coercion or state-mandated use of genetic technology,” it harnesses the language of autonomy and individual freedom to pressure parents into opting for genetic selection and editing to “enhance” human capital (125). Denbow reveals how Bostrom and others’ preoccupation with enhancing human intelligence through genetic interventions relies on the same assumptions discussed in earlier chapters: that “‘intelligence’ through ‘innovation’” will solve social problems (127). Not only does this approach fail to address structural problems, it also forwards eugenic thinking that creates a hierarchy of human worth based on particular accounts of intelligence and rationality that are entangled with racism, colonialism, and ableism (128).

In the epilogue, Denbow turns to the Covid-19 pandemic, analyzing how the embrace of innovation––and its flipside, the devaluation of reproductive labor––played out in public health: “While healthcare workers used garbage bags as personal protective equipment, the federal government handed billions of dollars to biotechnology corporations with few strings attached” (138). Denbow does not suggest that we ought to always reject scientific or technical breakthroughs, but instead emphasizes the need for public scrutiny of “the broader context and implications of innovations” to assess whether they exacerbate or counteract the innovation/reproduction binary (139). Understanding the politics of innovation, she argues, can reveal how policies and regulations that funnel public resources toward innovation serve the wealthy (140). Instead of placing our hopes in innovation, we ought to recognize the value of social reproduction as foundational to society (144).

Denbow’s final pages emphasize the need for “deep structural change” to “undo intersectional oppressions and the structures of racial capitalism, ableism, and misogyny,” transforming these structures so that they better support reproductive labor (142). Turning to insights from the disability justice and reproductive justice movements, she advocates for embracing human interdependency instead of the myth of independence, recognizing the centrality of care instead of innovation, and turning to practices of collective care, solidarity, and mutual aid. With tech elites including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy taking on leadership roles in Donald Trump’s new administration, Denbow’s caution against an uncritical embrace of innovation takes on a new urgency. Rather than accepting unfettered development and commercialization of reproductive and genetic technologies, she urges to us seriously assess where these technologies will lead.