Welcome to the age of longevity capitalism

Abstract This essay coins and develops the concept of Longevity Capitalism, a biopolitical and financial regime in which both the condition of living longer and the pursuit of longevity are transformed into frontiers of accumulation. As financialisation extends into the domain of ageing, longevity – once a social and fiscal challenge – has been reframed as an investment opportunity. The essay traces a shift from collective welfare management to individualized risk-bearing, showing how uncertainty about life expectancy is converted into a new asset class. Drawing on examples such as financial instruments that profit from longevity risk, the rise of ‘age-tech’, and Silicon Valley’s ventures in life extension, it shows how biological time is increasingly treated as an economic resource. It also examines the speculative pursuit of ‘longevity escape velocity’, where technological innovation is imagined to outpace ageing and death itself becomes a technical problem. Together, these developments reveal a system in which longer life functions as a perpetually deferred investment cycle – an economy sustained by its own postponement. The essay argues that economic and biological time, wealth and health, are now fused within a single regime of managed futurity, reflecting new forms of power over who – and how – gets to live longer.