Dopamine’s paradox: How neurocapitalism weaponises reward circuits to sustain extractive systems
Original framing: “Dopamine takes a hit: how neuroscience is rethinking the ‘feel-good’ chemical” — Nature
The original framing omits the historical commodification of dopamine (e.g., ADHD medication markets, social media algorithms), indigenous perspectives on emotional regulation (e.g., Ayurveda’s sattvic mind-states), and the role of colonial extractivism in creating environments that dysregulate dopamine. It also ignores the racialised and classed dimensions of dopamine research, where Black and working-class bodies are disproportionately pathologised.
Low structural omission detected in mainstream coverage.
The narrative is produced by elite neuroscience journals (Nature) and funded by pharmaceutical/tech conglomerates, serving their interests in medicalising emotional distress to sell drugs and surveillance tech. It obscures the role of neoliberal capitalism in creating the conditions for dopamine dysregulation, framing the problem as individual rather than structural. The framing legitimises profit-driven interventions while ignoring collective solutions rooted in community care.
Dopamine was first isolated in 1957, coinciding with the rise of consumer capitalism and the medicalisation of mental health. The 1980s ‘chemical imbalance’ theory emerged alongside Big Pharma’s push for SSRI antidepressants, mirroring the earlier racial pseudoscience of IQ testing. The current dopamine narrative reflects the neoliberal turn toward biopolitical control of populations via neurotechnologies.
The dopamine narrative is a microcosm of neoliberal biopolitics, where a complex neurochemical system is reduced to a marketable ‘deficiency’ to be ‘fixed’ by pharmaceuticals and surveillance tech.