-
•
-Critique f ;: .f Politi I no my_
-
Bernard Stiegler
For
a
New Critique of
Political Economy BERNARD STIEGLER translllttd by Daniel Ross
polity
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CONTENTS
For a New Critique of Political Economy
1
Heads buried in the sand: a warning
3
Incroduction
8
Pharmacology of the prolt!tariat
14
To work
45
Pharmacology of Capital and Economy of Concriburion
71
Nom
130
IllIux
143
For a New Critique of Political Economy
For An/fluid ck I'Epilu Imd Chris/itlll rlmri
ONE
Heads buried in the sand: a warning lhe [hests put forward in this small volume were hrst set aU( on January 15. 2009 at the Maiso" de I'Ettrope, during a lecture which tvdyne Grossman and the Co/Mgt inrffllat;onal dt ph;[osopbit invited me (0 deliver, and they wert also discussed in my conrribution 10 the catalogue for "Work: Meaning and Care," an ohibi tion held in Dresden from June 2009 to March 20 I 0 at the initiative of the Demsches Hygiene-Museum, the German Fedtral Cultural Foundation and Daniel Tyr.addlis. 1 decided (0 publish these rdlecdons in the midst of economic and political debates taking pla� throughout the world about the necessity of implementing stimu lus plans in order [0 limit (he destructive effects of the first planc:tary economic crisis of the:: capitaliSt indus uial world. Now when, in such debates, "investment stimulus" and "consumption stimulus" arc: spoken of
in opposing [enns,
twO
distinct qucsrions become con
fused, questions that, in fact. do require simultaneous treatment, yet according to
twO
different scales of time, 3
f O R A NEW C R I T IQUE
:l
difficulty which is all the greater. given that
th� pmmt
crisis hmdds tlu /'lid o/Ihi' COlJJllmm'sl modi'l. Those\.'ho advocate srimuladng consumption as Ihe pouh to economic rccovery want ndlher ro hear nor speak about the end of consumerism. But the French government, which lldvocoues stimulating investment. is no more willing Ihan those who advocalc stimular· ing consumprion to C.11l [he consumerist indumial model inw question. The Frcnch version of"stimularing investment" (which seems morc suhtle when it comes from Barack Obama) argues that the best way
(0
5.1Ve
consumption is through invesrmenr, rh:tt is, hy restoring "profitability," which will in
rurn
restore an entrepre·
neurial dynamism itself founded upon consumerism and its counterpart, marker·driven productivism. In other words, this "investment"' proposes no long. term view capable of drawing any lessons from the collapse of an induStrial mood based on the automobile, on oil. and on (he consrruction of highway networks. as well as on the Hemien networks of the culture indus· tries. This ensemble has until recendy formed me basis of consumerism, yet today it is obsolete, a faCt which became clear during the autumn of 2008. In other words, this "invcstment" is not an ilwesrmenr: it ison the contrary a
disillvmmml, an abdication which consistS in doing no more than bllryil1g011�S h�ad hI th� WId. 4
Ht'ads bUTi,.d in II" sand: II wllmillg
This "investment policy," which has no goal other than the reconsotmion of the consumerist modd, is [he translation of a moribund ideology, desperatdy (rying to prolong the life of a model which has b«ome self-destructive, denying and concealing for as long as possible the faCt thar the consumerist model is now mas sivdy toxic (a [oxiciry extending far beyond the question of "toxic assets") because it has re'J.ched its limitS. This denial is a matter of trying, for as long as possible, to maintain [he colossal profits that can be accrued by those capable of exploiting iI. The consumerist modd has rcached its limirs because it has become systemically short-termist. bCC'J.use it has given rise to a tyJUmic Slupidity that Ult
T«omtitution of a
strufturally prtVt'f//S
kmg-tmn horizon. This "invest
ment" is not an investment according [0 any terms other than those of pure accounting: it is a pure and simple reestablishment of me st,Ue of things. trying to rebuild the indusrrial landscape without at all changing itS ncuc rure, still less its axioms, all in the hope of prorecting income levels that had hitherto been achievable. Such may be the hope, but these:: are the false hopes of those with buried heads. The genuine obj�t of debate raised by the crisis, and by the question of how
(Q
escape
this crisis, ought (0 be how to ovcrcome the short termism to which we have been led by
a
consumerism 5
FOR A NEW CRIT1QUE
intrinsically destructive of all genuine investment-that is, of investment in the furure-a short-term ism which has
Jysuhlically, and 1l0t acddmtfllLy, been translated into [he thcomposition ofillvestnltnt into tprculdriol1. Whether we must, in order
(Q
avoid a major eco
nomic catastrophe, and to anenuate the social injustice caused by the crisis, stimulate consumption and the eco nomic ma<;hinc SItch
as il slill is, is a question as urgenr as
it is legitimate-as long as such a policy does not simply aggravate the situation at the COSt of millions and bil lions of euros or dollars while at the same time masking the true question, which is to produce a vision and a political will capable of progressively
moving away from the uOl1omico-politictlL compLex of C01l1llmp'ioll so asJO enter into the complex ofa new type of il1Vf!Jtment, which must be a social and political investment or, in other· words, an investment in a common desire, that is, in what AristOtle called philia, and which would then form the basis of a new type of economic investment. Between the absolute imposes
the
imperative
urgency which obviously of salvaging
the
present
situation-and of avoiding the passage from a global economic crisis to a global political crisis that might yet unleash military conflicts of global dimensions and the absolute necessity that consists in prodUCing a potential future in the form of a political and social will 6
Hmds buried ill tl;r sand: a wamillg
capable: of making a break wirh the: presc=nt situation, there: is dearly a conrmdictioll. Such a contradiction is characte:ristic of what happens to a dynamic system (in this case, the: industrial system and the: global capitalist system) once it has begun to mutate. This question is political as much as it is economic: it is a question of political economy, a matter of knowing in whatprrciJt!/y this 1fIflflU;Oll co nsim. and to what potit. iol, bur also industrial. choices ir leads: it is a matter of Itnowing what nt!tv indus/rial poli/ics is
reqllirtd (on
this
point at least. Samck Obama seems slightly ahead of (he Europeans, who remain expertS at functioning in a stale of denial). Only such a response is capable of simultaneously dealing with the question of what urge:nt and immedi· ate steps are: nc=c�sary in order to salvage: the industrial system. and with the question of (he how such steps must be inscribed within an economic and politi. cal mutation amounting [0 a revolution-if it is true that when a model has run its COlirse [revolu], [hen its transformation, through which alone it can avoid [Oral destruction, consdrutes a revolution.
7
Introduction
RetentionaL economy In 200 1 I argued, in La Ttclmiqll� n I� T�mpJ 3: U
r�mps dJI dnbnn �11a qU�lIi(m dll mnl·tlT�. and by way of reading Kam's Criliqllt ofPurt RtaJon. for a n�w critiqut". for a critique addressing the question of tertiary reten· tion. that is, (he question of mnemotechnics-and in more general terms addressing lhe question of technics which, qun maurinliZdrion ofaptritnn, always consri· rutes a Jpatia/;zalion of th� tim� of comciOUSl1tsJ bryond .
comcioltJntJJ and. thetefore. consrirutes an unconscious· ness, if not Iht unconscious. I would like to demonstrate here that (his question of tertiary retemion opens up a new perspective on political economy and its critique, and, now more than ever. that it makes a new critique of political economy the essemial task of philosophy. Conscious time is woven with what Husserl calls retentions and proremions.1 Primary retemion is that which is formed in the very passage of time, as the course of this rime, such that, as a presem which passl!S, it is
8
ImToduCliolf constituted by the immediate and primordial retendon (the "primary retenrion ") of irs own passing. Becoming past, (his passage of the present is (hen consticUled secondary retemion, that is. (ents
as
as
all those memorial con
[sollvtnirs[ which together form the woven threads
of our memory [mimoire]. Tertiary retemion is a mnemotccnnical exteriori zation of secondary retentions which arc themselves engendered
by
primary retemions.
But from the
beginning of that process of hominization [hac Andre Leroi-Gourhan describes as a process of exterioriza tion, all technical objects constitute an inrergenerational support of memory which, a.� mnurifll m/tllrt, overdctcr mines learning
Inpprt'miHngnJ and mnesic activities, To
this extent. therefore. teniary retenoon always already precedes the constitution of primary and secondary retention, A newborn child arrives into a world in which te((iary retention boch precedes and awaits it, and which. precisely, constitUlCS this world And
as
as
world.
the spalialization of individual rime becoming
thereby collective time, tertiary retention is an original exteriorization of the mind
[npri/),
In the course of human history. however, the mne motechnical retenrionallayer is transformed, increasing in
both complexiry and densiry. It leads in pa((icular, from the advent of Neolithic sedcntarization, to the formation 9
F O R A NEW CRITIQUE I
of teniary reremion systems which consritme increasingly
analytical recordings of prim ry and secondary reten· � tional Aows or Auxes (/IIIXI-slI Ch � systems of writing
ir that .logos is constituted:
and numeration. It is in thi� w
as the discretization of the continuous Aow of language
which, spatialized, can rhen be considered analytically,
which then enters ilHo.its diacritical era, and this
is the
point from which. fundamentally and specifically, log!c
proceeds. But this discretization of flows also affects
gestures. The discretization of gesture was given concrete
expression with the application of Jacques de Vaucanson's
automation technology to the Jacquard loom, and became generalized in the form of (he industrial revolution.
Gesture must here be com:idcred (like speech) as a
rerentional 80w, iliar is, as a
mm:]
cOlll;nuozu chain kncbabu· [apprmtH i agt'J of a
of gestures, and the learning
craft consists in producing gestural secondary reren· tions, whereas the discretization and the spatialized reproduction of the time of gestures constitutes techni·
cal automation, but where it is no longer the the souL but rather the gestures of the
logos
of
body that become
analytically rt'prodllcibit' as tertiary ret�ntion. This rero
dudbiliry resultS in (cremional grains that one can call
gramnlt'S. And this is why we posit chat the evolmion of terriary retemion, from the Neolithic age until our own,
constitutes a process of grammati7.arion. 10
Introduction
In the course of the nineteenth ce::nrury, technologies for grammati1.ing alldiolJiSllalIrruption appear, through which the:: Rows of the sensory organs are discre rized. All noctic, psychomotor and aesthetic functions then find themselves transformed by grammatization processes. Considered in terms of political economy, this amoums to (he facr that it is the functions of conception, production and consumption which are grammatize::d-and whi�h are thereby incorporated inlo an apparatus devoted (0 the production of tertiary retentions controlled by mrmionnl sysrcms.!
7h( work ofgrammatization I would like to show mat: •
the question of tertiary retention. engendered as it is in the course of rhe process of grammatization, is the condition of rhe proletarianization described by Marx and Engels in the Communist MnniftsfOi
•
new forms of grammalizarion, unknown to Marx and Engds, constitute new forms of prolerariani7..a tioni
•
from this perspective, a new critique of political economy is the task pttr
l'Xcrllrnct' for philosophy. II
FOR
It.
NEW C R I T I Q U E
This short book proposes a brief exposition o f the con siderarions which consrirute the basis of such a new critique of political economy. focused around several questions. in order to open a debate with Marx, and on the question of labor and work today-given that labor. which firs! ap�ars with sedentarization. is always overdetermined by the 5t'ate of grammatization which is current at the time. and given that grammatization_is, at present. undergoing new and literally revolutionary developments. lhe essential aspects of this exposition are the following: •
the
qutSrioll 0/ production.
OIL
a moment when we .
,
are entering imo a new economic and industrial era which, faced with the larest developments in gram matization. poses anew �he question of tht
dtfinirioll
of labor: •
the
qlltSriol' 0/ consumptioll,
unable to foresee, which
was
and of what Marx was the way in which con
sumption would be reconfigured in the twentieth century in an essential relation to desire and to its economy-in an essemial rdation to what, through the pathway
to
the imaginary, that is. to fantasy.
and through that to the unconscious. transforms by binding to the material of the drives; 12
/mrotiucrioIJ
•
the qJINtioll of tlJl' prolrtorint, of the unde.rsranding and extension of this concept, of its uses and misuses in the. Marxist tradition, of its being forgonen, and of its imml'lur imponallcl' today.
•
the qu�rioll ofilldustry and irs inscription in human becoming.
considered
from
the
perspective
of
grammatizarion; •
the QlltJt;Oll of I'xurfla/itit's, such as these arc inces· sandy reconfigured in the course of the: process of industriali7.ation. insofar as industrialization is a process of grammatizadon, and in ,heir rdarion to tr.msindividuation. tbat is, to (011mll'rcr,
•
the: qucstipn of
social cltum in
the: framework of
a
new proletarianization, of (be disappearance of what one calls me bourgedisie---pc:uy, middJe or grand and the stakes of a becoming.mafia of capitalism.
13
TH REE
Pharmacology of the proletariat From commtrct to tht marktt One hundred and lifty years ago, in January 1859. Man: published his
Eco1lomy,
Comriblllioll to a N�UJ Cr;tiqll� ofPolitical
and hence when I argue here for a new cri
tique of political economy. I am also commemorating this annivcrliary. But. at the same time, I am paying homage
(0
the journal, lJJ
Nollvtllr Critiqlli', about
which I spoke in September 2008 ar an annual event sponsored by the n�spaper
L 'Hllmanitl, I
describing
the place this journal holds in my personal history as an adolescent and young militant: it was in the pages of this Communist Parry publication that for the first clme I read about psychoanalysis, linguistics, anthropology and philosophy. Finally. and above all. new
critiqui',
in
speaking
today
about a
I am engaging in polemical dialogue
with an intellectual tradition which is very much my own, emerging from French philosophy in the second half of lhe lWentielh cen£Ory. and which. as POSI14
Phl1.rmnco/.Qg offh� pro/�fllriflt
mucturaHsm-following Barthe:s. author of Criticlll EsstlJs, and about whom J also heard for the firs! time in La NOllwll� Crifiqllt'--posited thar cririque was a concept insepardble from metaphysics. that it was to this extenr itself metaphysical, and that. henceforth, it would be less a marrC't of"cririquing" than of dcconmucring. In my own view, deconstruction remains a critique, and it is as such that it fC'mains invaluable. Bur none of this is very dear, and J would say that, in a way, deconstrucrion failed to critique its critique of critique, failed, that is, to critique the claim that the form taken by critique has historically been metaphysical. In other words, it has not clarified what a critique might be w�rt it no longrrfolmd�d 011 tl sJlttm ofoppositiolls.
What do I mean when I speak of having to
stttr/
afr�sh in the critique of political economy? And firsr of all, what is political economy? J will nor in faCt give any kind of detailed answer to this question, which has in any case already been meticulously explored . by Gido Berns. J will restricr myself to pointing our mar, whereas Berns relates the definition of political economy given by Ancoine de Monrcbrcsrien in 1 6 1 5 (according t o which it refers
to
an economy surpassing
the domestic sphere of the oi/(os) to the question of com m�rc� formulated by Arnould in 1 7 9 1 , in this work here iris a marter of a political economy w/Jich is
I/O
15
longtr
FOR
A NEW CRITIQUE
$tricr/y ('omm�rdal. if it is ffUt:: that comm� is a type of exchange irreducible to what happens to the markn when industrializ.ation and mechanizarion create ne\v forms of t'xchangt'. Commerce is always an exchange of rauojr1ajr� (knowledge of how to make or dol and UltJ()iN);Ur� (knowledge of how [0 live). It is in this same senst'. furthermore, that "commerce" may, in French. refer to conversarion and mort' gener:llly to all forms of fruit· ful social rdation. On the other hand. however. the COIIS/wlt!r;;t market prcsuppost!S the liqUidation of borh
UlllOir1i'ir� and s(tlIoir·viun. (The difference berween commerce and the market was recently affirmed and explored by Franck Aggeri. Olivier Favereau and Armand Hatchud at a colloquium in Cr:risy.la.Salle ..
•
L activit! marchal1d� SlutS I� mllrchP.')2
Philosoph",. "onomy. and ilkology today In the spring of 2008. tvdyne Grossman invired me to speak at the Col/}g� ;nunlllf;onal d� phjlosoph;�. and I suggested speaking on [ht' [ht'me which forms the tide of the present work, because I
was
convinced that we
were on [he verge of an unprecedented crisis, a crisis calling liS meh for a 16
n�w
critique of political economy-
PI}(lrmnco/ogy oft/� protrffln'af the specifics of which I analyze in greatcr detail in Pour ('11 finir IlIJt{ /a ",kro;IJItllu: QlIrtqllt'J propos;t;01Jt d'A" l"dllltdatiJ.J There
was
also, however. another rcason for spc:a.k.
ing about this subject: I wanted to provoke a discussion within contemporary philosophy about the Slate of its political discourse. given that so often, if flot indeed most of the time, French philosophers from my own and the preceding gencration have (wirh some notable exceptions)" no/bing whatsoever to say about the con· temporary economy. as if nothing new had ,tppc:lrcd in this domain since (he end of the Second World War: or, again,
as
if [here were a prohibition on any philo
sophical intervention in the field of economics after the advent of "�onomism"-(he economism of rhe infa· mow: "homo «.anomicus," since become shameful-an cconomism which encompasses Marxism (liquidating -me political"), leading to all those terrible mistakes of which we are now aware. I will try here, then,
(Q
open up a conversation with
those who come to us from this twentieth cenrury. Blit I Would also and above all likC' (Q invite their readers. and among rhe laner, those who, unlike mysdf. arC' still )'IOung philosophers, and chose who arc not employed •
philosophC'cs, but who study philosophy because they have made it their 0(;/1111: all (hose who are nOI 17
FOR A N E W C R I T I Q U E
professional philosophers. but who are lovers
(nmntt'lm)
of philosophy and. as such. friends of wisdom-that is. who are. as such, true philosophers. In opening up this exchange. what I waD[ to say before anything else is the following: the philosophy of our rime has abandoned (he project of a cririque of polirical economy. and this consritutcs a disastrous turn of events. Because if it is true that economism has led to
horrific ourcomes. neverthelcs.� the absence of a cri·
rique of raday's economy prepares oTher horrors-and at rhe same rime leaves the coming generation tragically unprepared. As for this philosophical abdication in rela· tion to economics-which characterizes the an,icudcs of so many and which amounts to a renunciation of the an(':mpr to think their time. and wh.ich is as such a cor· relate of the renunciation by politicians of the notion of struggling against a Slate of things which undennines the law-Ihis abdication was brought about by a certain rdonion to critique. or ramer by a non·rdadon. such that it leads to a non·rdarion to current economics often masked by an obsessive relation to philosophical textS devoted to the economics of the past. Now. rhis non·rdarion, which has bc:come an occlu sion if not indeed an outright denial. was nlso produced. in large part. by the
snmt' promm that led financiers.
industrialists. [echnocrau and politicians to imerior-
18
Pbammcolog;y ofthe proletariat
iu certain JiNiatio1JS IH fimply givm. wlumlS thry are in "altty IlItsuftahlabk ar/pm: they will. inevitably. reach theit limits. and it will then become necessaty to submit these limits to a critique, in the K:mtian sense of this word. These processes form what used ology." This ideology aJ fuch:
is
[0
� called"ide
�ginning to reappear, this time
it is beginning to appear for what it is, thanks to
a vety brutal revdation of these limits. And yet, when f.aced with such questions. philosophy remains almost entirely mutC'. To think and to critique political economy as com· mmt that has become txclJllugt under the conditions of an induStrial society-that is, that has submitted mutation of/abor.
(0
1"0 a
a functionaliz.ation of me processes
of production and consumption. to a resultantfunction. aliurion of focial
rtlations,
and such that they can no
longer be envisaged without mechanical tcchnology requires aiming at the examination of both economics and politics, and spokjng about them insofar as they are indissociable.5 As for the political discourse of French philosophers, rhey say practically nothing about economics. They
apeak of immigration, of Europe, or of dcmocrncy. but they do not speak of capital, nor labor. nor induStry. nor marketing. As for those who do speak philosophically about work and labor-an there arc a few-they are d 19
FOR" N E W CRITIQUE
both inreresting and important. but they are in general not philosophers: they 3re sociologists or economists. or even computer sdendsrs.
7h� qu�stion ofwork Faced wirh increases in productivity gains due to auto mation and digitalization. and with the unemployment [0 which [his gave rise. a major debate rook place at [he end of the rwcnricrh cenrury on the possibiliry and necessity of shared work. It was in this comex[ that in France, the government of Lionel Jospin. under rhe authority of Minister
of Social Affairs Martine Aubry.
passed a law limiting the working week to thirry-five hours. This law was inspired by research published in 1995. both by Jeremy Rifkin in the United States (the French translation of this work was prefaced by Michel Rocard)6 and by Dominique Meda in France? influenced in rurn by the research of Andre Con., in particular his work, Mttamorp"os�s du travail: Critiqllt d� In raison
tcoflomiqu�.8 More recendy. afrer rhe election of Jacques Chimc in 2002, questions were taised, in the first place by the Minister of Culture Jean-Jacques Aillagon, about the role of Unedic {the French unemploymenr welfare 20
Pharmacology ofth� proletariat
agency). and about the laws determining the condi tions under which occasional and casual workers in the theatre and cinema
[intermitteflts
dll
sp�cttlC/�l
could
qualify for unemployment benefits. This in rurn led Antonella Corsani and Mauri7.io Lauarato again to address the question of work.') During this same period. new work practices appeared in the wake of digital and reticulated technologies. with respect to which innovative discourses developed in France and elsewhere. discourses which invite us to revisit the definition of work in its relation to what I describe as a
makon,
that
phnmldkoJl and as an hypomncsic phar is, as a teclmology of tlu spirit which, as -
tertiary retention, can JUSt as well
lead
to [he proletari
anization of the life of the mind as it can ro irs critical intensification, when it finds itself confronted with what McKen7.ie Wark calls "abstraction."IO These new work practices have brought profoundly into question the way in which work is distributed in the productivist and consumerisr industrial epochs, questions which have frequencly been raised by the journal Multitlldes, and by the director of this journal, Yann Moulier-Boucang, opening the question of an economy of contribution and reinvigorating the question of property. It was in this comext that an imporranr proposal resurfaced, from Rifkin to Lazzarato, a proposal first
21
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
suggested by Mihan Friedman. and one mat. when it recurs during the global crisis, does so with renewed force: the idea of implementing a negative tax allowing the remuneration of non-salaried work. Corsani and Lazzarato, furthermore, show that the benefits regime in place for French occasional and casual theatrical and cinematic workers is a case of just such a negative taxation system. But wirh this proposition, just as with all those new work practices invented by those whom Pekka Himanem11 and McKenzie Wark call "hackers," the question of
UJork tim� o/{t5id� of employmmt
is posed
with renewed vigour, having been tOlally ignored by
me law reducing the working week to thirty-flve hours, JUSt as it ignored the exhaustion of the consumerist industrial model, a model within which production and consumption constitute a functional opposition, but one mar has now become obsolete.1l Today. as we undergo a global economic crisis of unusual violence, one that seems to constitute the end of a long cycle that is at once industrial and economic, l} can we keep posing the question of work in the same terms? Does the shake-up of the consumerist model thar has taken place not profoundly alter the stakes and even [he definition of work, given that the latter was essentially conceived, over the preceding century, in
22
PbflmlllCO/ogy oft/u pro/etflriat
accordance with an industrial model resting on the cou pling of production and consumption, and given that it is precisely this funcdonal pair that now seems to have exhausted irself?14 This is precisely the question raised by me research of Corsani and Lazzarato, considered from the standpoint of the current crisis and of its destructive effecrs on the classical forms of work.
J908-2008: the ,e.dentialfoil ofthe rate of profit and the consumerist response The indusrrial capitalism of the producrivisr ninereenrh
century, founded on me steam engine and on the iron rails of railway networks, gives way in the twen tieth century to a consumerist model founded on the steel industry, the petrochemical industry, and on road networks. One hundred and fifty years after the Contribution to a Crhiqu� ofPolitical Economy, however, the productivisr and consumerist industrial model, having become global, has in fact di5inugraud, alld bas tWne 50 to the precise extent that it has consisted in the economic and functional integration of production and consumption. If in 1908, with the launch of the Model T, Henry Ford invented a new industrial model which appeared 23
F O R A NEW CRITIQUE
(Q
counter the effects of the tendency of the:' rate of
profit
(Q
fall,l5 nevertheless in the course of 2008 the
Ford Motor Company managed [0 lose mree quarters of its value-while at the same time the road networks of carbon·time ::and mobility founded on the consumption of hydrocarbons ::are being replaced by digital ne{Works of light-time ::and the development of an economy of the hyperma(C�riaI.16 These qu/,.'Srions h::ave received detailed analysis in Pour tilfillir flllt( fa microhIflnct'.17 It is in this context of lighHime (dominated by the issues of aCCeSS to elcctronic nct\vorks and of digital ::automation) that Jercmy Rifkin proposes the following hypothesis: Perhaps as lirde as 5 percent of the adult population will
be neroed (Q manage and operate the traditional indumial sphere by the year 2050.18 Why is it that Rifkin and others who reflect on the ques· tion of work fail to analyze the relation be{Ween what (hey call the "end of work" and the tendential fall in the rate of profit, and why is it that, after 1968 and above all after the 1980s (that is. after the "conservative revolu tion"). it was so frequently proclaimed that Marx was mistaken when he formulated this thesis? Marx and Engels predictcd that capitalism, or what 24
Pb"rmncolog, oftb� pro /�tarint one calls the market economy. would r:l.pidly reach ill limit as the role of labor-that is. variable capital diminishes due
gl obal
£0
productivity gains achieved in the
economy of production. Now, those: concerned
in me 1 990s with the question of work agrttd that productivity gains would inevitably lead to an "end of work," bur seemed also
(0
share the idea, widely held in
the wake of the "conserv:nivc revoludon" and the ideo logical domination of nco-liberalism, that the capitalist dynamic had owrrom� the rendential fall in the rate of profie. Nothing could be more False, and Marx was in faCt far from mistaken. The recent crisis is, very simply pur, a constqutnCt of this l]Jumic tendency. Marx could no(' however, have anticipated ml.": role of [he exploitation and functionalization of a ni!W m�rgy. which is not the energy of me proletarianized producer (labor
as
pure
labor (orce), nor the mOtor energy of a new industrial apparatus (such
as
oil and electricity, which are placed
into the servicC' of {he stC'd industry and the culture industries}, but rather the energy of the proktarianiud cOlUllmo-rnat
is,
the consumer's libidinal C'nerg. the
exploitation of which changes the libidinal �ronomJ and, with it, the economy
m
a who/i!, to the point where the
former is destroyed JUSt like the latter, and the former by the latter. 25
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
In other words, Marx
was un a ble
ro amicipate the
way in which the question of consumption arises in the rwemierh cemury. and [he way in which rhis transforms the landscape which Marx tried ro describe in
(Apital.
Marx did, of course, address rhe issue of consumption. and he did so frequently. Consider, for example, the following passage from
Contribution /0
tlu
Critiqllt of
Politi((l/ Ecollomy (1859): Consumption is simultnneously also production. juS! as in nature rhe production of a plant involvt$ the consump tion of demcnral forces and chemical materials. [ .
. .1
But
the same applics to any other lUnd of consumption which
[. . .J contributes to the production of some ;1!;pect of man. Neverthel�, says political economy. chis type of produc don that is identical with consumption is a second ph�
arising from the dcstruaion of [he first product. In me first rype of production (he producer assumes
an
objec
tive aspecl, in the second rype the objectS created by him assume a personal aspect. I'
And especially: H unger is hun ger; but the hunger
rhat
is
satisfied by
cooked meat eaten with fork and knife differs from hunger t hat
devou rs raw mt;u
26
I.
. .J
Production thus produces
PlJarmaco/lJi:f ofIIJ� pro/�/arinJ
nOI only Ihe objecl of consumplion bUI 31so Ihe mode of consumption.to
Marx here underlincs In a certain way the question of ,d",io1lJ of (olUumpt ioll-which poses the question of whal I will describe in what follows
as
prousscs of
""IIsilid;"Muadoll. And yet, this qucstion of consumption will not enable him
(0
think ,he ncUJ form of prot�tnrial1iZllfioll
consisting in the organization of (01lJllmptioll
IIJ
Ib�
dntmcri(1II ofSIl/loir·/J;lIr� witb thr aim of(Wllillg nJIfli/· ablt pllrchasing powtr, thereby refining and reinforcing that system which rested on rhe dml'llctioll of SIlIlO;""
foirt witiJ tht aim 4crtating availnblt laborforct. It dlXS not enable him. in other words, to anticipate what, in the twentie-th ce-ntury, in the form of the capiralist libidinal economy, will make possible the dtft""l ofblll
also Ibt IlggrllVlllilJ1I of ,bt tjficts oj lIlt lt11dt11lilllfatl ill tiJt mit ofprofil. This is the very question posed by Guy Debord, who
extends
the
concept
of
prolet2rianizarion
the expropriation of human rime submined to commodiry.time-to the figure of rhe consume-r.21
as
De-bord was unable. however, to connect this change in the capimlisr system to the plJllrmllcotogicat qucstion .. of the eXleriori7 1tion techniques discuss(.-d below. 27
F O R A NEW CRIT1 QUE
It is only possible to come to grips with [his question by way of Freud and the uses which marketing made of his theory of the unconscious-in panicular those instigated by his nephew. Edward Bcrnays. who played an essencial role in the history of American capitalism. as shown by Adam Curtis in his 2002 documenrary,
7",
Cmtllry oftil, S'/f. Before returning to this poi!\(
which has been unerly neglected by those concerned . with the question of wurk, in spit'e of the f 1cr that productivism and consumerism arc inseparable-we muSt first proceed more profoundly imo the question of rhe essence of that process of proletarianization through which. according to Marx and Engds, labor undergoes radical change, but a process which is also. in my opinion, rhe condition of possibility of consumer
ism insofar as this emails the prolemrianiza£ion of me consumer. Now, as surprising as it may seem, it is necess.1fY at [his poi!\( to return to the very origin of philosophy, and to its struggle against sophistry, in order to propose that rhe first thinker of the proletariat, who thinks the proletariat without knowing that he does so, if I may put it this way. bur who thereby grams liS the possibility of thinking the proletariat, is Plato.
28
Pharmac%t;Y oflh� p/'o/�larial
plato and the prolttariat Jacques Derrida. in "PlalO's Pharmacy,"ll developed a large parr of his projecl of the deconstruction of
Pha�drus, by showing how this dialoguc opposes philosophical allam metaphysics on Ihe basis of his reading of
ntsis (that is. rhe remembrance of the truth of being) sophistic
to
hJPo1J/ll�sis
and in particular
t'O
(rhal is. to mncmorechnics,
writing as a fabricator of illusion
and a technique for rhe manipulation of minds), and by showing Ihat it is impossibl�according
lO
what
Dcrrida describes in Of Granmullolor:l as a logic of thaI supplemem which is the trace-to oppoJt' me interior (anamntsis) and the exterior (hypomntsis): it is impos
living memory to the tUad memory of hypomn� matoll, which the final Foucault will find
sible to oppose the
so intereSling and which
COllJtitum
living memory as
learned [saVllnuJ. This impossibility opens the pharma cological qllmioll, according to which the hypomnesic is a phanna/toll: at once poison and remedy. Now, what Socrates describes in Ph a�dl1/s namely ,
mar the (XUriOriznl;OIt of IfItlllOry
and ImolUltdg�,
is
a loss
of lII�mory
has today become the stuff of everyday
experience in all aspects of our existcnce, and, morc and more often, in the feeling of our powerlessness [impllis Janul, if not of our impoullct limpotencel, indeed of 29
!' O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E
our obso/ncmcr--ar the very moment when the extra ordinary ","�s;{,powt'rofdigital networks makes us aware of the immensity of hum:ln memory. which appears to
have become infinitely recoverable and accessible. The spread of industrial hypomnesic apparn[Uses causes our memories
m
pass into machines, in such a
way that. for example. we no longer know the telephone numbers of those dose to us-while [he spread of spell checkers c:mses fear of the end of orrbogrtlpbic COIIJciOIlS
IItSS and of the literary hypolllncsic knowledge (hat goes with it and. milb Ibm. the anamncsic knowledge (If language. Now, rhis amouIHs to rhe everyday and perceptible aspecr of what I would like
to
presem here as a vast
process of cogl1;riw Ilnd affmiw probillrillniution-and a vast process of the loss of knowledge(s):
Jiluo;r-u;ur�. theoretical knowledge Ib� nbsmct ofwhich nil Jilvor is 10Sl.
sauoir-foir�. (.JIluo;r rhioriU'Ti. ill
When o;urioriwtioll. which plays a major role in
Gmllllll
Id�olbgy. and which is the
roor
Tb�
of the techni
cal question. lhar is. the question of this production of self by self in which the human consists. reaches the stage when= the exteriorization of memory and knowl edge becomes hypcrindustrial. then it is at once what eXlends witham limit the power of hJPoml1�sic mili�lIs, and what allows rhem to be conrrolled--comrollcd by 30
Pharnlilcolot:J O/I/)(, prol(,lflrial
the cognilillt and culturaL jndll!lrin of control socie· ties which now formali� neurochemical activity and nucleotide sequences, and which thereby inscribe: the neurobiological substrates of memory and knowledge into the history of what one must analyze
as
a proew of
grammatiulfiol/ (that is, of discreri7 .. 1tion. and as such of abstraction from a continuum), a history the most recent stage of which is that of biotechnologies. and lhe "txt stage of which is nanorcchnologies. Hence arises
the question of a biopolitical, psychopolitical. sociop<)· liricai. and technopolhical industrial economy. and. in the final analysis, of a noopolitical industrial economy of memory. It is with the advent of mn�otcchnics that the process of
exteriorization qua
technical becoming
expressly becomes a history of grammatization. The proctSS of grammarization is the ucJmical hiIlory of m('mory, in which hypomnesic memory continually reinuoouces the constiTUtion of a tnlJion within anam· nesic memory. This anamnesic tension is exteriorized. in me form of works of the mind [or of the spirit. nprilJ. through which epochs of psychosocial individuation IIlId diJindividulltioll are pharmacologically configured. Grammaril.:J.{ion is the process through which the Aows and continuities which wrave our existrnces are diJemiud: writing. as the discretization of rhe Aow of 31
fOR II NEW CRITIQUE
speech . is a Sfng� of grammatizarion. And grammatiza rion occurs within an organology the question of which is introduced in AlIti-O�dipllS:
The prim it iv e terrilOrial machine codes flows. inn'sls organs. an d marks bodies. [ .
J ITJhe man who
. .
enjoys
the full exercise of his rights and duties has his whole
body ma rked under a regime that consigns his organs a nd th eir exercise
10
the collectivity [ .
. .
J. For
act-that the organs hc hewn into the
it is a f oundi ng
socius. and that
the Rows mn OV(,T its surfitce--through which man ceases to be a bio logiC31 organism and hecomes a rull body. an earth, to which his org.1ns become attached. where t hey
are attracted. repelled. miraculated. following me require ments of a so cius . NietzSChe says: it is a matter of creating
a memory for man; and
man, who was consrimred by
means of an active fitculty of forgetting
(oublt), by means
of a repression of biological memory. must create an ot!�r memory. one that is collccti v e [... J. uPcrbaps indeed
there was nOlhing more fearful and unC3nny in ,he whole preh iStory ofman fhan his mll�mol«IJ/liCJ.�13 Now, with the industrial revolution. the process of grammarizarion constituring [he history of mnemotech nia; slfddmly Stlrpnsm tlJt sphtr� oflBnguagt. that is, also, the sph ere of logos. with which it is placed by Deleuze
32
PlllfnlllolC ioK'l of,hI' prolt!,,,ritrr and Guanari in an essential and original rdation:14 the process of grammalization invests bodies. And in the first place, it discrcrizes the gt!shlrn of producers with (he aim of making possible meir aurom(uic tioll-while
"prot/tit'
at [he very same moment (hert also appear
those machines and apparatuses for reproducing the visible and the audible mal so caught the ancmion of Walter Benjamin. machines and appamtUliCS which grammatized perception and, through lhat, the affectivc acriviry of the nervous system. The grammati13tion of gesture, which was rhe basis of what Marx described as prolerariani7..ation, that is,
a.�
loss
0/sltvoir-ji,irt, i.� then pursued with the development of electronic and digital devices
to
the point that all forms
of knowledge become grammarized via cognitive and cultural mnemmechnologies. This will include the way in which linguistic knowledge bttomes the technologies and industries of automated language processing, but iI will also include uwoir-vivrt. that is. behavior in general, from user profiling ro the grammarization of affms-all of which will lead roward the "cognitive" and "culcurar capitalism of the hyperinduStrial st!rv;("t economies. Grammarization is (he history of the exterioriza tion of memory in all its forms: nervous and cerebral memory. corporeal and muscular memory, biogenetic memory. When technologically exteriorized. memory 33
FOR A N E W CRtTiQUE
can become the object of sociopolitical and biopolitical concrols through the economic investments of social organizalions, which Ihereby IYn"nflg� plJCh;c orgnn;· Ull;Of/S through the imermediary of mnemotechnical organs, among which must be COUnted machine·rools (Adam Smith anal)'7.cd as orly as 1776 the effects of the machine on the mind of the worker) and all auromata including household appliances, as well as the "inrernet of things" and the communicating devices that would soon invade the hyperindusrrial market, and which are
hypomfltJ;c obj(ClJ through which what Scott Lash and Celia Lury have described as t!J;ngijication1S rakes a new turn.11i This is why the (hinking of grammarization calls for a gtnmll organology, that is, a theory of (hC' articula tion of bodily organs (brain, hand, eyes, rouch, tongue. gC'nital organs, viscC'ra, nC'uro--vegerative system, etc.). aniflcial organs (Iools. instrumems and technical sup- pons of grammadzation) and social organs (human groupings, such
as
families, clans, or C'thniciries, politi
cal institutions and societies, businesses and economic organitarions, imernarional organizarions. and social systems in general, rC'gardless of the extem to which they are or arc: nOI deIerrirorialized. and whether they be juridical,linguistic. religious, polirical, fiscal, economic. et(.).27 34
Pb,m11llColoD oftb� proluariat If in toe hyperindusrri al tion po� in
PIJfl�drus
era
we rcopen the ques
concerning the hypomnesic
object. and if we do so from the standpoint of this kind
political organoloD, a(1/b�tic orgal/ology),
of general organology (founding a an
"onomie orgmtology,
and an
we discover rhat [he Platonic question of hypomncsis constirute'S the First version of a thinking of proletariani ution, insofar
as
it is true rnat the proletariat arc those
economic actors who are without knowledge because they are without memory: their memory has passed into the machine rhat reproduces gestures th:at the prole rariat no longer needs
(0
know - they must simply serve
the reproductive machine and thus. once again, they become serfs. Examining tbe question of technical memory raday
r�opmil/g tb� qll�tion of bJpomll�!iJ Itot (mly tIS tlu qumion of th� pro/�tarjar, bUl also as a process of grammatization in which it is conSllm�rs who ar� hm«forth d�prilltd of mm/OT] alld Imowl�dg� by (h� smdc� indu!tri� nnd th�ir npparnNlS�!. We shall see how means
this produces short-circuits in the transindividuation process. Examining the qu e stion of technical memory today means investigating the Stage of
lnarianization technologies.
gt1ltraliud pro
induced by the spre:ad of hypomnesic
The trurh of Plato would then be found in Marx, bUl 35
F O R A N E W CRI1'IQU£
only on the condition th:u twO sllpplement2ry conclu· sions arc d rawn : •
Man; himself fu ils to thi nk (he hypomnesic character of technics and human existence, which accounts
for (he f':lct that he is unable to think human life
35
(X istcnce and hence for the fact that, like PhHO. he -
continues to opposr the dead and rhe livin g •
111e
iI/Hug/mIl struggle
of
.
philosophy
ag:1inst
sophistic around Ihis q ues tion of memory and irs
technicization is Ihe heart of tim poliri cal st rug gle which p hi loso p hy was from the very beginning. Hence the reevaluation of the place of hypom nes is
in PlatO,
as well
as rhe deconsrruction of rhe Plaronic
account of hypomncsis which Derrida propou:d, must constitute the basis of a renewed project of
a critique of political economy by philosophy, a cririque hI wln'rlJ r�dmiN b«om� lIN cnlfrnl slnlu. and in which is posed the Ihr�fold question of
an
organology, a pharmacology and a therapeutic-it i s therefore the q ue st ion of a sociotherapy,18 which is what political economy is, and of which grammatiza
tion is the dynamic p rocess
36
.
Phnmmc%D ofrh� pro/�tflrifll Pro/�ttlritlniZlltion tIS loss ofknOlQ/�dg� Th� proletarian. we read in Gilbert Simondon, is a disin·
d if}idufll�d worker. a laborer whose knowledge has passed inro [he machine in such a way that i[ is no longer the worker who is individuated through be:aring lools and putting thcm inro prnctice. Rather. the laborer Serves the machine-tool, and it is the latter thai has become the technicl individual-in the sense Ihal it is within the machine·tool and within the technical syStem ,
(0
which
it belongs. thar an individuation is produced. This tech· nicl individuation is, according to Simondon. a process of concreti7.,'l[ion through which rhe sy.mm of industrial objects becom� functionally inregrated and thereby transformed-as does the sociotechnica1 milieu. The proletarianized laborer, however, is Literally excluded from [his rransformation-dirsocinudfrom it, nOt associ Qua with it. Such a laborer is not co·individuated. He does not ex-iSt. This dissociation is in reality a rupture in (he trllllSi,,·
dividun/ fabric which conJtitulN (ht /abor t1lIJ;rOllmtlJl. as
it does all rymbo/ic milieus, given that work is dearly
Qiso one such symbolic milieu. In the milieu of associated work. the workers. through their work, fushion an expcri. ence in which they C!use their milieu to evolve-their tools, for example, or the way in which they arc used. nOI 37
FOR A N E W C R I T I Q U E
to mcmion, ofcou�, the products of their use. They opm
101illmltl Ihis milieu of which they arc the workers (olil/rim!. Proletarianiz:nion is that which excludes this lip
panicipation of the producer from the evolution of the conditions of production. and through which he works. In other words. proletarianization is a p rocess of losing knowledge-that is. also. 3 loss of savor and of existence-which is engendered by grammatization insoF.:tr 3S it shorr·circuits the processes of transindi· viduatiol1 through which. by becoming individuated through work, that is. though learning something. the worker individuates the milieu of their work. It is just such a shorr-circuit which constitutes the stakes of [h31 loss of knowledge by which Marx 3nd Engels defined proletarianization in the
Communist Manifosro of 1848:
The less the skill and !!Xenian of strength implied in manual labor. in other words. the more modem indusuy bcrom� developed, the more is the labor of men super
seded by thaI ofwomen. Differences ofage and sa have no longer an)' distinctive social validity (or the working c1:w. All are instr ume nts orJabar. more or less expensive to
usc,
acco rd ing to their age and sex.29 'This expense is what Marx and Engels call labor power. which is. then, no longer a knowledge bur becomes 38
Pharmacology ofth� pro/�tariat instead a commodity. From a beatcr of [Ools and a prac tilioner of insrrum('nrs. the worker has himself b(:come a tool and 3n instrumem in the service of a raol-bearing machin('. Now, as was precisely indicated by Mane and Engels. this is the F.ue of all producers. and not only of workers: The lower strata of the middle class-the small trades people. shopkeepers. and ("('tired tradesmen genernll)'. the handicrnfumen and pcas.1I1rs-all the5(' sink grnduaJly into the prolctariat [.
.
.J. Thus the p roletari31 is recruilcd from
all classes of thc population.j(I
Certainly, in (he
Gru.ndriJs�
and
Mllnijf!lO as in in Capital. the
the
Comribuliofl. the:
proletariat is always
prtSem('d as being comprised precisely of the working class. But that this is so is due ro a stale of historical
fact. tied to
an
arcbair sta� (archaic in all senses of
the term) of th(' developmcm of capitalism and indus try. tbat is, of gmmmatizntioll. and which is destint"d to evolve appteciably by bringing ioro the process of proierarianization all those whose knowledge is absorbed by hypomnesic procc.'Sscs consisting not only in machines. but in apparatuses, expert systems. serv ices, n('(Works, and technological objeCts and systems of all kinds. 39
FOR A N E W CRITIQUE
Pro/�tarianjZlltion and pharmacology Th� proletariat
is
nOI the working class. All of Marxism
has misinterpreted Marx in confusing the two. A typical case can be found. for example. in Jacques Ranciere's
7b� Nigbts ofLobor: 7b� Workm' Drrnm in 191" Cmtllry Frnnc�}1 But 011 the other hand, :tnd above all, gram matization. by allowing the harnessing ImpwiollJ of the attention of consumers and. through that, the har nessing of their libidinal energy, made equally possible their prolerariani7..:Ltion, by destroying their Sttvoir-lJilJr�, and not only their
SlllJoirfairt,
This prolemrianization
of consumers is what made iT possible-by opening lip mass markeu enabling resistance against the {enclen rial full of the rate of profit-to conf�r upon consumers, to accord them renewal of their
buying powtr
mort than simply the
labor powtr, and to
fundamenrally and
prncticnlly weaken me Marxist meory of class struggl e. The problem is that the surplus that has by necessity been redistributed to proletarianized producers who have become consumers led, toward me end of the twentieth century, to the desrrunion of their libidi nal energy and
10
irs decomposition into drives-rhe
result of what Herbert Marcuse called "desublimacion." We must therefore engage in a cririque of libidinal economy:
40
(/ IIfW
critiqut ofpolitical tcollomy ;s 1ItctJSltry,
PbannacollJgy oftb� pro/�rnrillf lind it mUlt IIlso comtitttu a pbarmacological "itiqtl� of libidillal �rollomJ. Frc:udian theory will only allow rhc:sc questions to be advanced to the e:Xte:nt mat h, roo, is confronted with the: question of the:
plmnnailon
that is the fe:rish, and
with the: question of grammarization such
as
it trans
forms fe:tishism-which takes place: through an analysis of the: role of bypo mlltmarn32 in the history of desire and sublimation, the transitional object being a kind of proto-hypomJltmllfoll and proto-fetish,JJ while con tcmpornry hypomnesic objects arc
b JPo mllt'wfltfl
that
henceforth link networks together. 1he proletarianization of the consumer is an epoch of libidinal economy, and a crucial task of
the new critique
of political economy is to construct a
gmtaltJgy of
this
economy. which is a pharmacology the: ge:nesis of whkh is indissociable: from
organological
be:coming
and
grammarizadon. Now, this pharmacology raises rhe
tTImsilldividltllfion insofar as it clln prodltc� long drmits o/individ'IIlHo" os �lIl1s short-cimtits, that is, disbIlJivid/ulIio,u.
question of
What Plato calls Illlamllcis is hence founded on a dialectic, and this is a
dia-Iogicll!
commtrct' through
which, in interlocution, lhat is, in a "dialogism that I �
also understand in Bakhtin's sense of the rerm,J4 long circuiu of rr:msindividuation are formed, which tend 41
F O R A N E W CRITIQUE
to be short-circuited by the poisonous uses to which lhe sophists put this literal
pbarmalton.
More generally. if [he grammatizmion of perception and of the nervous system-insofar as it is the seat of the' afft.'Cts--c211 lead (0 the' prole'rarianization of consumers,
sa/loir-lii/lr�,
thai is, deslroy Iheir
as
wdl
as
rhe savors
which thL'Se am of living can procure, this is because libidin:tl economy in general conStitutes circuits of desire whhin a process of transindividuation through which libidinal energy is formed and accumulated, but this is also a process in which gramm:ui1.:ttion may either: •
flrCl/lllldtltt libidinal tlltrgy by illttllSifying indiIJidulltion, and give ObjCCLS
create long circuits. that is.
of desire to the individual [hat infinirize his or her individuation (Simondon shows that individuation is structurally unachievable 2nd in lhis
sense
infinite),
because these objects Cln only be given I1S infinite and incommensurable; or •
provoke shon-circuits. that is, disindividuation. and consequently desublill1atiol1, (hat is. the co",mt'lJlIrtl bitjill;,iZltt;OIl
ofnllrMugs,
leading to rhe' de'muction
of libidinal e'nergy. Grammati7.:ttion is
;mdllribly
pharmacological, and
bypomlltlllllla can .he'tefore either: 42
Pbllnllllc%D oftb, pro/t!tnn'(u
•
proletarianize the pSJc/" which it alfecls; or
•
individuate rhis PSJellt! by inscribing iI wilhin rhe
lItW circuit of rransindividuarion that it conneclS up. and through which long circuits an= rormed. lied
10
what Plato apprehended as an nl1aml1Nu-which is a circuit giving access to a truth founded on the projcc· lion or an idea, thar is. or a consistence: or an object which does not exisi. because it docs not have any roundation in the subsistences which constitute the order or the commensurable. but which is tI" wry
obj«t ofdnirt imojilr I1f it collsists illt:olllllltnfllmbly, It is rhis type or circuit grounding
a
tommerce tim
the shon·circuit replaces. through a marker on which nothing
remains
except
commensurabilities
(ror
example, labor power without lalJOirjniTt, rorming a buying power without SI1voir�vhJTt)-rhis is a marlw of
fools (dupes], For in rhe final analysis, this marker is not a market, And this is sol11eming which Socrates already noted, Contra Gorgias. Nevenhdess, an economy or pbarmaka is a thetapeu. tic that does not resuh in a hypostasis opposing poison and remedy: rhe economy or the pbanl/alton is a composi.
tioll of tendencies, and not a dialectical struggle between 0ppoJirrs.J5 The concrete expression or this composition consim in arr.mgcmenu or the three Ic\'ds or general 43
FOil A N E W CIlITIQUE
organology. such thaI these constirure a IJltnn of rtlrt: individualion at the:: pharmacological lcvd (technical individualion) trnnsdllcrivdy inte::nsifies rhe individua· rion of lite:: other two levds (psychic individuation and collcclive:: individualion). On the:: other hand. ;\
diJ�rollomyJ6
of pbnnllnkn is
what results from the appearance:: of any new phnrmnkoll insofar as it shon·circuits Ihe other (WO levels-and this is occurring today with Ihe tcchnologies of "social networking,"J7 for which no political economy and no system of care is prescribed by :my public :lUrhority; or, again. it is what occurs in tlte course of the synaptogen· esis of the infltnrilc cerebral organ when rhe audiovisual shorf.Circuils the U1l1lsitional object. the infantile:: psychic apparatus being thereby prole::rarianized.J8
44
fQUIl.
To work
The proletarianization ofthe nervous system. systmIic stupidity, and new commerce The mort' the place of producers shrinks. the more must markers and the number of consumers be enlarged. automation ceaselessly widening the held of prole. tariani7.arion while diminishing the role of labor-that is, of vari'lblc capital.
Trading
has itself been
auto
mated. Engineers have themselves b«n proletarianized. The engineer who conceived.
develo�d, installed.
and managed a system has disappeared. Today there are "processes," where more and more !J)pOmlll'lnafa intervene' to short-circuit psychic individuals at every level. Within these processes. it is the labor powe'r of the nervous sysrem that is being ever more proletarian. iud, and the'
prolullrillll! of Ih�
l1(rvoUJ
rysrrm arc no
less deprived of knowledge chan are the prolrfllrinflJ of ,hr muscular SJsum. The knowledge of which they have been stripped. however. is not that of
Jlwoir.jairr. 45
it
F O R A N E W C R IT I Q U E
is IJNoutiml knowledge-rhal is, knowledge which is noelie in actuality. A psychopower then devdops lhal controls consumers (in which c� it is a maner of chan neling Ihe libido) as wdl as producers al/d d�igl1m. whose nervous energy must be pbced into the service of "technical enscmbk-s," as Simondon calls them. We thus havc purt coglliri!Jl' Inbor fHJlMT Jma/y dtIJ(Jid ofImowlt'dgt: with cognitive technologies. it is the cog nitive itself which has been proletarianizcd.1 In rhis consists. then. cognidve capitalism. also known as "crca tive" or "immaterial" capitalism. And this is concretely expressed in thc fuCI that rht cogl1itilJ( has b«" uduudto mlclllability-Iogos has become. pharmacologically and economiC2.lly. rntio.l If skilled professions [mirim] do in facr still remain, vcry few are connectc,d with that type of production that is called "c�[ive." and most of the time such jobs arc not really creative, For to be creative-that is. to
work [ofUVrtr-ro work on something. ro open
Up:1 work]-is to produce negcnlropy. But those who arc called "creative workers" roday
are
in fact merely
creatOrs of that kind of"valuc" which is capable ofbeing fvaillflud 011 tiN marki'l. like press officers or public rda rions officials who work toward rhc t'tItropic adaptation of the systcm. but who do nor creatc any works or opcn up any work 46
Imah glli "otllurmt Ii rim dll fOllf): to work
To work
{omvm-l always means
(0
work witb tbe i"cnlc'llab�
that is, to work with [hat infinity of the desir.tble which means that a process of individuation is consdnued
tbrough irs ul/ncbit!tl(lbi/iry. Such is [he reality of what Mauri7.io l...:tuara(O calls ..the cooperation berween brains."J
;.IS
if is produced
through grammatizarion systems which make possible the proletariani7..ation of all those (asks conducted
:11
the highest levels of nervous system activity. -Ihis resulrs in the formation of a sysumir stupMiry. making pos sible among other things AJan Greenspan's attempt
10
explain before the: House of Rcprcsematives how he could in all sincerity have led the world catastrophe, as well as
to
the brink of
the: crctinization of those "finan
cial elites" who discovered they'd bee-n roll«i by Bernard Madoff: the elites have themselves been proletarianized, mat is. dt!priwd of Imowlt!dge of ,htir
thtir oam logic
OWII
logic IIlId by
a logic reduced to a calculation without
-
remainder and leading as well to a market of fools. Why and how can, however. researchers such as Yann Moulier-Boutang or Mauririo l...aztzan. O nevertheless perceive in this cerebral or cognitive capitaIism4 an element of novelry opening OntO some kind of alrer native? My thesis (if not y
theirs) is that here, rhar is,
with whar has also been called mi(ll/nud cllpitllliJIII, where the pbnmlnkofl constitutes a collaborative and 47
fOR
A N E W C R I T I QUE
dialogical milieu. a genuine murntion of gr3mmatization has occurred; digital reticulation. whereby cogniriv... acdvities are themsdves proletarianized. constitutes a rupturt through which
assoriaud mili�us ar... formed.
thaI is. milieus of individuation running coumer 10 the procl."SSes of dissociadon and disindividualion in which prole:tariani7.ation consists.
II is within this reticulated milieu that what Pekka Him:men calls a "hacker ethics"5 could appear. and could open the fldd for a new struggle:
a strllgg/� for
abstmctioll opposing the class of hackers to those that McKenzie Wark calls the vecrorialists.6 Himan...n and Wark show-from a neo-Wcberian viewpoint for rhc form...r and a post-Marxist and Situationisr one: for the lanet-mat rhe digital
pharmnkon. which makes
possible rhe p�oletarianization of me nervous system. is
also what introduces the possibility of a new regime
of psychic and collective individuation and. with it, the possibility of a new process of transindividua tion opening OntO an unprecedented politico-economic perspective: an economy of contribution. If dissociation results from short-circuits in transin dividu:uion made possible by rh... phannalton emerging from that process of grammatizarion in which. in the epoch of reticulatc..-d capitalism. cognitive technologies and digitali7.cd cuhural technologies are formed. then
48
To work
the formarion of an associl1ud SodOlu/miml milit'u is the alternative to (his poisonous becoming of gram math,adon. Such an alternative prcsupposl..'S. however. a veritable revolurion of rhe dominant induStrial modd which may fall short of an ovmhrow Irt'lIIlt'l1t'mm/l of capitalism, but which would certainly be a rrllOllItiofl of capitalism. The question of association and dissociation is also the question of the formation of wh:\I in l.."Conomics are called "externalities." When Yann Moulicr-Boutang takes up the met�phor of pollination,1 wh;tt he is describing is tied to the formation of digital reticll lation and constitutes a mutation in the process of grammarization, and engenders a POSifillt' p/JIlnlJlU'o logical
t'Xtt'nllity. l1
an associated sociorechn.ical milieu
in which struggles are waged against the dfcccs of the spread of dissociated milieus, that is, prolerarianized mi1ieus� those engendering on rhe contrary tbe spread of negative externalities and pharmacological toxicity,S that is, a generalized environmenral destruction affect ing not only the natural and geophysical environment but equally the mental and psychosocial milieus
as
well. Th� associated
sociorechnological
milieu
allows
struggles to be waged against Ihl'Sc environmental destructions brought about by the "vcclOrialim" and 49
f O R II NEW C R I T I Q U E
opens a field of industrial and commercial reladons which nullifies the producer/consumer opposition. and which as such breaks prccisc=ly with the desuuction of commerce by the market: it consrirutes a
lUlU comm�ru,
that is. a new regime of psychic and collective individua· tion, producing long circuits of transindividuation-rhe conrribmors are those who comribure to this creation of long circuits. This milieu is neverthdess capable of implememing logics of dissociation-and this is why dil1/og;rn/9 and (IJ
fIIcb Ihmfp�lItir Jtrugglrs must be waged with the
pbarmnkoll of absrracdon. which amounrs to a matter of taking care of the new commerce. The associated milieu which is formed in digitaJ reticulation is a specific ty� of positive external· ity: technologiCal, industrial, emerging from me most recent stage of grammarizarion, cognitive and symbolic, that is. restoring to rn t;o its 1UJt'tic- dimension, bec.ausc it connirmcs a dialogical relational space in which Ptr
(hopol�r can
be thrown over to become IIOOpO/iries. or
in which the phanlll1KOf/ can be pur inro the service of an economy of contribution. that is. of a psychosocial thera�Ulic-given that to economize means before anything else politically.
50
(0
rake care.IO domcstically as well
as
To //Jork Odum and positive externalities: illtermittence Within rhe associated sociOIechnical milieu. the func· tional opposition berween production and consumption has become obsolete. and externalities must be eco· nomically mlrivaud and valorized, even though. like values. Ihey cannol be reduced
[0
the calculability of the
economic indicators of a markel economy: they require a new conception of economic value. and of hs mtllSllrt· mtllt.
such that it is nOI reducible
ru
ca/etl/mion. 111is
culturt is a libidi nal as well as a commercial economy, which requires new mutualization mechanisms, a new form of governmenral power. and new objects of public propeny. In this regard. me rwo works by Maurizio Lazzarato in which he analyzes the stakes of the muwe waged by the inl�rmittent performing am workers [inunnitttllts ill sp«racltl to maintain their stams (which had in June 2003 been called imo question by the French govern· mem, who were pressured to do
so
by employers), have
an imponance extending beyond the field of the arris· tic professions. Following me publication of a survey conducted in collaboration with the "Coordination des irnerminems et Precaires," Amondla Corsani and Maurizio Lazzararo start::
51
fOR A NEW C R I T I Q U E
. . . the struggle against Ihe reform of Ihe modd for unemployment benefits is in reality a struggle whose sl'akes arc those of the usc of time. To the injunction to
increase the amouflI of time spent in employmcnt [which is Ihe employers' prcscription mOliv.uing the calling into question of the StalUS of inu:rmincnlSj , Ihal is, the lime of onc's lifc spent cmplo)'� on the job. fhc experience
of intermim:net· opposed Ihe plumBry of employmem times. 11
'(be queslion of rime spent working cannol be reduced, in other words.
10
the question of time in employment.
and •
.
.
to speak seriously aboUi increasing or reducing time
spent working me:lns t3king into 3CCOUnt the tmaliry of these V3rious u:mporalilics. L!
The:: French Jaw rc=dudng th e working we::e::k
[Q
thirty.
five:: hours complerely ignores this question. One rtsu!! of (his bw was an incre� in the time devote::d to can· sumplion, as Rifkin unde::rlined as c=arly as 20061J--but rhe::re was no incre::asc in the amoum of rime Spclll working in orher ways. ways lying outside the scope of
employment lime. 1hese other efforts. beyond the time of employmcnr. belong within rhe realm of whal the 52
To work
Romans cultivated as otirl111, a word which Jean·Marie Andre. in his analysis of its occurrence during the dOle of the Sdpiones, translates :u "studious 'riIIITl'."I<4 Otittm. which emerged from Roman culture and originated from a milirary conrext, and which [hen came to represent the noble aspect of the rime of human activity-which in Micriaflu l'1 disaidjt I I have tried to show is the litnl' of nortir inunl1illl'llCt'l5-is the con· didon of possibility of l1eg·olillf1/. that is. cmploymelH time. I[ is because the soul can only be actually noetic for illurmitUIif paiods, and is therefore as such constitutcd as a "being·only.in·inrermirrence." behaving most (If the time: on the conrrary like a sensitive or even a vegcmlivc: soul. {hat the "inrerminenu" (the occasional workers in theatre. film and television) ceaselessly oscillate berween on the one hand the calculable employment of their noetic knowledge. this knowledge then being remuner· aled. that is. tTlldl'd [negocieJ. and on the orher hand the actual development of this knowledge. And it is this noeridty thai rhe desrruction of intermittence (of the "intermirrenrs") then eliminates and prolerarianizes. mat is. instrumentalizes-in order to profit the culture industries. The time of the passage to the noeric act is that of otium, which does nOt at all mean idle time, yet d()(s mean the time of leisure. that is. of freedom and of 53
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
"care of the sc:lf." inscribed in
3.
Ot;lIl1I, from a n economic perspective
general economy (in [he sense in which
Georges Baiaille deploys Ihis term)-for which it would be an epoch tied to 3. particular development of "ypom
lI�mntll, thaI is, an epoch ofgrammatization. supponjng techniques of the sdf(as shown by Foucault}-and for a poliliC31 economy inscribed within a libidinal economy cncomp:tSSing it, constitutes an �xumnliry opening tlJi'
spnct oflmmnlJ f01ll1lt'l ra iT/sofn r ns il is II proft'S! ofpsychic nlld col/uliut' illdillidUlUioll ill which long drellits of trlmsindiuidllfllioll art' flmud. Nt'g-otillm, on the other hand, constitutes an economy which is illtemnliZtlbll' vin all aeeo/Illring
(the possibility uf which itsc:lf stems
from hypomllmlllta) of what is calculable for a business man, and negotiable: on a marker, all sense of measure
(Itt
I1It'SUrt',
that is, measure, moderation, or tempo; in
Greek, tnt'tro", that is. also, reserve and rhythm) being rrouced
10
this calculation.
What Corsani and l azzarato describe as the con junctioll of employment rime (that is. of the labor internalized by the employer) and work time (as tech nique of the sdO amounts to the economy of lI�titllll and oli lOn, insofur as these: can be grasped as the te:flllS of what Simondon calls a rransductive rciationship. according
t'O
which the lerms are constituted through
their ;'ldiuidlll'tlillg Itmioll.
54
To work
'lbe way in which we observe interminelH workers spend ing rhdr time obliges us
(0
lean' behind !hc binary logic
opposing employment and unemploymenl, Ihe :lcri\'e and the inactive, :lnd obliges us to question the very Cll�ory of ·work.
M
If aCfiviry is also excrciscd during periods of
so-called unemployment or, yet again, during !he COUM of one's so-alled lifetime. during so-called fret rime. during the rime spent on rraining and education, righ! up
10
Ihe
poin! at which it occomes rhe lime of rcs!, then \\'h:1I is covered over by rhc concept of Mwurk,M since withIn it can be found a plurnliry of actjvil'ics and hcu:rogcncou5 tcmpor.llities� 16
lhese analyses show char it is nor sufficient to pose: rhe question of work i n me terms that were fashionable in the 19905, when the reality of chronic unemploy. mem forced a (eRcction on rhe structural consequences of productivity increasC$. Beyond
these terms. it is
:I
maner of a change in the industrial modd, a change which would also consrilUle the dawn of an age of a new conception of work, which must nOt be confused with employment. and which, as rhe consumerist model falls apart, requires the invention of a new social temporality
.
and; as LaZ1..arato has shown. redefines the question of whar Raben Castel calls social properry . l 1 What this raises. then. but in entirely flew terms.
FOR
II N E W CR I T I Q U E
is '\[he question of a negative tax such as was pro· posed by Jeremy Rifkin-and (hen raken up by Michel Rocard IS_in order to suppOrt the developmem of a "'social sector," a sector defined as being non�o· nomic insofur as it is non·marker. Now, nil n qUNliOI/ of brillgillg
Ibis is lIot III
tlu uOllomy to nil md. but
of thinking an olb�r economy, and of overcoming a consumerism within which the purchasing power produced by employment in faCI destroys work and all forms of knowledge in the epoch of the generalized proletarianization of producers as well as consumers. The Raw in Rifkin's proposal lies in rhe fact that his considcration of the ecunomic circuit docs nor include the question of otium or of knowledge in all its forms. On rhe other hand. rhe notion of a negative tax
as a mutualitc:d support for the development of
positive externalities, and through the developmenr of a new form of social property, finds in rhe granring of unemploymenr bendiu to imermim:m workers in [he performing artS a model which is panicularly well adapred to [he change which is currendy underway: [his is made dear by reading the works of Comni and Lanararo. But it cannot be a matter of limiting such proposals merdy to the spheres of art, culture and "crea· tive workers": it is rhe social and economic industrial model as a totality that must be rethought. 56
To work DesolidariZltl ion and negative externalities The reconstruction of posiri\'e atcrnalities and Ihe suppOrt of work practices stemming from
olho" hhat
is. from noedc interminence) is the n«:cssary condidon for Ihe reconstitution of long drcuiu of transindi viduation. which arc themselves thc only possibility of struggling againsl the spread of negalivc eXlcrnali lies. The cXlent of the sprcad of ncgative cxternalities is now being discovcred by ,he world. as consumer ism falls ap:m and as environmental disequilibrium becomes a planetary obsession. Among Ihe forms of ,his disequlibrium must be c(Jumed the desrruclive effeCis that the dicrarorship of shon-tc:rmism-cxeru:d upon every society by marketing-brings to bear on 'the public sphere (on political space and time) as
as
well
on the private sphere. leading to the pure and simple
liquidAtion ofsodal r�lnti01lS. It is in {his comexr Ihat one can see-in Belgium for example. where the Flemish exclude from public housing anyone who
cannol
speak
Dutch-how
s�ort-drcuits in transindividuation have destroyed Ihe .. individuation of rcference'� permitting
twO
linguistic
psychosocial individuation processes ro refer to ,he same process of political and territorial individuation. so as to coalesce within onc nation. lllcse ruinous effccts of 57
fOR A
NEW CRITIQUE
dissociation and o f such shon-circuiu. which are the inverse of wh:1t occurs in :;associ:;ated mjlieus. can be sec:n in the politico-linguistic opposition bet\'.·ec:n the Flemish and the Walloons. Innc.1d of the individu:lIion of reference, the global culture
industries
have substituted
the behavioral
prescriptions of marketing. which liqllMnu solidnritin: •
firstly. in the territorial space of comemporaneity: the Flemish withdraw their solidarity from the Belgian Walloons. Icading to the destruction of their political space;
•
secondly. in the genenuional rime of contempo raneity: harnessing (cnptlltiollj the atremion of a generation cuu it off from other generations, engen dering shof(..Qrcuits in the transindividuation of gener.uions - primary identification. for example, fails to t2ke place within the juvenile psychic appa ratus. or adult consumers, unable to afford rhe costs of eduQting their children, somehow manage, never theless. to buy expensive cars.
It is this very process of desolidariution thal lies behind the decline of market value occurring today. marker cap itali7.ation having becn ruined by the collapse to which a capitalism which has become drive-based 58
Iplllsj(}lInr�
To work
and speculative inevitably leads. One of the most violent effects of this process is [he pauperiz.:uion of YOlllh. unleashing the threat of an economic confrolllation between the generations at the very moment when the illlcrgeneradonal symbolic bond capablc of containing such a threat has been shon-citcuited in the process of transindividuation. All this results in generalized irresponsibility, such that the spread of dissociated milieus becomes necessar ily correlated with rhe spread of negarivc externalities. Dissociated milieus. as facrors disconnecting the psychic individual from rheir relation to collective individua tion and, correlatively, as FJcrors desrroying investment in all its forms (for which financial speculation and drive-based obsessions are substitUl'ed) engender roxic behavior in every sphere of society, dominated by a srrucruraJ shon-rermism to the precise extelll that drives and spttularion arejntrinsicaliy shorr-term. The shorr-term tendency. induced by the liquidation of responsibility. desublimation and extreme disen chantment, is the mOSt immediate consequence of the rendemial fall of the rate of profit, combined as it is with the tc:ndential fall of libidinal energy and the spread of what Rene !}asset calls passages to the limit, that is. processes through which the functioning of systems leads to the destruction of the very condhions of Ihi.�
59
FOR
It.
N EW C R I T I Q U E
funcponing. processa which arc ineluctably translated into a runaway increase in negadve externalides
.
77u bourgtoisit SWtpt away by tht mafia The:: historical f":l.ilure of communism was due to the fact that it could no! think association, that is. it renounced the struggle against prolerarianil.:uion as loss of knowledge. and against the shon-circuits in trans in dividuarion that are clearly characteristics of Stalinist bureaucnnic totali taria nism, JUSt as they are of rhe tot:lli
zatiun that is conduced by marketing: it is unly in terms of ways of dissociating that capitalism and communism have distinguished themselves from one: another. Even
[hose MarxiSlS who we:re situ:ned outside: of Stalinism. and who wen� againSt Stalin, were never able to manage a critique of dissociation. because from the begi nning
they confused proletarianization and pauperization. In the communist world. this dissociation led, intrin sically and structurally to the totalitarian negation of .
structures of e:xisre:nce:, which for a long time was nOf [he: case for capitalism, especially when it combined Forclism with Keynesianism.10 Capitalism. unlike com munism, for
a
long time fuvored the constitution of
motivational systems based on rhese structures of existGO
To /VorN
cnce. structures that it nevertheless harnesst.-d. exploilt.'tI and finally destroyed, but by means which were indeed effective. and that even consrirured a new libidinal economy and new perspectives of sublimalion, cOlllrary to communist dissociation.!1 Yet it remains the case that capirnlism would in rhe end become a process of dis· sociation leading ineluctably to demotivation:1l it was condemned to encounter its limit in the tendential full in libidinal energy which it had itsdf provoked. At this point it is nece�sary
1'0
return to the question
of commerce. Political economy is a way of orgJ.nizing transindividuation not only at rhe level of symbolic exchange, but also at the level of the exchange (If com· moditics. Once. while in Beijing. the taxi in which I
was
riding drove past a score selling plastic manne·
'quins, and whar surprised me
was
that such a business
could have been created by a Chinese shop owner in this purportedly communist economy, an economy which functions as powerfully as it does only insofur as within it psychic individuation
is
controlled by a
collective individuation wirhoM illfmllt'dinrirs. that is. de·psychologil.ed, short-circuiting tf:ansindividuarion. and therefore disindividuated. disindividuating. and destructive of all motives. The capitalist economy strictly speaking works. because it wants the psychic individual
tOllgl'r
110 to
be self·
61
F O il A
NEW CRITIQUE
direct�. to become the "entrepreneur o f irsdf."u withom collective individuation. but rather through a collective disindividuarion orchesmued by marketing. which exploitS the possibilities of conrrol emanaring from the provoking of shorl-circuits. and, since the "conservative
revolution"
and
ncoliberalism
(and
the project of "refounding" Medef which al1101lnt's to the French translation of ncoliberalism), through a government of inequalities which ruins the social-all of which destroys the economic milieu itself, which thereby becomc� a "dis-economy." leading finally to the Ii<juid:uion of intermt.-diation. which is the rransi:Hion of rr;msindividuation into the economic sphere and in its commercial form (all rht more true given that "compc=tition" leads in
reality
[0
the growth
of
monopolies). Oesublimation-which thus leads and in the same movement to rhe spread of negative externalities. to the li<juidation of commerce by the market and to thl!' destruction of social connecredness-can be nanslatoo by the fuCI (hat the bourgeoisie is swept away by the mafia, which is the fate befalling the former communist countries. but also of all drivl!'-based capitalism. The mafia rends to replace the bourgeoiSie and capi talism rakes on an essenli:l.lly mafia-like character from the moment that the disenchantmenr of the world is 62
To work
completed. lhis disenchantment becomes. then. no longer r�/lUjvt but nbsolllu: there can
nn} rtblfj,,� rt-m(hnlltm�m-as
was.
110
long�r b�
for example. rhe
advent of modern arr (rejecting rhe "industrial art" of which Flauben s�ks through (he character of Jacques Arnollx).l4 both within nl1d for bOllrgro;s modrrniry. When disenchantment becomes absolute. rhe power of the powerful plays OUt w;t!JOIfI (omisutlcr. wilhour rda lion
(0
OI;lIm of any kind. without the slightest belief.
and therefore as absolute cynicism: with neither faith nor law. It is within this epoch of mafia capitalism-that is. of a capitalism without bourgeoisie-that one sees devdop me sYSlematic S£ate lie. drive-based politics. and an addictive consumerism induced by industrial populism. If fascism is a di� of bourgeois capiralism. the occurrence of which is a warning sign foreshadow ing absolute disenchantment. rhen the becoming mafia of apiralism is not an 2ccident which would be more or less epiphenomenal: ramer. it is [he normal and eve ryday functioning of such a capitalism. In (his respect, Sarkozyism is nm, unfortunately, if one can put it like this, a refurn of Petainism: it is something far morc seriolls, more complex and more difficuh
(0
think than
the rerurn of rhe same old song. The middle classes will soon disappear. because 63
F O N. A N E W C R I T I Q U E
they have been proletarianized b y the developmenr
of consumerism. This is nor
ro
say that they have
been pauperized: the former is not the consequence
of the Janer. It is
[Q
say that the middle classes are no
longer any kind of "perry bourgeoisie�-nor because they have been pauperized, bur through a
misery [mistre lymbolifJlle:
symbolic
symbolic impoverishmem or
immiseration\ and through an
n�tlmic nlld lloetic prole
t/ll'inllizlltioll: without otium, without access for example to that instrumental practice which was such a delight to Roland Barthes. for whom a truc appreciation of the music of Schumann can only derive from its interpreta tion, that is. from the pracrice of playing it on the piano, as he explains
in �Musica pracrica,"25 a sentimenr which
also lies behind the refrain constantly repeated to Pierre Schaeffer by his father: Work on your instrument! In so doing, Schaeffer's father reminds us that otitlm is work, thar work always involves an instrument, and hence thar so roo does otiuIn. The perry bourgeoisie, even though it is nor rich, nevertheless belongs to the bourgeoisie insofar as ir has access ro something beyond subsistence. and can em�m cipate itself from the pure necessity of reproducing its
64
To 1IJ0rk labor power, and can therefore libcr::ne itself from pure
lIegorium,
that is, from completely calculable exchange:
the petry bourgeois arc able to be music lovers
[amatellrs
de IfIIlSiqllt], What was once the privilege of the nobility became, in the nineteenth century. pilT excellel/(( that of the bourgeoisie, then became as wdl the privilege of the perry bourgeoisie, 1his is what was liquidated by dle extension of consumerism to all social classes. lluough what I have described. with Nicolas Donio. as a mechanical rurn in sensibility.2G condition of possibility of this age of the pbnnllllkol/ consrinHed by the psycho.rechnologics of psycho·powcr.27 consumerism transforms everything into nceds, that is, into subsistence, and liquidatcs desire, that is, objects of otium and sublimation, includ· ing for the highest levels of the bourgeoisie who rlJ/lS become a mafia. And as for the wage·eanurs 0/tile ideal
[les IIl/llries de l'idia�. as Jean-Claude Milner calls uni· versiry professors.28 they roo are unable ro escape this fare. Now, the libidinal and political economies of con· [ribution that are reconstiruted in associated milieus tend toward the reopening of rhis dimension, which is that of consistencies and of what 1 have c:tlled an orhon
oftbe people.2,} Only
orizOll can
reconstitute credit, thar
is, an economy: there is no economy other than when
65
fOR A NEW CRITIQUE
it is projected illlo an inve5(mem. This reopens for the comemporary n=tcnlional system the question of protmrioll-'because an economy. whether libidinal or political. is always an economy of protention.
Economy ofproltl1tiom. pfmJOnmt rroo/ution, and contribution Economic systems in general. and the capitalist system in particular. always constiulte systems of production of prmcntions. This protention production system clearly achieves greater efficiency wilh the appearance of a very particular case of grammadzation: money, the word for which in Ladn evokes MllimoSll";)O In spire of that, the question of protention cannm be reduced
(0
me
question of fiduciary credit: it is rooled in a retemionai ensemble. and this ensemble is constituted as much by machines and by the souls of producers and consumers as it is by money-money which. like all forms of reten tion, convens time into space. but which dearly does so in a very spl.'Cific sense. If capitalism is a prorcmion production system which in terms of it'S perform:uiviry is very remarkable-thus when one says that the stockmarket has lost so many billions of dollars in the course of such and such a 66
To work
crisis. (his m�ans mat a pow�r of active prorentions. a powcr of the nction of prmenlions (of anticipations). has been lost by the errd;1 ryJlr1llJ I -then the economy of contribution is .. new economic arrangement (Iibidi· nOli and political) benvccn grammarized retentions and prmentions ofinvesrmem. lhe capitalist sysrem for crearing protcnrions is a system of credit which brings about :l change in the system of belief-by mrning belief into something calculable. and by therefore engendering something better than belief (at least in rhe eye.� of 1I«0IiIl1ll) : trust [cOlifinnul. Credit in general, in all its forms whether banking. religious, scienrific, literary. arristic. political, or social-is rhe organization of prmenrions. Credit is the concrete social expression of proten· tions which ",z/iu tlmmr/uN, which p(lfoml. as onc could say. adapting Austin's theory of performativity to the question of credit performance such as i[ has led to the transformation of matter, social relations and behavior-mat is, of wi/h. and from which proceeds me exrraordinary permanent revolution in which capimlism since the industrial revolution has consisted.J2 What rook place during the COUfS(' of rhe nine· uion [ecmh and rwcmieth centuries \V"dS the organi1.. of the capitaliSt "protemion-aliz:ltion" of the world. which consisted firstly in the disel1chanrmcnr of the 67
fOR " NEW CRITIQUE
legirimating powers and the secularization of beliefs: not in their dotruction, bur in their transformarion into calculable beliefs. induding-through the harnessing of scientific beliefs by the production apparatus in order to devise ways of transforming matter. nature. technique. human beings. and behavior. This transformation of belief was able to 3ccomplish enormous gains in produc� tivity throughour the nineteenth cemury. enabling new forms of membership and social cohesion within rhe sodal project, carried Ollt by the bourgeoisie through the development of schools. duough rhe engagement it made pos.�iblc with national history, erc. In the rwentieth century, rhc mobilization oflibidinal energies took place through rhe capturing and hamess� ing of prorentions via rhe channeling of attention. I t was thus a maner of
prolnlliolt:
�/aborari"g Ito!'1ldn]
an
indttttrial
of causing the tensions accumulated in the
protentions of consumers
(0
reach out
(fnld"]
toward
industrial products, products which are the "realiza tion" of Ihe prolenrions of producers, with (he goal of causing the prot'entions of consumers and producers
10
converge. and thus of overcoming the contradiction in which consistS the tendenrial WI in the rare of profit. In the course of lIu: recem crisis, this protention31 system collapsed. after having run Ollt of conuol
as
il
was driven toward an ever·more extreme short-termism. 68
To wDrk eventually reaching the limit of its u!fll""ih;uuioll (3 short-term tendency. when accomplished to (he point of perfection. leads
ro
the destruction of the retentional
time in which knowledge consists. as well as the destruc rion of the protcnrional time in which investment consins). This collapse of protentions was inscribed in the fate of consumerist capitalism to the pre<:ise extent that this form of Clpitalism depended on the proletari anization of relC�ntion in which (he comrol of :mcnrion consists, a prolemrianiz.'uion amounting
tu a
loss ()f
knowledge, and a loss affecdng consumption as much as produclion. "Ihe intermittent workers of the performing am, and all lho$C whom Jean-Claude Milner calls the wage earners of the ideal, continue TO
(0
culrivate a relationship
the pbamwKoll. in order that they may still pass into
the noetic act, from which they draw a diStiner pleasure that annat be considered to be mere enjoyment, given (hat it consists in a feeling of i"ji"i/� diJflrnltc�. The new work practices being developed on the net works of the associated sociotechnical milieu. however. themselves also [end {award the passage
10
the noelic
act. a goal which. essentially. is their motiVe, Such a motive amounts to a prolention. And such a State of Fact awaits only one thing: for its constilUtion as a stale of law in order that retentional systems may be placed 69
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
inco the service o f this protentional activity. And it is to this question of a law such
as
this that a new critique of
political economy must be consecr:ucd.-and this is so to the extent that these practices. which are becoming very widespread, reconStitute the economic field in its totality. well beyond the "cultural sector" or the "social sector. .. Such are the questions which arise for a cridque of political economy restarred on the basis of an analysis of the place of tcni:try rctemion in the economy: these arc questions ofpharmacology. for which an economy of contribution
onstitutes
c
the JociothtrapJ
proper
to
{he
contemporary stage of grammatiz:. uion-it constitutcs, in other words. irs system of care.
70
Pharmacology of Capital and Economy of Contribution
ForJ�an.Micbt'1 Snlllll:Jlds
To the nJtll/ory ofJI'IIII-Frallfois Ly()((//'d The suprt.mc dfon of the writer
as
ceeds in paniall)' raising for
the veil of ugliness and
us
of lhl! artist only suc
insignific.mcc that lcavts us unCl.ring world. ,'hen, he says to
[inruritllx) before the
us:
Look, look Fragr: l lu wilh clover and ancmesia Holding tight their quick. narrow streams The lands of the Aisnc and the Oisc.
Morerl l'nmSl
On January
25,
2007,
while
participating
in
a
colloquium devoted to the work of Jcan-Fran�ois Lyotard. I
proposed a reading of Tht
PosN1lOdml
COlldition which characterized those traits of capitalism d�scrihcd by Lyorard as typifYing:! new form of libidinal �conomy: that form invented by consumerist capital ism in North America at the bcginning of th� rwenricrh CCtlnlry. According to [his reading, posrmoderniry resulted from a consumerist organizadon of the libido leading evenrually [0 me liquidation of the libido itself, to its "diseconomy," that is. to the liquidation of that libidi nal economy which modernity hitheno constitured-a process of liquidadon the consequences of which began ro
appear at the end of the 1 970s (fA
post
modtmt being published at the moment Margaret Thatcher gained power in Great Britain. constitUling thc beginning of the "conservative revolurion"). In the course of my reading, I tried to show why the concepn enabling the thinking of this
rOllfl/lIItri!f 73
FOR A NEW C R I T I Q U E
libidinal diset'ollolJlY [hal i s posrmoderniry were less those of Lyotard's eponymous work! than of Freud, whom. therefore. it was a mancr of rereading and reinterpreting. [ intended to show thaI Lyorard had in
Tbr Postmodem Condilion opened the possibility of a nc:w thinking of capitalism-and of the extension of proletarianization which everywhere accompanies it and thaI this thinking remains to be daborarcd, bur also that doing so presupposes a critique of rhe Lyomrdian account ofMlibidinal economy.n J n the course of the discussion that followed rhis
inrervenrion, Jean�Michei Salanskis, who wirh Corine J!naudeal! organized the colloquium, told me that he no longer wlderstood what it means to speak of mpita/iJm, nor did he understand discourse which continues to convoke this word: he then declared that he could not understand my own discourse. -!he present work, like Fol' (1 New Crilique ofPolifiml EconomJ, tries ro respond to this remark, made to me by my friend shortly before the crisis of capitalism revealed rhe extent of its disaster in rhe month ofOctobcr 2008. The theses advanced here. first presented before the administrative council of Ars Industrialis.! thcn in a public session of [his associarion g:uhered on December 5, 2009.J continue the analysis bcgun in For a Nrlll Critiqlu ofPoNtical EconomJ. 74
Phnrll/tIl'ology ofCapital
This work examines t\vo questions: •
How should one understand profi t in the phrase, "
"
"tendential fall in rhe rate of profit ? "
•
More generally. whac is in play in the concept expressed with rhis phrase?
77'Jere is no tendency without a counter-tendency What the fhird volume of Cnpiml tries
to
think wi th
the phrase "tendelllial fall in the rate of profir"-the stakes of which dearly cannot he measun.::cl hy refer ring
to
the formula p
'"
sf(c+v)-is a uegatiue dyunmic
that, Marx posits, would in principle be inherent ro a capitalist system formed and held within contradic tory tendencies: capitalism would thus be a dynamic system threatened by a lim it that would be reached if
the bearish tendency to which the very fW1C[ioning of the profit rate gives rise were to achieve completion
[s 'nrcompliJSllitJ . This is certainly nor how Marxism bas interpreted this theory: on the comrary. what Marxism has pronounced in this regard is the iTu/uctable :Iccomplishrnem of this tendency. And Marx himself probably read it this way. But if dlcre is a tendency for the rate of pro fit to fnll. 75
II O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E
then there must also be a counler·tendency,
as
we learn
from both Nicl1.Sche and Freud. \VIere this nor rhe case, we would no longer be speaking of a tendenc}'. but rather of a simple and linear. that is. deterministic. evolution.
lh:H Marxism and Marx himself (and before him ' 111(= Hegelian di:llccdc) did not manage ro reason this way-in terms of tendencies-is a problem bequl'amoo by Marx. bUi that does nOt invalidate his theory of the bearish tendency of the profit rare. "Ihis way of thinking in terms of tendencies passes through
psyrbo/ngy. that is.
through a discourse on souls.
on their logic and their economy: on their logic insofar as
ic is an economy. Given the nccl'SSiry of a debate on rhe tendcntial fall
in the rate of profit. the question is nor whether such a tendency exists: rather. it concerns the nature of its counter�tendency (orcounter-rendendes). Whar is rcally at stake is knowing how to think the play of tendencies.
7lu profit to which Marx rf/trs is th� r�tum on
inv�stmmt Tuming to how the word "profit" should be under stood, the question is: if "profit" can be defined as the return on investment. that is. as a function of a system
76
Phannacology ofCnpital
e::nabling re::m une::r:nion for invested capital. and he::nce:: for risks that are taken, rhe::n should this definition of profit include:: or exclude speculation-which tends to dalroy the SYSfem of invcstment. given that,
IJ�u, tIJ�
smite is tim�. :md, more precisely, thal which affects the
playing out of the:: short tt:rm and the long term, both
witIJ one another and flgftimt one another? The profit deriving from the financiali1.ed economy clearly doc=s not correspond with what Marx calls the r:ue of profit (pl, where p ". s/(c.v). P depends on the sYSlem of production
as
constant capital and vari�
able capital. The profits deriving from financia1 izarion tend. on the conrrary.
(Q
dec()uple from p in rclation
ttl 5/(c+V), and to become essenrially speculative profits. They therefore raise the question of what Marx calls "fictitious capital."
Profit, durability, and toxicity An objection raised against me theory of the:: tenden· rial fall in the rate of profit s i mat we have seen capital accumulate enormous gains ove,r the last few decades. But the crisis of 2008 (like those th:H prece::ded it, but more:: than any of the c=arlier crist:S) makes it nttcss:try to examine bO(h the:: nawre:: and the solidity of this 77
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
profirabiliry-a profi{;lbility which during this crisis has come to appear JlmCfllrnl1y toxic. The question of profit is first of all. and jointly: •
that of its exogenous sustainabiliry. that is. for the rest of society (profits cannot be durable if they destroy society);
•
that of its endogenous durability. rim is. for capital i('self (it must conserve its value over time);
•
that of the temporality which it configures. [hat is, as concerns fictitious capital, the question of [he qualiry of the anricipations in which it consists, given rhat fictitious capiml. insofar as it is a system of n4l1tive/y
CI1KlIltlted protellrlfms,4 is a necessary function of the system, irreducible in this regard to mere specula4 tion, while entrepreneurial invcsrmem constitutes yet anmher type of anticipation. It is only within such systems of anticipation, which must be qualified and consolidated by rules, that profit can be produced. Could the gains achieved by Bernard Madoff, esti mated at 50 billion doll:trs, and those of the speculators taken in by him, ever have been realized
78
Pharmacology of Capitfll
through doctored anticipations.
And for MadofF's
cI ients. they have become dead losses. When Albert Spaggiari. a criminal who was also a mil itant of the extreme right. robbed the Societe Generale bank in Nice in 1 976, thereby accomplishing what has been called "the heist of the century." he made a "profit" of 50 million fmnes. But these profits have never been recognized as such: rather. they are qualified as theft.
1hose who are careless in the pharmacology of capital Should we conclude thar all fictitious capital always tends to produce systems that are [oxic. if not fraudulent (that is, pllrely toxic)? The answer is dearly positive: more
than any other human prychotechllique fictitious capital .
is a pharmakol15 and, more precisely.
Veu
d'icritllm,
an
accountinggamt'
dummy entries], and the anriciparion
systems made possible by this phalUasia of capital pre suppose the existence of a free capital which structurally rends to djsinvest when it sees its profits dedine.6 lhese disinvestmenrs are short-circuits, in just the same way as :ut.ificial and hypomnesic memory-tholr is, the phanJlflkoll of writing-can shorr-circuit living and anamnesic memory'?
79
F O R A NEW CRITIQUE
Let us propose (hat (his tendency leads
[illcttritl:
(Q
cn"lm1lm
one calls a speculator (and. in times of war. a
�profitecr") someone who scoffs at (he economic as well :u:
social consequences of �profirable" decisions. Such a
person bc=longs to the CHegOey of those whom one oth· erwisc calls the indifferent. the uncaring. or the rart'lm
[incllrittLt']:1I those "who are not bothered" ["qui m"rn 0111 curt" ]. that is. who "don't have anything to do" wilh anything-dlOse who S'.y. "I dOIl 't ra"." lhose who mock the world. It is because there is such a
and becallse it is
tmdmcy to cnrtUSSIIt1I,
i"tduciblt, being
inscribed within this
pharmacology. that regulatory systems are imposed. which aim [()
limit the
desttuctive effects of mis spccu·
larive tendency of free capical-and ro keep a
rufficimr
andsundy hold on thingJ, thl1l n. on intJt!tmmt, given the instabiljty ofcapital circulation. In the capitalist economic syslem. the circuladon of free capital is supposed to measure the
C7tdil
that the
financial sub--sysu�m accords to such and such an
eco-
nomic actor within the production sub·system-and.
through this system of measuremenr, establish [he belief thaI "society" invests in this activity. The circularion of free capital is a spt.'Cific protentional organizal'ion resting on a complex. fullible and corruptible system of
phnrmakn. 80
in which one finds money. actions and obli·
Pbllnllncolog;j ofCnpitnl b>:l.tions, various financial insrruments, raTings agencies, erc, 'Ihis capital. however, rends to become purely specu· Iative when it no longer measures a capital of confidence in the fUllIre of rhe assets of (he production appar.Hus in relation to which it constitutes, as a system of anticipations, capacidcs for invcslmcnt-but instead relies on operations which are eithcr purely self·refercn· tial (such thar rhe anricip;nions created by the lin:l ncial sub·syslern :lIlricip:lte nothing bur itselF :Uld come at the expense of the production system), or else ;lrc oriented toward the producrion apparatus, but arc srrllcrurally shorr-term (that is, based on disinvestment, that is, on me pil/ng� of me production apparatus),
Innovation, short-termism. and spemlation Let us now return to productive capital.
A common
objection
ro
{he thesis of the tendenrial
full i n the profit rate is that the technical innovation lying at the heart of [he production apparatus enables the system ro ceaselessly stimulate its differentiation. with conStant capital [hereby conferring a competitive advantage upon rhe innovative entrepreneur. The quesrion of innovation, however, is nor only 81
POR
A NEW CRITIQUE
a man�r o r conc�ption and production as entrepre· neurs tran�J�r technological invenrions and scientific discoveries OntO their businesses: innovation is also and before anything else the
locinlizntioll of innova
tion-thai is, the transrormation of sodcry. Now, in the tw�micth century this tr:\nsformarion operated through the organization of consumption, that is, through the implementation of appar:\ruses for sociery's adaptation to rcchno·industrial change, bur not as the ndoption of innovation by sodcry. l r would be
:1
rnatrcr of adoprion if techner-indus·
trial change was co·produced by sodery itself. Bur the organizarion of consumption presupposes, on the contrary. dlal the becoming of social IJstnm must Jlme· furally !/Ibmit to the becoming of the (cOllOmie SYJtI!m. something enabled by granring rhe latter full control over technological becoming, that is, over rhe tl!ehnicnl sysrt'm--rhis submission being obtained by capturing and harnessing die anention of consumers, by diverting their libidinal energy toward objects of innovation. and by controlling th�ir behavior via marketing. Now. such harnessing of libidinal energy leads to its destruction: it submits to calculation that which, as object of desire, is only constituted through becoming infiniti7.ed, that is, through surpassing all calculation. This destruction of desire leads to a drive·bascd 82
PIJanna�o/0t:1 olu/pita/ Mfrustration,"
forming
a
system
with
what.
in
rwcmieth-cenrury consumerist socicl)', conditions the social absorption of innovation describc:-d by Schumptter as Meconomic evolmioll," leading to the installation of a systcm (e'nding ro produce' ("'ranir Ilnd sirurfllrn/ obw/n·
unct, a system for which the lIomllll rdation to objeclS becomes disposabi/iry.'J And if financialiZ3tion consti· nne'S
an aspect of that system, then both businesses
(as constant capital) and workers (as variable capit;dl become as structurally disposable as any other obi(.'Ct of consumption. Consumption becomes, therefure, both an expedient and an outler-aplJllmltl,(ooll-aggrav:ning frustration by displacing it on a very shorNerm basis toward the newest object of consumption produced by this "permanent i nnovation." Novdry is thus systematically valorized at
od ttach· the expense of durabilil)'. and this Orglll/;Ulioll f mtm, Ihm s, i of unfoilhfolnN or illfidtlirylO (equally called Rexibiliry),11 conuibures to rhe decomposition of the libidinal economy, to the spread of drive-based behaviors and to the liquidation of social systems. At the' foundation of this systemic organization of infidtNry-which is concretely cxprC'Ssed as much by the liquidation of primary identific3rion12 and the modification of infantile synaptogcncsislJ as by (hose shorl-circuits induced in sociery Ihat I have described 83
FOR A N EW C R I T I Q U E
"dissoci:Hion"'1-the SYSI/!ms o f amicipation o f free
as
capita l and 1111: hyperlabile behavior of consumers act in ha rmony and are " potcn !ized" [polnltialismt), in the �nse that
mbi n ing drugs can pOUlltiu
co
IpormtiabJ"1
!he ir curative bUI also their roxic effects (as when, for insmnce. alcohol is combined wilh psych otropes or an Ii-in Aamma rories). Amicipations of fflOC capi l';!l and consumer behav ior
therefore
become correlatively
and
J)sumira/Iy
siJort-unllist, sprCIIlalille alld d,i"r-bmrd.
Economy ofprottntio1lS Fictitious capiral is a system of annclpacions and
gambles wiJi(iJ (an Dilly makr jtldgmmts
about illmiolJs,
(har is, speculat ions and calculations abour nnure pos sibilities wiJkiJ may /lrver br rraliud. It is this system of projection of prolemions which, as the organization
of risk-raking (more or less limited). gives the capitalist system irs dyna mic: capiralism presupposes the existence of free Clpittl o�n 10 speculation understood in this
sense. The "advance" on real iry mar produces these antici pations, however, such that Ihey arc structurally exposed (0
speculation, mUSI proceed before a nythin g else from
84
Pharmacology ofCapillI!
a
motillmiofl,
itself inscribed within an «onomy ofmoti
tJnliolU. which is also an economy of fantasy: such an economy is what produces protean libidinal energy or, 10
express it in more precisely psychoanalytical terms,
polymorphous libidinal energy. 111is polymorphism must be unified by whar Max Weber called a spirit: it presupposes an investment in a libidinal economy which in some way confers lIpon it irs symbolic calibr:nioll. and irs conStitution wilhin a synem of exchange forming a polymorphous social commerce. Such are the questions pervading 'flJt N�llI Spirit of
Ctlpilll!iJm, in which Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello refcr to both Max Weber and Alben Hirschman in order ro show that: sYSfemic constraints [which
arc'
exercised on all the actors
wilhin the capitalist system) are insufficiem on [heir 10
dicil thcir e.ngagcmcnl. Duress
kOIl"ai1llt)
own
must be
internaliu:d and justified.15
In other words, it presupposes that a libidinal economy keeps in re:scrve an rxchangMblt Iibidil1al tl1l'rgy, which bestows consiStency on rhe "advance:" that the syslem makes upon itself, and
as
irs dynamic, throughoUl the:
various forms of motivation rhat it dicits. 85
FOR
It.
NEW CRITIQUE
In fh� libidinal economy, ,he ":ldvanc�"-th� pro· fentional structure of this economyl6-is constitlL[ed by desir�, and such desire is structurally inflnite. thai is, incalculabl�. to th� extent rha! it tends (0 Kinflnilizc" its objectS: [h� libidinal economy is the economy of this inflniri2.ation and as such constitutes a system of intrin sically long-term care. Conversely. the destruction of this advance founded on desire. thai is. on symbolic capilal-a destruction induced by the "liniIi7..:1tion" of its objects. and as the organization of their ilHrinsic disposabiliry. including workers and businesses--demoys motivation itself in
"II irs forms. It thus becomes an advance based on the drives. But given rhal [he drives are by nature shofHermin. chis leads to disinvestment, thaI is, to the destruction of prolitability understood as
bmtfir.
it leads
fO
the
demuclion of profllability understood as th� consolida· lion of the dynamism and durability of the system, as thac which don the sysrem good fer qlli rail du bien ItII
.lJlthm·J.
86
PlmmulCology O/Cllpitll/ Consumrrist ctlpital andfunny monry {monnaie de singe}: th� math�matizntion ofcartkssntSI The tendemial fall in the rate of profit which haunted the producrivisl system characteristic of the nineteenth cemury and of European indusrriali7.ation (and which provoked severnI crises) was absorbed at the begin. ning of the rwentieth cemury. in North America. by a counter-tendency obtained through the consurnerist organization of rhe libidinal economy: by the estab lishment of a system of pron:mions dircr.:red by capiml from the side of consumptiun in functional ,lI1d direct relation to free cltpital invested and "prorcmionalizc:J" in this sense. The implememation of the consumerist society was [he principal response [hat rhe American economy found
(0
this systemic tendency-and this
form of capitalism therefore cannot be (hought with Marxist conceptS alone. Ir was wirhin this emerging context. as the praduc tivist industrial model became consumerisr. that in 1913 Schumpcler wrote his evolutionary rheory of the capitalist economy. Ford then constilUl'('S the perfect example of this ideal-type that Schumpctcr calls the elHrepreneur (Weber having himself supplied a first version of this idcal·type through rhe figure of the enrre preneur of Pennsylvania).17 Blit Fordist entrepreneurial 87
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
innovation.
b.U«I on
Taylorism.
pmupposcs the
organization of mass consumption-the harnessing and aploir:nion of libidinal enerro' in the service of constant behavioral control. II is for this reason that this form of capitalism requires the mobilization of Freudian concepts. This consumerist coulHeNendency-invenred as a way of struggling against the rendemial Fall in the ratc of profit. and implemented via a function of the system of which Marx was unaware, rhat is. marketing, and which led to the reorganiz..1tion of ficririous capital and to the F.lCI that the m:lOner of controlling produc tion shifts from entrepreneurial control to shareholder management-this counter-tendency in turn becomes bearish toward the end of the lWemieth cemury, and does so at the very moment that buying power diminishes. everywhere sening up a massive process of pauperizarion. reconstituting the characteristic traits of the nineteenth cemury. Having destroyed the libidinal economy upon which it was founded. the consumerist coumer-tendency then systemically aggravates the roxicity of financial phar macology. that is. rhe tendency. itself drive-based and shorr-rermist, of fictitiolls capilal, accentuating pau peritation in all layers of the population as well as undermining the apparatus of production, which is
88
PhamllU'ology olCnpiral pillaged via
leveraged buyouts and other speculative
t<:chniquc:s directed specificlly against businesses. The Struggle against the tendendal fall in the rate or profit thus induces a tendential fall in libidinal energy. which reinrorca the speculative tendency of capital. that is. its disinvestmCIlI, thereby undermining profil. The enormous accumulation of capital tends there fore to be transformed into funny money
[moll1l1lie dr
sillgel-and rhe pension fund system appears for what it is: one pole or a system, called fictitious capital, sllch
having mtltiJm/(uiud its pham/(tcologiCIII tt'lldruf] 10 cnrelrsS1Im, its other pole is constituu.:d by deceptions (ll"urml dtlibtmttdy organizing the d ilmion of respon that,
sibility, deceptions with names such as "subprime," "sccuriti1.adon," "Bernard Madoff," erc.
7h� Ihort-t�rmilt mllCTo-tmdmcy If me way in which Marx calculated the nne of profit failed to rake rhe specu1ative tendency in which ficti tious capital essentially consistS fully imo aCCQum. this only serves to show, precisely that the capitalist invesr menr system is subject, as a dynamic synem. tithtr to a bearish tendency,
or (0
a speculative funcrioning which
necessarily becomes destructive and false. 89
fOR A N E W C R I T I Q U E
Schumpcter COlllradicu thiS perspcctive by showing how
innovation
fimcHonnl/y arHmbms
prodllcriv�
Clpiral and fictitious capital-as risk capiul oriented to\vard "rl..-chnological values," But Schum peter does not integr.u� th� quesdon of consumption
as
me har
nessing of libidinal energy, nor th� bearish effecu that this hamming induces over rhis �nergy form essential to consumerist capitalism, nor the reinforcement of the t'endeney toward shorHcrmist carelessness ,hat rhese effects inevitably provoke in fictidolls capital. In order to describe, then, the functioning of the apparntus of production-such
as
it is mmored by a
permanent innovation requiring an organization of consumption by me appararus of psychopower that marketing consdtutes. even if one retains from Man Ih� separation of fictitiow from productive capital in his formulation of the calculation of p--we wowd need to: 1 . add to his formula an innovation function and a consumption function. in order
[0
descri�
an
appar:ltliS of producrion which, today. is no longer merely productivisl but consumerist; ,
2. inregratc a rendential faU in libidinal energy. that is, a tendeney for the libido to decompose into its com ponent drives.
90
Phannacology ofCapital If, in addition, one admits: •
that fictidous capital is essential to the syucm as it is the organization of calculable anticipacions;
•
that it is constituted by a structurally short�termist tendency. that is. by a tendency to carelessness which. in the consumerist industrial modd. forms a system with an increasing obsolescence of products and services. produced by a constant acceleration of the processes of innovation and technologi� cal transfer. and by a correlative aggressiveness of marketing;
then it appears evident mat the consumerist modd has reached its limits because it accommodates a short tnmist marro-tm4mty. which in future
can
only lead
to dosing the system off from any future. that is. to a blockage of me processes of anridpation. whether enuepreneurial or financial, and to a generalized degra dation of social and psychk motivations. but equally of «onomie motivations. Given the existence of such a macro-tendency, the question becomes to know what the
mttcro-cOlutur
tendtncy might be.
91
fOR A NEW CRITIQUE
Shartholdtr capitalism as systemic carelessness To quadons of durability and sust:tinability, and of safeguarding the dynamic system that capiralism is as a system of motivations. must � added the problem of negative externalities: the crisis of 2008 coincides with the fulfillment of the predictions of the Meadows report and of Rene Passet. namely. that the consumer· ist industrial model is condemned to overshoot its own limits by destroying geological resources and geographi. cal and meteorological systems, all while provoking a demographic explosion. lhis destruction of physical systems is combined with the destruction of psychic and social systems, which are the conditions of production of all libidinal energy that of producers as well as designers, investors and consumers. The profit
rl1U
then tends very cenainly to
fall, while the "profit" is only mainrained at high levels because it has become inninsically speculative: and care· less.-i---e ther through ruinous instruments of financial pharmacology, or by frankly Mafia·esque operations. indeed ones that arc manifestly criminal and strictly
;)1'1\"1. In this case. what is augmented is a profit that no longer �ars any rclation to the profit rare calculated by p, since c.1phal, in (he face of the eventual obsolescence 92
Phnm/(lCology ofCnpitnl
of innovation iuelf, and taking into account the essen tially drive-based character of consumption. tends
[0
become structurally fictitious. that is. to be ded neither 10
c nor
ro
v in the definition which supportS the cal
culation s/(c+v): it is this tendency which is concretely expressed
in
management
becoming
shareholder
based-of which the Forgean/EADS insider trading scandal revealed calamitous effects-and which installs a genuinely systemic carelessness.
Economy ofexcessivmess [demesureJ lind infinite mponsibility However speculative this fictitious capital might be, it measures anticipations, making them relatively calcula ble. Prorenrions of psychosocial temporality. however. are not absolutely calculable, and always exceed rdative anticipations: they emerge from that in6niciz.cs ir.sclf, [hat ntu
s i ,
a
libidinal economy
an «01lomy of acmiue
that produces a psychosocial will. otherwise called
motivation. that is. thai produces motivn for tx;uillg. otherwise called meaning. and which presupposes what Simondon names the transindividual-foundC'd on
a
process of transindividuation in which prQ[cnrions are elaborated into the formarion of long circuits. I II
93
F O R A NEW CRITIQUE
In other words, the prorenrion mat constitutes psy� chosocial temporality presupposes mat me of an illfi"iu mpo,uibility will come
co
ption
assum
"back up" this
temporality as a kind of (rdit, where credit cannot be reduced to trust but presupposes
[ctuifianul 3
understood as calculadon.'9
desire invested in an infinitizable
object. At the origin of capitalism. it was the God of reformed monotheism who assumed the symbolic func� tion of this infinite responsibllil)'. as we arc informed by Weber. But what could take on the symbolic function of this infinite responsibilil)' when capitalism turns into a process of disenchantment. nihilism and the death of God? In what then will this relation co infinity consist, a relation which speculation tends to dilute. and to liq� uidate (through which, however, it
s i
the system itself
which becomes diluted-me mutualization of losses only allowing social and psychic systems to absorb this dilution by destroying them a little more. that is, by diluting themselves in order to preserve me financial sub�system within me capiraJiS[ economic system, and always to the detriment of the producdon sub-system)?20 This infinite object is that of desire. What both Freud and Nietzsche gave us to think-and what they gave: us
to think as the play of tendencies-in the function�
iog of what the Viennese analyst will call the psychic 94
Phannacology o/Capital apparatus, is that me:: psych�
is
intrinsically constirute::d
by its rdation to infinity. 1his infinity is that objc=ct of infinite:: d�ire:: which, c=ve::n though it does not exist (if is a fantasy), nevermdc=ss consists. Such consiste::nce alone allows a general c=conomy to perpetuate, that is, to c=xcee:d speculative:: finirude-a finitude which is encounte::rc=d when speculation, calcu lating and measuring anticipations, proves incrinsically careless because it has become the incarnation of a short-termist, thar is, drive-basc=d. tendency. These are also the:: stakcs of general economy according to Georges Bataille. From the:: mome::nt thar American capitalism imple menu the "American way of lifc" as a new libidinal economy mrough me psychopower of marketing. it can only make:: this infinity, which is infinite dnir�, funaion by 6nitizing it, that is. by dcsrroying the:: apparatus of production of libidinal ene::rgy and of all sublimatory by-products. It can therefore only cause its dysfunction. The:: imple::me::nt2tion of this psychopower, however, which beiic=ves at the same:: time in the doctrine of soft
po�r, will for a long time:: contain
its finitizing effects
through a public power theorized by Keynes and mate rialized by Rooscvdr. This public power, called the
we/fort state, will: 95
fOR A N E W CRITIQUE
•
on the one hand. maintain. beneath psychopower. social and sublim:nory systems for the production of libidinal energy. in particular as educational systems:
•
on the other hand. limil the specularive: tendencies of fic[jdous capilal thar Ihis psychopower reinforces. through the roles of regulation and adjustment assumed by the public power when faced with the effects ofdis.1djustmems engendered by the incess.1m muradons of the industrial technical system, which destabilizes olher social systems.
To say this another way, the welfare state is not merely an
avatar ofbiopower: added
(0
it is rhe question of psy�
chopower. This is me characler of the stare in the e::poch of what Adorno and Horkheimer wiU caJl the culmre industry-and in the epoch when these indusuies, vectors of the American way of life::. lxgin to fight over the:: katknhip of social change.
7h� "comtrVativ� rtvo/ution" IlS subordination of th� uchnical sysum to tht lCOnomic systroz Three: crucial points must here be e::mphasizc::d :
1. Before marketing and ficritious capital took coorrol of indusrrial becoming and before the mass media 96
Phnnnncology o/Capital became thoroughly drive-based. that is. at rhe begin ning of the 1970s, the profit rate of businesses bonomed out-an economic faCt which meant that at (har rime it
was
difficult to argue that the ten
dential fall i n the me of profit was an absurd proposition. 2. It was in order to reverse this situation. installed throughout the Western world by Keynesi:mism, that the "conservative revolution" was implemented by Margaret Thatcher in England from 1979 and by Ronald Reagan in North America fwm 1 9BO-thc system based
all
the Btetton Woods agreement
having been abandoned in 1 97 1 , the American appa ratus of production having drastically regressed JUSt as had occurred to the former British empire. and the "conservative revolurion" aiming to "financial ize" and ro globalize Western capitalism. in order [0
ensure that it cominued to direct the course of
globalization (a strategy which
was
a lamentable
failure).
3.
This calling into question of the stare-which (Oak the form of denouncing rhe welfare state on the grounds it destroys individual responsihiliry. and hence that government had become "the problem and not the solution" (to paraphrase Reagan)-had the goal of making it possible for capital TO complc£c1y 97
F O R A N E W CRITIQUE
direct (via the intermediary of psychopower imple mented through marketing) the course of what Bertrand Gille called {he disadjustmem berween the technical system and the Q[her human systems, a role which from the beginning of the industrial revolu tion right up until that moment had belonged to government. In other words. after the "conservative revolution," the becoming of the technical system in the course of globali7.ation (leading to a process of economic globalization which after 1989 no longer faced any obstacles)-constitu[cd
by
the
infrastructure
of
production the organization of consumption (via psy .
chotechnologies), and the objects and services of this consumption itself (all of which are themselves n i dus
gbJbal, ttchnical sysum tends to become totally inttgrattd into the uonomic sJIum and submirud to its priorities as UNU as to its contradictions. trializ.ed and technicized)-the becoming of this
In addilion, the economic system is hencefonh almost complelely directed by the financial sub-system, itself globalized, and this financial sub-system, in (urn, is itself structurally de-correlated from the production sub-system.
98
Phllrmacology olGllpiclli Technical system, social systems, and marketing From the Napoleonic state until various forms of Keynesianism, and passing through Gaullism, one func� tion of the state has been
[0
ensure the direction and
regulation of the disadjustment provoked by ever�more rapid evolutions of the technical system, and to imple ment processes ofreadjustment as they become necessary. Bertrand Gille wrote in 1 978-one year before Thatcher came to power-that, failing such regulation, which constitutes a policy of industrial development, social systems could only find themselves annihilated by a chaotic becoming of this development.21 The technical system is a dynamic system in which there takes place what Simondon describes
as
a process
of individuation. Gille shows that in the course of this individuation, the technical system enters regularly into conRict with the "other social systems"-which are themselves processes of collective individuation, and which presuppose processes of psychic individuation. and what Freud called psychic apparatuses. This means that it is possible for the individuation of the technical system to proceed in a way that is con� trary to the individuation of social systems and psychic apparatuses. This contrariness, however,
IlUO constitutes
the dynamic of the technical. social and psychic 99
F O R A I"'EW C R I T I Q U E
individuation processes. (hat is, the: pharmacological
condidoll of their individuation: Simondon shows that individuation, qua process. presupposes the phase differ· ences
[dlpbmagrs) which precisely induce these different
dynamics o£individuation, and vice versa.
On the other hand, processes of psychic
alld social
illdi'Jit/uafioll are nOf in any case IIdaptflfiolls of the social systems and psychic apparatuses to the becoming of Ihe technical sysrem: they are processes of
adoptioll.
that is, of co-illdividllllrio1/, in which social systems and psychic apparatuses produce and individuate {he tcch nical system as much as they parTicipate in their own resp«rive individuadons-and do so i n a way (hat is transductivdy interlinked. Gille: argues that the st3[e muSt assume rhe regulation of (inevitable and necessary) conflicts in order [Q avoid
the. destruction of these systems: the state regulates by determining the parameters of (he technical system and [he corrdative evolution of the social systems through
negotiation, forecasting, and planning, that is, through the long.term organization of technological and indus· trial becoming; it must equally ensure {he possibility of research independent of private invesrmenr, which is Short-u."rmist when compared with intergenerational social time. Such policies arc therapcmics which define regimes
100
Phannacology ofCapital
of individuation based on long circuits of rransindi· viduadon. and which prescribe conditions in which technological and industrial pharmacology produces individuation more than it docs disindividuation. Now, an essential aspect of the ideological war led by the neoliberals of the conservative revollUion w;\s the condemnation of governmenml industrial ;\nd long-term policy and the corresponding accusa· tion that governments inevitably promote inefficielll models of economic adminisnmion-even
though
the United St:w:s military continues to determine the direction of rhe industrial policies of the American stare. "Ibis eventually evolved n i to the accusation that a/l social Structures rh.lt produce long circuits of rransindividuation are guilty of curbing the mod· ernizarion made possible by the development of the technical system. When Thatcher and Reagan initiated deregulation, dismantling and eventually liquidating all srate appara· ruses, their gamble was thar these adjustment processes could be entrusted alone. thar is,
[0
lO
the operation of the market
marketing. which then exploits wirholll
limit the psychotechnologies constituting rhe mcdi:l
infrastructure-and does so at rhe service of a bchav. loral control which is ;'narcotic." that is. which is anaesthetizing and which produces addiction. 101
fOR
A
N E W CRITIQUE
Confounding the technical and economic systems as a principalfoetor ofcarelessness This unlimiud exploitation leads to the slow but inex· orable liquidation of [he apparatus of prOdJlctioll of libidinal magy. an apparanuform(d by conjoiningpsychic apparafusN and socal i syst(1f1S so as to produC( Sflb/i"IIuion sysums (and which concretize individuation insofar as i t is always a t once psychic and collective). In the aurumn of 2008. this unlimited exploitation will turn OUt to have installed a genuinely planunry car(/mnm. The confol/nding of th( t(cJmica/ and economic sysums is a catastrophe which inevitably leads these twO systems. which arc thoroughly pharmacological. to potentize and exacerbate their toxic. emropic and self-destructive tendencies-for four reasons: I . The subordination of the technical to the economic system, itself dominated by the highly speculative and short-termist financial sub-system. reinforces me destructive effects of innovation and of the accd· eration of innovation for the other social systems:
the technical system incessamly disadjusrs from the social syS(ems. And it tends to bury. suppress, and delay the effects of [his disadjustmem by substituting for these social systems technical processes amouoc102
Pharmacology ofCapita! ing (Q services which shorr·circuir rhat process of uansindividuation of which these social systems are the organization-the absence of regulation leading in the end to the desrruction of temporaliries (long circuits) which are nor immediately "monetizable,
�
that is, capable of being absorbed by a consumer market. 2. The extremely rapid and violent penetration of tech· nology in the different social systems (family systems. education systems. political systems, judicial systems. linguistiC systems. etc.) leads
to
generalized prole.
rarianiz.ation: technological innovation is imposed rhrough marketing
as
a process of adaptation of
psychic and social individuals. and nOf appropriated as
a vec(Qr of individuation and process of adoption
defining a thernpeutic regime, that is, 14voir·vivrr (lhrrapruml1 and �imr!rj4
as
techniques of
self and
others). This is why it no longer allows the creation of circuits of transindividuation and on the contrary sers as irs principle the shorc·circuiring of the transin· dividuation process-which amounts fO a principle of !)lumic carrlrsmru. 3. lne shorHl!'rmist pressure exerted by fictitious capital and shareholder managl!'ment over the development of a technical system entirely subordinated to chI!' economy and therefore to the market, and for which 103
FOR " N E W CRITIQUE
the only developmental possibilities that come to be selected are those enabling the IItry mpid comtitll lioll ofsolvmci�s-thcrcby dosing off all possibilities for social invC5tment in the phnrmnkoll, both in the long (erm and as therapeuric implementation of irs socialization-this pressure of the economic system on the technical system leads to a systemically careless development oftbt ftc/mienl systtm its�1f.
4 . 1he geogrnphical, biological, demographic and psy chic systems find themselves disadjusred, leading to their disequilibrium, rather than
TO
beneficial disrup
tions (that is, to disruptions that would be effectively ncgenrropic. disruptions capable of leading to rhe production of lltW mttasmbililia, such as would occur if the phnnnnkoll were implemented therapeutically).
Th. collap" ofthe sysum ofmotivations Human becoming is lhe resuh of a threefold process of individuation for which
the
technical system.
social systems and psychic apparatuses are the meta stable configurations engendering proCesSC5 of technical. collective and psychic individuation. These three individ uation processC5 arc inseparable: they form rransducrivc relations.22 104
Phllnnllcolog)' o/Capillll
These transductive relations tie rogether three orga nological levels which must be distinguished. and which have their own logic and their own tendencies. bur which cannor be considered in isolation from one another: •
The psychic appar:ulIs is bast.-d on a system of psycho
•
The technical system connects artificial organs which
som:ltic organs; become the
phrtrlllllka
of the psychosomatic body.
connecting it to Q(her bodies at the heart of social systems; •
Social systems are [he organi7..3tions through which the rransindividual merastabilil,cs and unifies the therapeutic regimes which constitute social blend ing [foirt-c01;t'.J] through me collective individuation process.
That the technical system is in transductive relation with the social systems means that it cannOt be devel oped without a human milieu in relation to which it is exogenous. a milieu formed OUt of psychic and collective individuals
cultivating thtir sil1glllnritit'.J by cullillllling
cOl1sistt'11ct'.J. thllt is, ohjtcl.J which do not t'Xist, btl! which art
infillil�and which.
as
such. permit the unification
at infinity (infinitely to come) ofsystems and individuals. 105
fOR A NEW CRITIQUE
That the psychic apparatus is i n transductive rdation with the technical systl:m means mat psychic appa ratuses cannot socialiu: without passing through the phllnnlllril constitutive of thc technical system-which is also a syncm of tertiary retentions,lJ and which thus supports individual and collective protentions (and [he formation of credit), These pbnrmillra permit the forma rion of both long and short transindividuation circuits. Reciprocally, social synems, as proccsses of collective individuation, thar is, as evolving systems. cannot per
petuate themselves whhout adopting pIJarma/ra through the psychic individuals who transindividuare themsdves at the hearr of these social systems, pllllrmnkn which as
such disrupt the organiutions
n i
which these systems
consin: each organological level being individuated in transductive rdation to thc individuadon of the other systems. In the rwentierh cenrury, howevcr. the economic system having taken a step beyond all the othcr systc=ms, and being charged with the rask of unifying them by
finitizing thml,
that is. submitting them to a prOCdS
of generalized "monetization"-and the financial sub system having taken a step beyond [he production
sub-system at {he heart of the economic systcm itself-it is
infinitivt (omutmu
(thc law of desire), constituting
the condition of any genuine co-individuation of the
lOG
Pbannacology o/Capital thref! organological levels, which finds itself destroyed. Now. there
can
be no suJlaillabk (that is, care-ful
[mriL"UStU prottntion without infinitive consistency. This resuJrs in both the squeezing of all anticipations imo an ultra-shorHerm horiron of specula£ion, and (he collapse of the system of motivations. Speculation, very far from producing a new dynamic. on the comrary fossilizes dme: it freezes it into a waU of time where past and future cancel each other OUt, and where all forms of invcstmenr disintegrate. The ulna-short-term tendency of completely deregulated fictitious capital, which systemically shorr-circuits the process of rransin dividuation, thereby causes fictitious capital to become totalized and extremist. This tendency is, then. intrinsi cally self-destructive and as such annihilates rime-time, of which the law is deJire,
huofor as it pmnitJ fht reali
zaHon (through Jublimation) of motilm of imagination (poHibilitit'J). Sucb a situation of carelessness-which
can
only
lead to the entropic disintegration of the three orga nological levels. while at the same time destroying the txrrt1-organological systems {geographical, climatologi cal, geological. and biological systems)-is induced by a consumerist model which, having reached its limits through (he spread of dissociated milieus,24 that is, pro letarianil.ed milieus, becomes self-destructive, insofar as 107
FOR A N E W CRITIQUE
what it destroys is not merely the desire o f consumers but also [heir health. The reinvemion of the industrial economy presup poses the reconstitution of a libidinal economy withom which there can be no investmem, and this means that lltW appartlfllJt!l
ofproduction of/ib;dilla/ m�w mllJt b�
cOllui/J�d and imtitltud-beC3USC JUcb appardttlJts I1rt tltcflJari/y i1lJtil'llti01lJ: hcncc the ecclesiastical institution and irs care-ful [cllri�/l.\·j inhabiram, the curCi hence rhe school and its master, thc [cacher [hlItihlullrj.
To rcol1omiu at/tw, that is. to Jtrugg'� agaimt tht car� ms tmdmcy inherent to that piJarmakol1 thar is capiral. and dUff to fltk� etrr� of th� world, can clearly no longer pass by way of "scimulating consumption." But neither can it pass by way of a "decrease in growth" ["dicr
oissllnul Rather, a pathway to gmuint growth must be refound, a growth running counter to the mis-growth
[microhsl111Ct] rhat consumerism has become,25 and a growth which would consist in a renaissance of desire. Such a rebinh would be achieved by implementing an economy of contribution, an economy for which "to
uOl1omiu" means '"to mkt rnrr,"26 and an economy within which carc culrivates associated milicus.!7
108
Pblll'1nttcology ofCllpitlll
Pharmacology oftechnical tendencies In the course ofhis ethnographic research, and by com paring ethnic groups, Andre Leroi-Gourhan created the concept of what he called "(eelmical telldtllcits." Technical tendencies emerge from char "interior milieu" which the "echnic group" constitures. Technical tenden cies emerging from the ethnic group are projected in the form of technical objects, the torality of which con stitute a "memhmne" (or a "film" ) through which rhe erhnic group takes hold of its exterior milieu, which it rhus assimilates via irs technical objects. Leroi-Gourhan's analysis is greatly inspired both by Henri Bergson , as Leroi-Gourhan expliddy acknowl edges with his references to che theory of "life force," and by Claude Bernard, who makes use of the concepts of interior milieu, exterior milieu,
as
well as of mem
brane and cell. in order to describe the "metabolic" functions of sodo-ethnic groups, Now. the interior milieu in which technical tendencies aTe formed is at the same time the sear of counter tendencies
limiting their concrete expression.
The inte
rior milieu "secretes" these tendencies, bur it a/Jo secretes something simi l ar to an (auto-)immune system in order to struggle against the toxic effects that these tendencies may ar rimes provoke within the interior milieu.
109
P O R A N E W CRITIQUE
This is in effect constituted through a technical milieu which suppons it, which is its condition. and which is its double (in the double sense of the word. if I may put it like this): the technical milieu (equivalent to what Bertrand Gille called the technical system), harbored by the interior milieu, and supponing it. also does not cease to exceed it and to threaten it with destruction. as though it were a parasite that also happens to be the condition of possibility (and of impossibility) of that upon which it is parasitical. In brief. it is a matter of a pharmacological milieu. bearing tendencies which are curative as well as poisonous. This is why. within the interior milieu, a technical tendency. though it has its provenance in this milieu, is never completely expressed wirhin that milieu: a technical tendency is omy realized through technical facts which are a compromise between technical char· acterisrics, emerging from the tendency. and ethnic characteristics that Leroi·Grouhan describes as degrees of technical fact18 limiting this tendency--degrees of which the tim is the pure rendency. but which is therefore covered over by other degrees which mask it, limiting its expression, indeed returning the technidty of the tendency against its own expression. In certain regards. there is a manifest comem (which is the tech nical fact) and a latent content (which is the technical
110
P"nnllncolo� ofCapital
tendency)-the manifest comenr expressing fie larenr content only by dissimulating it, and
tkftrritlg (diJfirnntJ
it,
diJf�mltiating [diJfirtnciiltltl itself from it.
Such is the case because the interiot milieu (which constitutes the ethnic group) harbors within the tech nical milieu
3.
social sub-group (the technical group),
bearer of the tendency, which is distinguished from other social groups, themselves bearers of coumer tendencies emerging from other social systems. A social coumer-tendency consists in causing the technical ten dency to "diffract," to deflect, and even to reverse irs direction. in order
to
ensure that the technical ten
dency docs nor destroy those systems constituting (he interior milieu, which would be inevitable were it
fa
be expressed without any limitation whatsoever. The tendency which bears the technical group is therefore concretely expressed
as
a technical fact in the encoun
rer with other social groups which rake hold of this tendency in causing it to bifurcate. This deflection. this diffraction, and the bifurcations which are produced by it, and which arc specific forms of what Derrida described as
diJfiranr�
(which is also
an economy)29 constitutes the reality of the process of co-individuation of the technical sysrem with the social sysrems-and. through them, the individuation of the psychic systems mar anticipate them and realize them 111
FOR A N E W C R I T I Q U E
jusr as much as {hey are submirted ro rhem and find themselves conditioned by rhem. In contrast with these conserv;nive reactions of the interior milieu. however. the technical group, which tends ro facilit:ue the expression of the technical ten� dency. is a step ahead when compared to the ethnic group. insof.1T as it is extremely aware of dements of the exterior milieu th:1I we must
I.
. .
J understand first
of all
as
a natur.l]
milieu, which is inert. composed ofsmnes. wind, trees. and animals. but also as rhe bearer of the objecrs and the ideas of diRerenl human grou ps.30 The technical group is. then, what causes the passing
into action (or the transgression [pt1JSl" iz I;"cun of the technical rendency (which is nothing other than a poremial), via the intermediary of objects and ideas coming from the exterior milku, that technicians assim� ilate, and through which they take a step ahead of the interior milieu. The interior group is. however. led to itself assimilate rhis technical milieu in order to be able to assimilate that which. in irs exterior milieu, has changed, something Leroi-Gourhan demonsrr:l.les with his example of the snowshoe. adopted by the A�:lskan Inuit because their climate was becoming frozen: every�
112
Pbarmacology a/CapitaL
thing here is a maner of arrangements between dynamic systems.
The economy ofcontribution as the overturning {renversemenr} ofthe bearish macro-tendency The technical tendencies proper to human groupsJ l define the human as such, and threaten [he human as such: they threaten the cohesive factors unifYing the group. Technical tendencies originate from the ethnic group itself. Leroi-Gourhan's "technical milieu" may be a step ahead when compared with the interior milieu, yet it is so, if one can put it like this, from our of this interior and,
i some way, by hollowing alit this interior. n
In Gille's account, on the other hand, the technical system and its dynamic seem to become exteriorized, to
detach from the interior milieu, and to dc-correlate
from the social systems: this is what Gille describes
as
disadjustment. The societies of which Gille speaks arc no longer ethnic and tribal groups: they are much larger social groups (empires, politically and economically organ ized and hierarchi7.ed cities, churches, nations, etc.), the social srructures of which are profoundly distant from those of ethnic groups,
as
well as being divided and 113
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
differentiated into sulrgroups. social classes, economic sectors, etc. In these hierarchical societies, social groups are in a reladon to other social groups with which they form a uniey (imperial, political, religious. national, etc.). as if these "ethnic cells" have integrated to form a superior body constituting a new interior milieu. Furthermore, such hierarchical societies maintain commercial and mil itary relations with one another, leading to an exterior milieu that is more and more strongly "anthropited." that is, technlcizcd: a milieu of exchanges and of"exter nal commerce," through which inrernationaJ law
can
form, which is $Ometimes an economic site, and at other times a site of war. Disadjustment is manifested in the spatial differ entiation which urbanization induces. But it has only become a perceptible and constant factor of the social dynamic since the time of the industrial revolution. The technical system then tends to blanket and absorb the social systems, first of all by inscribing stllloir.jairt inro machines (by grammarizing knowledge), rhen by shott circuiting Stlooir-v;vu via the apparatus supporting the service industries (in the consumerist epoch), contem porary reticulated society grammacizing social relations themselves via sodtll mginttring. There have always been, in all preceding periods of 1 14
Pbamlac% D OfCapitaL
human sociery, proc�ses de-correlating the technical sYSle'm from the social systems, and the technical milieu has always exceeded the interior milieu-something the Greeks characterized as a form of hubris. But for the past ten thousand years of sedentary life and urbanized civilization, such processes-which disrupt the social system and the overall collective individuation proc�s, and which are provoked by "leaps" in the individuation of the technical systcm-always constituted exceptional episodes. Disadjustmenr becomes chronic from the time of the industrial revolution. And this becomes even more the case
at the beginning of the rwentierh cemury, when
industry, struggling against the te.ndrntial decline in the rate of profit, systematically organizes a form of perma nent innovation which prC$upposes the development of a consumerist sociery. and which depends upon the systematic and continual transformation of ways of life. From that poim not only does rhe technical system ,
no longer seem to be: secreted by the ethnic group--a situation which began from the moment the ethnic "ceU" became integrated with other, similar "ceUs in order to form a more complex social body-but it seems as though the technical system, in fact, escapes to a new interior milieu within this complex body. Such is the process of dissociat;�n, a process through which 115
FOR
A
NEW CRITIQUE
social systems cease
[0
appropriate the technical ten·
dency by deflecting it and individuating it. but rather in which the social systems themselves are shorr-circuited and literally dis-integrated via the technicizarion of rhe social. Within this process. rhe economic system toO is de correlated from the other social systems. both through financialization and by taking control of the technical system, which rhus becomes the vcctor of dererritoriali z..;trion. 'fhe technical tendencies no longer proceed from out of rhe interior milieu, and arc no longer secreted by it, to the extent that
thrr� 110 101Jg�r is Ill' illf�rior milim:
the technical milieu. pa.�sing into the control of a techni cal system itself largely deterriroriallzed and globalized. leads to tbe pure and simple dilution of the inrerior milieu, as if ir had been parasitized-and poisoned. This amounrs, then. ro the attaining of a Iimir because the dilution of interior milieus is also the disintegration of psychic apparatuses. as well
as
rhe
total exhaustion of libidinal energy and of capacities for investment, antiCipation. and will. According to the principles of general organology, a technical milieu stripped of the interior milieu is a process of technical individuation Stripped of the process of psychosocial individuation, and is hence a process which inevitably becomes entropic, given rh:1.I it has destroyed its energy
1 16
Pharmacology ofCnpira! base-libidinal energy, which is a necessary condition for every kind of protent ion
and given that technical
-
tendencies are actualized in technical fucts which are the material expression of these tendencies
.
Having reached this stage. the tendential decline in the rate of profit and its consumerist and speculative .
counter-tendency, together engender a bearish macro tendency which eventually becomes unsustainable: such is our lot. In order to overtllrn tbis tendenC]. it is essential
[cnpitn� to reconstitute
a
process of individuation of
the technical milieu through the individuation of a new type of interior milieu (constituted by "multitudes" of
"cells") via investment in the relational technologies characteristic of reticulated societics. The therapeutic program of this pharmacology, which rests o n the formation of new associated milieus. is the economy of contribution.32
Organology oftendencies and oftheir tramdttctive arrangements There are tendencies and counter-tendencies proper to each of the three organological levels, but these arrange and tie together the transduccive relarions between the three levels:
1 17
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
•
At the psychosomatic level, drive-based and sublima tory tendencies and coumer-tendencies play out, the compromise between which constitutes a libidinal economy--expressed concretely in the course of time through psychic configurations which are each time specific-by arranging pharmacological possibilities and through being projected across phnnnakl1 on the social plane, where psychic individuation equally becomes collective individuation and the formation of a circuit of cransindividuarion;
•
At the: technical and pharmacological level, techni cal tendencies play our, which are only expressed concretely as technical facts encountering counrer tendencies elicited by orner social systems, which thus cross, animate. structure and individuate the techni cal system itself-an encounter which always takes place through psychic individuals inscribing their psychic individuation within collccrive individuation;
•
At the social level, which is that of organizations and institudons of collective individuation, tenden cies merasrabilizing roward synchronization (where synchronization is the condition of uniey of the social level in its totality) play both with and against diachronizing tendencies, which incessandy jostle against these Structures which are metastabilized through collecrive individuation-under the impetus
118
Phllmlacology ofCilpitill of psychic individuals themselves individuated and diachronically singularized through their relation
pbllrmllkll
[0
(and to technical tendencies), wherever
therapeutic spaces deriving from the social level make rhis possible. It s i through these arrangements of multilayered ten dencies that transindividuarion processes are woven. Each of (he social systems is itself constituted by specific tendencies which instantiate the dynamics of synchro nization and diachronizacion, and which form irs own circuits of rransinclividuarion. Nevertheless, with each new stage of grammari zarion, new synchronization processes, that is, new regimes of mera5cabilizacion, are enabled. Bur begin ning with that grammatization process which enabled the discretization of corporeal Rows, in turn enabling their calculation via machine tools and the appara tus of production, management and conception, and eventually via the psychorechnologies orchestrating con sumption (making it possible to calculate the flux of consciousness-"available brain-time"), the economic system rakes a step beyond all the other social systems by taking control of the technical system itself-that is. by controlling which possibilities are selected from amongst all those constituting the protenrional fields 1 19
fOR
It.
NEW CRITIQUE
opened up by technical tendencies, and by imposing favorable technical fucts on fictitious capital, which is itself imposed on productive capital. Grammatization-that is. pharmacology-is never theless what also enables new proccsses of diachroniz.1tion-thar is, of individuation. Faced with the bearish macro-tendency described in the preceding paragraphs. a macro-tendency amounting to a negative arrangement of tendencies issuing from the three organological levds, we must reacrivate an inherem ltlldmry IOlUllrd tkVII tion in human societies, and which was translated, at a cenain stage of grammati7.ation, and via the hypomnesic phflrmllkon, into the culture of consistences of the skllok and otium.
Th( tendency to ekvation-"there ar( a lot of alternatives .. For every stage of grammatization, societies institute therapeutic systems, sySlems of care, techniques of self and others. which constitute spirirualities and diverse noetic forms. from shamanistic modds to anistic models. passing through churches. medical therapies, schools. sports. philosophies. and every system of sub limarion. 120
PbnmlflCO/ogy ofCnpitnl
These systems, which are concrete exp ressions of the
tendency to cultivate consistence::s . ne::ve::nheJess presup pose the apparatus of production of subsistences with which they compose, and through which is formed a negotium which, as commerce, is also a calculation about
what does exist and what will exist. What composes together, then, is the otiltm of consistences, the l1rgoti/lm of subsistences and that which constitutes existences worthy of this name-through which a $(t/Joir-vivre is formed that one can caU exisull(t. 1he economy of contribution is the stimulation of desire through the reconstitution of systems of care founded on contemporary phanllfllm and constituting a new commerce of subsistences in the service of a new e::xistence.
In the course of history, human societies arrange, combine,
and
economIze
vanous
tendencies
and
counter-tendencies which weave and metastabilize the dynamic systems that are formed on the:: three orga nological levels. These arrangemems are formed by porentizing
[potelltia/isflmj the tendencies and counter
tendencies occurring at these three levels. The dynamic historical processes resulting from these arrangements are generated from Ollt of the limits of those which precede them, and they are subsequently transformed through the encounter with their own limits. We live at
121
F O R II N E W C R I T I Q U E
such a moment-to a very grave degree: to the degree that the very survival of humankind is
31
stake.
Toward the end of [he twentieth century. the tendential fall in the r.ue of profit, counteracted by coumer-tendencies harnessing libidinal energy. in the end produced
fI
conjunction of rht drivt-bastd undmcy
of I},t psychir !Jsltm find Iht sptmlnlhlt Imdmcy of tht tconomic IJsum. Bur in the new pharmacological contexi created by digital ne(Works.
fI
controT) 1l"llllgt
mmt clearly h«omes imaginable: one can imagine that tmdmdt!
10
inlJtstmml couJd be combined with mbli-
1nl1toT) undtncit!. These arrangements presuppose articulations between [he economic system and the psychic apparatus at both the organizational level and the psychosomatic level. Th� aniculations are translated at the level of the technical system by giving orientations co technical tendencies. and more precisely through the rypes of technical faCt which are then selected by the economic system conjOined to the psychic system, technical facts which concretely express technical tendencies: the technictl tendency that comes to be expressed in a [echnical system is not a determination. no more than the tendenrial fall in the rate of profit determines the end of capitalism-and the technical reality is not the tendency. but the f2ct. On the other hand, the 122
Pharmacology ofCnpila/
tendency o�ns various possibilities. and that is why [0
{he TINA ideology,
"therr is
110
a/urflalivt." one
must oppose the TALOA argument. "thtu nrt lot! of nJurnativts...
Tendencies are potenrials lying within the imerior and rtom which possibilities can be selected: they open fields or protemional possibilities. Possibilities which are selected are then expressed concretdy as technical FJctS. but these are always oriented through social syStems. Social systems. on the other hand. are themselves cur· rendy involved in a slruggle ror comro1 or collective individuation. Our epoch is characterized by the f.tCt that it is thc economic system dominated by fictitious capital that imposes a tcchnical system the evolutions of which it presents as ineluctable-an ineluctability supposedly extending to the liquidation not only of the state, but or all long circujts of transinruviduation, which was the very thing advocated by Thatcher and Reagan in the 19805. and still advocated by Sarkozy and Berlusconi in ,he 2000s. But in reality such arrange· menu are hisrorical. and perfectly contingenr-what is more, they are profoundly roxic.
123
FOR A N E W C R I T I Q U E
From drivt-based nnptintss to the ovtrturning of the tendency The ultraliberal parameters of the rechnicaJ system which led to what proved to be the catastrophe of 2008 were directed solely by the short term. rhat is, by techni cal facts organized and produced through marketing-a marketing which denies that long-Icrm tendencies exist: nothing other than the marker can direcl becoming. we are informed by this "managerial dogmatism.")) and it is just too bad if this becoming longer have any future
[dl'!lmirj turns out to no
[n!lmiTj.
'mose arguing for and explicidy demanding this denial of long-term existence, and finally of time itself (that is. of the indivicluafion of singularities, of existence), claim that it is not possible to predict the technical future, nor is it possible to build any kind of political will or bring it into reality. But this devaluing of anticipation, which i n its own terms is comradictory to
all forms of invest
mem, rests on a confusion operating betw�n technical faCt and technical tendency. Leroi-Gourhan in effect shows that it is entirely pos sible to anticipate technical becoming. on the condition that we understand that becoming, oriented, encour aged and moved by technical tendencies, is �diffracted" and deAecred into technical Sets which, in the short 1 24
Pharmacology oJCnpifl11
term, can seem perfectly dearly ro rorally contradict this tendency (jUSt as the current of a river, observed at a very reduced scale, can give the feeling of Rowing from east
ro west whereas it is in fact Rowing from west ro
east. because the observed pOTtion, being a whirlpool, engenders contrary currents). indeed to durably block it (an available tech nique can be utilized in order ro counteract the new technique of which the tendency is a bearer). Such apparent contradictions are possible because technical faCtS are compromises between technical tendencies and social systems, which arc themselves organizations resulting from tendencies and counter tendencies constituting Utem as metastable sysu�ms.J4 The question then becomes
ro
know how a public
power can, without reducing all social systems ro the economic system (because this would be ro dissolve desire into pure calculability), create adjustments ena bling the Tet:onsrruction of the long term, anticipation. investment, etc. The careless tendency substituting the marker for commerce is currently dominant, a tendency resulting from a toxic combination oftmdencirs andcotmur-ulltun ci�s at the mree organological levels. This roxic economy of regressive tendencies, implemented by consumerism exercising the psychopower of irs cultural hegemony 1 25
FOR A N E W C R I T I Q U E
through [he intermediary of psychotechnologies, in this way connols the becoming of individual and collective behavior, as well as the dynamic processes of the (echni· cal system. From the resulting destruction of circuits of rransindividuation also resulu the dilution of those interior milieus constituting human groups. "I nternalizing"
,"imirioriJrr")
capitalism and its
functioning. jf one still wishes to speak the language of Bohanski and Chiapello, presupposes that the interior milieu has not been completely dillllcd-failing which, there is no longer any internalization, bur only pure exte· riorization leading
(0
a drive·based emptiness. Such are
the systemically bearish conscquences---consequcnccs which include me production of an immense systemic swpidiry3S-of the tendential fall in the rate of profit and its consumerist counteNendency. The tendency to carelessness is irreducible: there is not, there never has �n and there never will be a para· dise on earth. This is why it is necessary to organize an economy of carelessness by cultivating systems of care which presuppose a pharmacological intelligence, con· cretely expressing in this way an an of living. weaving therapeutic multiples. Our epoch is, however. very sin· gular: unlike any other before it, it btU modt carrlnmrss into Ihr UtI] principlr o/itt orgolli2Alion. This is what can no longer be endur(."d. 126
Phannacology oJCapital
Such
an:
the urgency and the challenge-global and
unpr«edemed-w conduct a grand ovenurning of (cn dencies in the face of generaJiud drive-based emptiness.
Tht tconomy ofcontribution as a ntw r�/ation btlWttlJ tht uchnical rysttm and social rysttms Under the influence of t«hnical tendencies. the bttom ing of the (<Ce$S through which several functions come to be founded on a single function. which thus becomes plurifunctional. Gilbc=.n Simondon analyza: this process of b«om ing in particular in relation to heat engines: his first example is rhe passage from external combustion (the furnace), which moves the piston of [he steam engine, to the combustion produced in the interior of the cyl inder, where the piscon slides open due
co
the force of
the explosion of a gas. a passage which occurs when the Lenoir engine replaces the steam engine in the series of heat engines.J6 Another case of functional integration appears with 127
FOR A NEW CRITIQUE
what Simondon calls the techno-geographic milieu asso ciated with [he Functioning of a technical system. Simondon developed this theory in relation to the Guimbal turbine. for which he showed thai Ihe marine element is functionally intcgr:Hed inro the engine and thus becomes an associated techno-geographical milieu. Other forms of techno-geographical milieu exist. nor strictly associated wirh the technical system, hur adapted via a technique which forms an intermediary between it and the geographical milieu. and which as such forms a rechno-geographical milieu. Consider, for example. the comours of a stretch of land. worked upon and tcchnicized so that it can incorporate a rail network. and enabling a locomotive to be adapted to these COntours of land: in this situation, the network constirures an inter face berween the geographical system and the technical system. In 1990 Philippe Aigrin and myself put forward the idea that the software industry and irs digital nerworks will eventually cause associated techno-geographical milieus of a new kind to appear. enabling human geog raphy to interface with the technical system , to make it function and, especially, make it evolve, thanks
to
this interfacing:;!7 collaborative technologies and free license software rest precisely on the valorization of such associated human milieus, which also constitute
128
Phal71l1tc% gy oJCapitflL techno-geographical spaces for the formarion of positive externalities. This process is an inter-systemic macro-tendency formed at the interface of the technical system and social systems, and operating a functional integration between them-hur where this integration is, however, not necessarily beneficial: it is highly ph:!rmacological, and hence, for example, social nelworks are clearly also connected to processes of auromated traceability, set into motion by actions and requests rhar network acrors mostly produce without even knowing ir, bur which confer ro those who obtain rhis informarion a new rype of power. Here, me interface between the technical system and social systems docs not operate via the economic system, but precisely through those social systems which are bearers of the knowledge (savoirs] which society holds. Such forms of knowledge and their valorization are the only possibilities we have for struggling against the pro duction of information
without knowledge. Developing
such forms of knowledge and valuing them economi cally will calise a new economic system to emerge from the hean of the social systems, and respecting these soci:!1 systems mcans constituting an economy of contribution, contrll the economy of carelessness.
129
NOTES
For II. New Critique of Political Economy Imrodllrtio"
", I Th� COnctpfli are dcvclo� in La
T«Imiqut tt It Ttlllps 3:
Lt temps du rillima tt'" qumion till mnl-ftrt (Paris: Galilee,
2001). A summary an be found in PIJiIOJop/�r pnr ltrridtnl, with Elic: During {Paris: Galil�c, 2004}, pp. 74ff. 2 LA 7«hniqllt tt It Tt",ps 3. Phannacology ofll� proltlarial 1 A podWt is available on the: An Inawtrialis websire: http:// www.arsindwrrialis.org 2 http://www.ecic-<:e.risy.asso.frlaClivire:marchanae08.hunl
3 Christian Faurl!, Alain Giffard, Bernard Sric:gle.r, Pour mfinir IlI1rC'
III ",kroiJSllllrt. Que/quft propositiolls d'An buiustriaus
(Paris: Flammarion, 2009). " In panicular Andr� Gon...
5 And ,his would be: contn.ry [0 the F.amasy. inspired by incau tious radings of Hannah Arendt, ,hal sc:c:lu 10 puriff "the: politiar of anything «onomie.
(j S� Je:remy Rifkin, 7/� EndofWo"": tbt Dtt/hlt oftilt Global l.4bor Foret (lIId fIN DnllJ/f of t/� Pou-Mar/ttl Era (New York: Putnam Books, 1995). And Michel Roard "Prc:faee,� to Rifkin, La Fin dll travail, frans. P. Rouve (Paris: La .
D.:couvc:nc:, 20(6).
130
Notu to png�s 20-22 7 Dominique Meda, Lt Tmvnil. ,ioll (Paris: Aubier, 1995).
VIII' /lil/tur I'll
voit dt dispnrj
8 Andn; Gon, Mitalnorp/}osrs dll tra/l(/il. Critiqllt dt III misoll kOllo",iqut (Paris: Callimard. 2004). In English Criliqlt/, .
of &ollomir RtiUon.
trans. C.
Tum�r :and C. H:andysidt
(London: Ve�. 1989).
9 Anronella Corsani and Mauririo La:u..ar:no. Inrtr",irrnllJ " pmairtJ (Paris Ams[erdam. 2008). :
Wark. A HtU:k" Mallifrsro (Cambridge. Massachusttt'i: Harvard Univtrsity 11reS$, 2004). Pekka Himanen. 77J1' H,uJur ftllir: A &IdirnlAPPNJflch t/J Ihl'
1 0 McKenzie II
Philosoph] ofBI/Jinru (New York: Random House. 2002).
1 2 The new ques[inn of work is a1su thaI of a new attitude. which is chnracmistic of [he nspiralions of youngtr gen trmions.
! argued in L4 TtllrMtit rOlltrt III dtll/orrmit (Paris:
Flammuion. 2006) that the demonStrations of French dents against The CPE (Conua[ Premier contrao) were Ixfore anythi ng else
ULt
Emploi: a first job
a prot�t against [he
conn1.don between work and job: �Not :Ill employment i5 work:
not all jobs
are
conducive
to
the acquisition and
dcvelopmem of knowledge and therewith. tion. that is. the process whereby you youf5Clf in society as
am
ro individua a placc for
make
a producer. mill not Oil" ItS a COlmlmtr
whostjob!lIrnMm ,hI' emploJ« It Mlltry which in
tllm
(,(J/Ifm
blt]ing po/�. Individuation is on ,he conlr-uy wiJat t4Jm
work btyo"d ml'rt rmploymtlll. jf one understands that 'work' (OllJurs in 1t(l;OIl
;n tht worM in ordtr to tr411sform it 01/ lIlt
basis oftilt kllow/tdgt 0111' IIilS ofit. Now work, to the extent [hi!! it has been affected by grammariution. in the s«ondary
as well as in the tertiaty sccrors. insofar as it has become: more: and more a matter of 'wages: is today most often reduced t he time spent in employment: th is
[0
is what results from the 131
N O T E S TO P A G E S 2 2- 3 3
sprt.'3d of dissociated milicus, :1 spread which is itself thc first consequence of the grammaril.:ltion of gcSt1.ITC:s and modes of production in which the industrial revolurion comisrs� ( Tllkrafit (OlUrt la dtmocrntit. pp. 243-4). I will rerum to th� queslionJ in more derail fun:h..:r on. ClI1CC" th31 Immanuel Wallerstein has perhaps
13 It Is this �3t
overlooked in his refercnce 10 Ihe Ihear}' of cydes. 10 describe the negalive dynamic of rhis exhaustion in
1 4 r try
POllr tiljillir /1/1« la mkroiSSllIlt't.
i� to say, thc increasc in the fixed Clpiral component (the mrans uf production) and the curresponding decrease
1 5 That
of \'':lriable Clpital (wage labor) .....hich Man: shows 10 be Ihe resul! of a dI.'Crcasc in the profitabiliry ofinvcstmem. 1 6 Bernard Stiegler. Eronomit dt n1Jprrmntlritl n ,III psychOPbll
fIOir. Elltrrt;tIIs
(IIIfC
Pbilippr PniJ n Vil/et/It BOllltlu (r3ri�:
MiJlc er une nuit.�, 2008). 17 POllr tnjinir tlV« la mkrosstlllt't. i 1 8 Jeremy Rifkin,
71,t
Agt of Aruss: 711t Ntw elllfllrt of
Hypartlpitalism Wlltrt All of Lift Is a Paid-for Exptritl/u
(New York: Putnam, 2000), p. 9. J9
Kar] Marx, ContriblltiOIl
to fl
Critiqllt ofPoliticlt! Economy.
trans. S. W. Ryanzanskaya. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 20
1970). pp. 195-6. Ibid., p. 197.
21 Guy Debord. 71)t Sodtty of tbt Sptctllck. lrans. Dooald
Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books. 1995), p. J 59.
Dcnida. OiSStmi"fll;OIl. lrans. Barbara Johnson {Chicago: Chicago University Press. J 98' l. pp. 6 1 - 1 7 1 .
22 Jacques
2 3 Gilles DeleulC and Filix Guanari, A"ti-Ot"diplfI. lroms. Roben
Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: Universiry or Minnesota Press. 1 983). pp. 144-5. 24
�[AJ memory of words (pamirs) and no longer a memory of 132
Notes to pllges 34-4J
things. a memory of signs and no longer of cffects.� Allti OrdiprtJ, p. 144. 25 Scott Lash and Celia LuI)', Global Culmrr InduSfry (London:
Polity. 2007). 26 The reader may consult the repon of rhe International Tek-com m unicalion
Union:
hnp:llwww.ilU.inr/itunt'Ws/
managerldisplay.asp?lang=cn&ycar=2005&issue=09&ipagc =thing.,&cxt=html 27 Gr:lmm:nil:uion is the condition of possibiliry of what Guy Dl.'bord calls matcrialized ideology. Sec TIJI! S(lrirry of thr Spmlle/t. pp. 212-13. But Debord docs not think grllm matization itsdf. nor its phatma(()]ogic:ll charaCTer, and Ihis consritlJll.'S a block.1ge in his thought. 28 Micr,allrt tf disrridit 3. L rsprit prrdll dll CRpitn/islllr (Paris: Galilee, 2006). 29 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engd�,
Thr COt/lIIlIlI/ist MrmijtSfo.
trans. Samuel Moore (London: Penguin Uooks. 1 %7), p. 88. 30 fbid. 31 Jacques
R:mciere. tbr Nights of Labor: 71lr \\Vorkt7J' DrMm
ill l!Jth Crllrrtry Frnllu. trans. John Drury (Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1 989). 32 Hypolllllrllltltn are mnemo-rechniques, which is also
10
say
hypomnesic p/;tlrllltlkn, shown by Michel Foucault to plaY :1 decisive role in the formation of otirrlll and mOTe widely in rhe processes of sublimation thar he describes
as
�techojques of
the �elf." On thcse <jucstions. set' Mkritlllct I'l dimidil I.
1-11 dtflldmrr dn d,mom/tin indllstrit"rs (Paris: Galilee, 2004), p. 107 forthcoming in English !Tanslarion from Poli ty, a nd Sli egler and An Industrialis, R,mchnllttr It IIIII/ltlr: Ln ,'a/tllr rsprit (olltrr It populismt illf /mm'rl (P:lris: Flammarion, 2006) p. 3 1 forthcoming in English translation from Continuum. 33 Paul-Laurent Assou n , Lt Fhichisme (r�Tis; PUr. 2006).
133
NOTES TO PAGES
4 1 -4 6
34 Bakhtin's dialogical Ihcory is clOSC' 10 the Simondonian conupdon of linguislic individuation: no psycholinguistic individuation
can
take place. wilhoul aI.so consisting in
:a
socia-linguistic individuation.
35 MiaUna tt tlismdit /, p. 76 and p. 88, 36 One sJ'Ife:&ks of"dis«onomy� in orde.r to qualify the datruc
riVfe dynamic broughr :about by n�ative. externalities. rhal is. by �nvironmental disorde.rt wh� com a� 001 paid by e.conomic aCtort but .....hich m:ven:hdess fragiliu the gener:tl economy. 37 lhest: social ne.fWorks b.ued on the web
2.0 are produced by
social e.ngincering and by dc:vdopmems in what is called rhe. soci:al web, lh� most famous inu:lna of which is Faabook, which in Augwt 2008 passed 160 million members. lhe.rc arc. howc:ver, all sorlS of Olh�r dimensions to these digilal "relational I«hnologks." '{be second of the EnlmitM till
nouwllu mot"u indlUm'tl, organized by up Diplill, tht: &oIt
IUpiriturt tit rrtlltion intlustritllt, and the Pompidou O:mcr'J
Institllt tit rrrhtrrbt It tI';nnl1lMtion, will be on this subject. forthcoming from Mille el une nuits.
38 Scve.r:tI studies have highlighted
this, one in panic·
ular devoted 10 the �ffcru of television and DVD on children under Ihr� years of�I a study headed by Frcdttic Zimmerman and Dimitri ChriscOOs ar rhe Universiry of Washington. On this subject.
sec
Sriegler, TIlIt;"K (Art tlf
YtI.II,h Ilnti ,ht Grnmllions, 1r:IIU. Srcphrn Barker (SWlford: Sianford Univcrsiry Press, 2010). p. 56. To work I Maurizio W.urato shows very wdl how Ihis tli",imuion of
,lit ,Imt tlfltflflwlrJgt COnsrilUICS Ihe very heart of Iht' project
of a "governmellf of incqualick!; in which ncolibcnlism
134
Nota to p/Zgn 4�50
t'SSCnliaUy consius. and il docs so :H the' Vtry momt'nl wht'n idrology abounds which would havc us be:lievr Ihat Ihc very cognitiv(" capitalism responsiblc for prolt'l:l.rian i'l.ing Ihc Mknowt'f5� [MJddHtllnMJ. as Jean-Fran�is Lyotud
:m
caUt'd Ihe:m. could in F.ia be: m:l.de:
10
pass for
:II
�knowl
t"
Criri'lur d� f'imirurirl "ioliblra/� (Paris: Amncrdam. 2008). Mkrllmcr n diKrMit I. p. 120. j Maurizio Laz1..ar:nn. P,,;sulllrr dc li·ffIlOt'l1tioll. Ln PlJChDIq.. tir ktmomiqllr d� Gabrirl Tlml� collm J'mJllomir polilill'tr (Ilaris: Lcs Empechcurs dt lOurncr e:n rondo 2002) and u I: in 2002, COIIIJtmmrllf dn illigalitb. In Iht' analyst's propo.'Id LlI7.7.araco. who n..fe:f5 10 G abrid dt· Tardt, �i ngularly lltgk'CIS 2
tht question of hypomnesis without which such coopern lion would be im possible:, and, a10llg with hypomntsis ht' .
OVl.'rlook.� (he: rt'tl.'l1tional sysu�ms Ihal enabl� Ihe contrul
of this coopention.
as
well
as
the prolet".Irianizadon (If the
activity of brains thrmsdves, both on the sKic of production and on rnat ofconsumption. On Ihc orne:r hand. in 2008. he: desc::rioo the dfccts of Ihis prolt'larian ution and the SY5lem i
of!ht' management of inequalities wilh :I. view, not to coop crouion bc:twccn brains. but to compctirion bctwttn nervous
systems for :l.cem, not to work. but merdy to cmploymcnt. 4 Yano Moulier-Bout:l.ng, himself citing unar:lIo, sers Oil( hi, thcses in u Cnpitalilm� COfllitif LA 1/ouwlb f'alld�
tntllsfomliltioff (Paris: Anmcrdam. 2007). 5 Himant'n. 71K Harlter Ethir. 6 Wark. A Hark�r Mallifmo. 7 Moulle-r-Boutang, u Cnpitnliimr rog"itiJ pp. 199ft". 8 On this question sec Faurr. Giff..rd and Slic-gJer. PrJ/lr til jillir n�'« In mlrroiJJlmcr. 9 This diaJogism is less Ihal of dialccties \hlul the dialogism .
1 35
N O T E S TO I' A G E S $ 0 - 6 0
Sa- Ln Tllimui, 8ft"'''""tt, Ir mOlld,.
of Bakhtin.
romrr
III
dlmocrali,
and
10 -&OllomiJ" lipp' p""d" �i,,· ,·Economi%ing mt:ln5 ming cal"t�1 is the title of a scminar
I gave in the spring of
2008 at the CoIJ;g, IlIImlfllioliald, phillJloplJi, as a pm of [he theoretical acdvities ofAn; Induwialis. An audIo recording is available at www.an;indwtrialis.org 1 1 Corsani and u7.lar:uo, Immll;nmls tIprkaim. p. 1 2 1 . 1 2 Ibid. p. 1 2 1 .
1 3 Rlfkio. 7/), Elld o/ll1o,k. "Illiroduction.·
1-4 Jean-Marie Andre. L otiulI/
rIa/u fA vi, moralr " inttl/mH
al/, roma;II' ti" oriKiliN n l'Ipoqu, augullft",,, (Paris: ]IUF. 1%5). p. m. I S In Mkrillllrt rt diuridif I I argue that the noetic soul passes
into the nocfic act only ilifermirtelllly. and therefore lives a.�
bri"K-D'Il]-in·;/Itrmlitttllrt. 16 Corsani and Lauar.no. IlIIrrmittrllS l tt p,«aim, p. 122. 17 Lazzar.uo. Lr Goullmt,mrllt d,s illrgalirts. p. 43.
18 Michd Roc:ud. -Prefacc" fO Rifkin. LA Fin tiu trnlltlil.
1 9 On these concepts. sec LA
Tilim1fi, om," In dlmomuit.
20 These [WO ecollomic and historical rca.lities a� very diR'erelif. even though I...au.aratO often conA:m:s them (see especially, pp. 42-7). as many do ((xfay. Fordism has nothing 10 do with reg ulation or redistribution. and il proposed no ·social ptopeny·: it functiomdly intcgr.ul:S produclion and consummation and thereby inveills consumerism. Ke}'nesi�nism, on the other hand. represents a compromi� bctwecn capital and labor. Thai these twO na05formalions of the r�bfion bcfwC'en capi[:ll and labor can be romhlned is clear enough. bur from thaf if docs not follow thai Ihey ,hould Ix: conRated: on the COIIII".U'y. it is nettUal')' to distinguish them in order to understand how they can be combined and. finally. how fhey can decompose.
136
Notts to pltg�J 61-67 21 The denial of Ihe epim:mologial scope: of psychoanalysis by Sovici p�ychology and. morc broadly. by Sralini�t Marxists throughout the: world. is intrinsically tied to this question. This is Ihe: contC!XI in which a
rc::lder
of i.A NouwJk Crit;q"�,
in Apri l 1968. asks the edilors: �Would il be: possible for LH Nou,:rtJr C,;tiqllr 10 stage a debate beTWeen Marxists and ps)'choanaIYS[5�
I. . . 1 Young communisl psychi:l.trim an nm
undCTStand the: posifions of ,heir Sovi('( comrades who 101:llIy
conde:mn Ihis intpormOi a�JX'C1 ofp§),chlany. A MarxiSi analy
sis of this situ:uiun i5 lackingK (Ut NOlI/lI'lIr Cririqur, no. 13).
22 [ have: an:lIy...oo this demotivalion in Comlitu" J'Eliropr 1. U ffloti/mropit" (Paris: Galilee. 2(05). pp. 29fT. 23 lhc: analysis of Lazur:uo i5 here: singularly clear. 5CC in panicular pp. 30-1 ofLr COIfIH!nlrmmt tin inrgalith. 24 GUSiave: Flaubcn, I. '[tlllrari/lll srllli",m""�. 2S Roland Banhc:s. KMwia Practica,w in JlllaK'. Mllsk. Trxi (London: Fontana, 19n), p. 149. 26 Sec: Ik Lt midrt symboliqut 1. Ln (((faltropht dlf �lIsiblr (Paris: Galilee. 2005). p. 26. 27 Sc:c: Tafting Cart o/Youth and t)� GnlfflltifJnS. 28 J(an-Claude: Milner. Lr SaLtirt dr tWill LH thiD,;t tin rLtlm tt til' '" C'/Iltrlrt nI' XXiimt sitru (Paris: Lt: Seuil, 1997). 29 Mkrio"ct tl tliJ
10
gauge Ihe conscque:ncc:s of
changes in i[5 re:re:mional materiality.
at
for cx:ample when
Ihe: me:raI coins fin[ imroducc:d by the Lydians
are
C'\'e:nlU
ally replaced by John Law's paper mon()" and n i rurn by the: Fre:nch Re:volution's assig1lnrs. This is onc of the: impom.rn
stakes ofJean Michel Rey's Lt Ttmps dll rridit (Paris: Ocscl&
de Brouwer, 2002).
31 On this question. s« J(an-Fran\{lis Lyolard. 1M 1,,)Jllmlln: 1 37
NOTES TO .. ... CES
67-8 J
R1kcr;fms tI" Tintr. tl'llns. GroffTt1, Bennington :and R.:.chd Bowlby (Cambridge: Polity, 1991).
32 Hcre a n�w rC:lding of Lymard's nJ( POltmodtm COllditio"
would be usd'ul: trans. Grofflknnington and Brian Mmuml (Manchestcr. Manchestcr Univcrsil)' Press:. 1 992).
Pharmacology of Capital and Economy of Contribution Jean-Fram;oil Lymard. LibidillflJ £rollolllJ (Bloomingmn and Indianapolis: Indiana Unin:niry Pres.s, 1993). 2 Ars Induslrialis. an imcrn:uional usoci:arion for an indUSlri:a1 polltia of I«.hnologic� of spiril: hnp:llwww.af.lindusrrialls.
"'& :3 This confcrcnce is ueee.uible
:u:
hnp:llwww.:usindumi:alis.
orglpour-une-�cunom ic-dc-la-u)nrribul ion-]
4 S« pp. 66 and 84. 5 In the sen.sc in which I take this term, 5« p. 29ff. 6 The tc:ndency officlilious capital is always 10 reduce the rules to a minimum, if not 10 diminatc them :llmgcther. in order, as
frequently :u possible,
m
unleash power.
7 Stt p . 4 1 . 8 I first approacbcd this theme of";,,(1Irit, i n the fif'lt instance by citing Jacques �nigne Bossuel, in Mlnlallu rt disatJiI I. I..Jt dirlldmu dn dhn(Krlltin ;,ItIUltrltlin (Puis: Galiltt, 20(4), p. 15. forthcoming in Engli�h lransl:ation from Poli()' Press. ProUSt ::Itso made u�e of this word in his work, Slir 1(/ l«tutr (P:aris: Acte Sud, 1988), p. 34. I mU51 thank Alain �
GiRard for Ihi5 rcrercnce.
9 lllis W3.!l t'Xprc:S5«1 cJt'arly by Paul Mazur. a busint'.S5 pUlnt'r or Edward Bcmays, citro by Al Gort' in 7"t AssAult 011 &aJlm 138
Nola 10 paga 83-85
(New York: Penguin, 2007), p. 94. Mazur dedued: �We must shift America from a necru P«lplc:
rmU[
be: Irain(od
10
desire:.
10
dnire culmrc:. I. . ./
10 WlIlH
new Ihings. even
bc:forc: the old have been entirely consumed.
�
10 Thllt is, of rupture: with wh:u AI Go� dC'5Cribed
as
alraen·
menl in referring 10 tile Iheory ofJohn Bowlby. � AI Gore.
71lt AlsRu/t till RrllJ(JlI.
1 1 Bolt:lnski and Chiapdlo an:d)7:e: Ihe con5Cquences this Rex ibililY hu for conlug�l life. 1 2 I have Hied
to
�how how Ihis dt'$ttuctiun occurs in Tn1'i1lS
CArr of Ytllllh III/d tllr Gl'llrratiolli. (mns. SII�phen Barker (Stanford: Sian ford Unh'ersiry I'ress. 2010). 13 On this subject.
5C'C:
Frederick J. Zimmermann. Dimitri A.
Christakis :lnd Andrew N. Mchwlr, �Tdt'Vi�ion and DVDI
Video Viewing in Children Younger 'Jhan 2 Years," Archil/d
tlfPrJlntria alld AdO/Mum Mrtliri1lr 161 (2007), pp. 473-9: and Dimitri A. Christakis. frederick
J.
Zimmerman CI
aI �E:uly Television Exposure and Subsequent A[[enriona/ Problems in Children,� Pnlrinlria 1 13 (2004), pp. 708-13. 14 Sec pp. 37. 48/1'. and 59. 1 5 Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello. 711t Nrw Spirit tlf .•
Cnpitdlism. tnms. Gregory E1lioll (New York and London: Verso. 2005). p. 10. [ have tried to show in M«ritlllrt tl
JiKrif/it 3. L 'hpritpmlu du ettpitlllil1nt (Paris: Galil�. 2006) why Bolranski and Chiapello Iilil co grasp desire a5 such an economy. and why Ihe:y at the same lime f.Li1
(0
describe the
consumerisl libidinal economy and Ihe imJmSCS
10
which it
[cads. In particular, they fail to analyr.c Ihe: effecu or the Hq. uidation of the: appar:lIus of production of libidinal energy, and nlore gCIlC:r:llly of tile psychic appar.uus in its links 10 Ihc: social and symbolic appar:lIUS, hence their description of thl:" Rcxibiliry or affcctive rdalions lacks consequence.
139
N O T E S TO P A G E S
16
8 6 - 1 08
h is because the IIbidin:tI economy is prolcntional and becau� capilal is an organiution of the production of pro
lemions thai capitalisnl is :an cpoch of libidinal economy. 1 7 Max Weber. 71J� Protnrllnt £llJir al/(II/� Spirit a/Capila/illll (London: Unwin, 1930). p. 7 1 . 18 This is wh:u Philippe Bir.lud and Fr.lnck Cormcr.lis II)' to think undcr thc mmlC. �10rirt(// /Ifl/I/C:� I�VlIleur socitlalc"l, 10 which Cormct3is joint Ihe queslion oflorina/ imlomtioll.
lll rt diJ(ridit I. pp. 1 9 lhis poim is dc\'c!0IX'tI furthcr in MlrrilU 95-107and 120-4. 20 The wave of suicidc commilted by cmpto)'t'O of Fromcc HJ&Um is thc tt3gie reality of the joim destruction of the appanllus of innovation and production. as well as of psychic individuals. without whom thcre is nothing. 2 1 BcrtnUid Gille. Hino;" tin urlm;tJlln (Paris: Gallimard. 1978). p. 77: "II is no lunger a matter of undergoing
unccmin lechnological progrcs5 in irs realiulions, (. . .1
of
accepting willy-nilly what occurs in the u"chnial domain and of effecting after a fashion tbe necessary adap[lIrions. In
all domains, In Ihe: economic as well as Ibe military domain, me nnurr must be organized. H
22 The tr.lnsductive rdation is a cancep! dabonucd by Gilbert Simondon. In a tt3nsductivc rebrion, the terms of the: rela tion are ronstitU[ed through the relation. :and do not prt'Ccd� the rdation. 23 5« p. 140. 24 Sec p. 37. 25 On MmkrtJissalfCf,"
sec
B�rnard Stiegler, POllr
Christian Fault, Alain Giffard and til
fillir
nUff
1t, mkrtJislllllu (Puis:
Flammarion. 2(09), pp. 20-1. 26 On Ihis subj�t.
dt
1I0lWtl/rs 140
sec
the Al'5 I ndumialis seminar, " TrolllJf'r hllp;lIwww.arsindwtrialis.orgl
,mllrs�:
Nom to paga
108-117
le-stminairC'-trouver-de-nouvdles-armes-colltt;e-internatlo nal-de-philosoph ic
27 Sec p. 37 and Bernard Stiegler and Ars InduSlfi:IIi�. RimdHlmt, II' /1/01111:1' In mltll' npn', (/Jlllrt II' populilllll' il/d,mritl (Paris: Flammarion. 2(06), pp. 49-55 forthcom ing in English translation from Continuum.
28 5« Andti l.cmi-Gourhan. Militll rt udmiqun (Paris: Albin Michel, 1�45). 29 Sec Jacquo: Derrida. ·Diffcranc(.� MII'Silll of 1'/}i/olOpb,
(Chicagu: Universiry ufChicago. 11)72). 30 l..croi-Gouman. Militll l't tuhl/iqun. p. 334.
31 These icndencieJ :ue Ihc rauh of IhC' play of twO forcC's: physical fotcC$ and biological foretS. On Ihis subjca.
itt
Slicglcr. TrclJllirr III/d Tilllr. J: 111t FIIIII, ofEpimrthrlll. trans.
Gcorge Cullins and Richard BC".Ird,wurth (Slanforo: Sianfi,rd I 99tl). lhtse lendencies arc exprcss('d
Univcrsity Press.
across all human groups and in Ihis sense Ih('}, atC univcB;lI. All groups harbor them. but ach group concrclius them in (hdr own way. specifically. that is. by individu.ating rhem in a specific way. and by individuating thcmselvC'S through Ih('m.
32 This economy must � introducai bcau�, befurc an)' other reason, the model of centralized networks--of telecom municuion Ihrough the u�lephonic eemer. of distribution of energy through the da:tricity cemer, of produClion and disrribution rhrough buying cemrc::s according
10
the modd
of con5ump!ion-has been reconfigured and has given way to comributive networks. in very many domains. :lnJ for rt'aSlms of pure rationality. As far as the econolllY of energ), is COnCefl1l-d. for ex:tmple. ecntralist models have b...'("ome unsUSfainable: encrgy cconomics :Ire no..... becoming bidi rcctiollal ne"vorks. jusl as Jeremy RifKin pr(:dicll:d. as the
141
N O T E S TO I' A G E S
1 2 4- 1 2 8
contributive: production of encrgy begins [0 be inrroduccd., making possible new infl'1lStructul'd-logical rcrlcularcd-infr.utruc[uTCli Ihal
(;riM.
art'
as
well
:IS
somelimes call� Jmlm
33 lhis nolion of Mm::ln::lgeri::lJ oog.m::lrismM com" from Pierrc
�cndrc. in l)ominium Muntli, L �mpirt till Itllflm lllgmlr
(Paris: Millc CI unc nuiu, 2007).
34 A mC{::Ismblc '}'Stcm is a dyn�mic system at thc limit of tGullibrium ::Ind disequilibrium. and GUben Simondon shows th::lt
:II
process of lndh'iduation constitutes a dynamic
system rcgulat«l through such a metastability. See Gilbcn
Shnondnn. L 111t1itlitllltuiDII prydJiql1r if cD//«tilli (paris: Aubier, 2007), forthcoming in English tran51ation from University of MinnOOf;! PreM"o
35 Set' p. 45. 36 Sec Gilbcrt Simoudnn.
011 motif ,/rxiUrII(t tin objru
t«/)
niqlltf (P:l.ris: Aubler, 1989). pp. 20-3, (o"heoming in English tr.lllSl;!!ion from Uni\'Crsiry of Minncsot;! Prm.
37 We worked then with Alain GifF.ard and for thC' devdopmeOl a.ssocialion of Ihe Bibliolheque NationalC' de Francc, with a vicw to dC'\'doping Mpom for rt'ading misted by computer.W
142
I N DEX
abstraction 2 1 . 48, 50 iMLptalion
or adoption 82, 100, 103
emrop!c 46-7, 1 1 6-17 Adorno, ThtiKior %
AS&�ri, Franck 1 6
Aigrln, PhilipIX' 128
Ailt�gol\, Jean-J:acqua 20
Sakhtin. Mikhail 4 1 Ibnhcs. Rol.tnd erilintl EmtJl l 5 "Musica rr:lctlC'�' 64 Bmlll�. GeorgC5 5�. 95 bc<:oming control by IIt)"Chopowcr 125-6 llS runcrional
irmF�lion 127-9
ahunmiva; 120-3, 123
as indivldualion 104-8
"",mll/tljl 29, 4 1 , <13
Indum}' and hs ImcrirtlUI1 In
Andre, Jt2n-Maric 53
antici�tion Sptcms 78-81,
84-6. 91, 93-6, 107, 1 16, 124
13,31 Icchnic.tl 82--4. 124-5 Belgium 57-8 beliefs, change in 67-8
AriSlolle 6
be:ndiu: 20-1. 22, 52. 56, 86
ArllOYld, AmbroiK Marie 1 5
Benjamin. Waltu 33
anisfic profl'$.'lions 51-6, 69 auoclattd milieus <18-50, 51, 65-6, 69-70, 108, 1 17, 1 27-9 anemion, ch�nnding of68-9, 82-' Aubrry, M3nine 20 audiol'i'ual pc-rceplion, gnmmaliulion of I I Au!tin.J.L67 aUlomaln! language pl1)Caling 33 automation 10, 20, 24, 34. 45
Berpon, Henri 1 09
BerlUKOni. Sill·;o 123 Bernard. Claude 10') Bernays. Edward 28 BerN, Gido 1 5 biou:dtnoJogks 31 bodies.
nOf
..ou4 10. 33. 105
Boltanliki, Luc, 71w NtUI Spirit !if
Glpil"lum 85. 126
bourgeoi!ie
dillappear:ance of the 13. 62-6 JOeial project 68
143
I N DEX
m3themaliul;on 0(87-9. 90
BrWDn \'('oocis 3"rttm�nI 97
in pha(m�colog)' of c�pit:l.l
C'Jlcul�bilhy 46. 5 I . 54. 67-8. 82.
79-8 1 . 125-6 �ymmic 92-3. 102-'1. 107_11
93, 125
u.slel. Raben 55
cells. clhni.' 1 1 4-17
('::IpitOiI liclilious n. 78. 79-81 . 84-6, 87-9.90-1. ')3, 96. 10j-4. 107. 120. llJ
frC(' 7'.), 80. 84
Chiar.dlo. Eve, 1IN Nrw Spirit I}/
Crtpimlism 85. 126 Chil':lc. Jacques 20 co-Individuation 100. 106-7.
ph�mucology or71-129 C'Jpitlllisrn Am('rican 28. 117-9. 9S-G �rch�ic $rngc or39 bmlrning-malia or 13. 60--6. 92-3
"cognilll'l.- and cullUrJIW 33. <"-7 communi�m "(rSm 60-1 crub or3-7. 61--6. 69. 74
drivc-based 58-9. 62-6. 97 indwni.tl 2J--8
internalizing 126 Marx .1Ind Engds on 24-5
muralion nfglobal and thc n i dumial �)"'tcm 7
nqplive dynamic in 75--6. 84--6. 89-9 1
as prOlenl;O" produclion splcrn 66--70
I'C:licul.1ltnl47-50
1 1 1- 1 2 comnH:nsurnbilitil'S 43
C011lm�1'C('
cornp.1lw with nlarkcl J-i-16, 43. 61-{). 125-6 dialogiol 41-2
and cmrn.1llirl..-s 13, 54--6
new 15-16. 19.45-50. 1 2 1 comrnodificution 38-9 cummunbnl GO
CI}/lmllmist MllllifmD (Marx alld Engels) I I competition 62
w,OIU('I'\':II;\,e re>-ohl1;on" 24-5. 62,73. %-8, 101
consistences 10>-8. J 20. 12] consumer
prolctarlanized 25. 27-8. 35, ,.....
prntcllliOrls of the 68-9. 84-6 cOll'itJlllcrism 16, 23-8. 6J--6. 7 1 .
sharehulder 88---9. 92-3_ 103-4
87-9, 9 1-3. 107-8. 1 1 5.
om
ofthr sdCS4 $)'5lenl or44, 50. 70, 86. 108. 120. 1 1 1 . 1 26
('::Il1,'icsn s cu
economy of 1 25-6, 129
144
125--6 end or4-7, 22-3. 5}--6. 69, 10' conSlLlllption ;IS
Ih(' dt:Sltucdon ofI
lude.\·
gr.lmnmiz:uion or 1 1
and iLl rdation
10
desire 12.
41-4.65. 82-4, 1 2 1 . 125
deregulation 1 0 1 . 103. 107
Derrida.Jacquo dijpTiltlrt 1 I 1
mass 88
O/Grnmnsalo!1J1J 29
:u
�Plato'S
a pJlllnltnkQl/ 83--4
relations wiJh produclion 4.
23-8. 50. 90-1
sti mul us policy 3-5
contempor:meiry
gcner:lIional tirne or 58 rl"rri!Orj�1 spact" 58
y or 2 J ,
cont ribu tion . t'Conom
48-50. 65-6. (,9-70.
71-129. lOS. 1 1 3-17. 1 2 1 . 127-9
con/rot �(>ciClic� 30-1. 34, 46. 62. 6ij-9, 82-4. 88-9, 1 0 1 Cur'Sani, Amondla 2 1 . 22, 51-2,
crrolt 67. 80. 94. 106 critique 8. 1 1
dcomsffiJcrion as 1 5 K2nli:lJ1 1 9
economy 40-4
�nd metaphysics 1 5 n� or palirla! economy
1 4--1 5, 16--19. 36. 40--4.70 cul ture indumioo; 4. 3 1 . 53-6,
58-60 . 96 Curlis.
Adam.
7111' C""wry of
Stlf28 cynicism 63
Debord. Guy 27
deconSTnlcrlon IS, 29. 36
DcJcUlC, GUles. /imi·Ordiplil 32-3
inliniriuuion or43. 82-4. 86. 93-6. 106-8 rdmion
10 consum ption
12,
·11-4, 65, 82-4. 1 2 1 . 125 dCS(llid�riutiol1. and negativc
cxternallties 57-60 d('sublimation 40. 42. 59. 62-3 diachroniurion 1 1 11. 1 1 9-20 dblogistl'l (Ihkhtin) 4 1 dijJhnllrt 1 1 1
digital networks 24 mncsic powt"r of3U. 1 22,
54.56 �rcalivilY 46--7, 51-6
orlibidinal
Pharrnacyw 29. 36
desire
128-9 digital !('tieulalion 47-50. 1 14.
117 digitali7,;ition 20. 21 dis.;adll.l$!mcill 1 1 3-15 disc!('tiution JI)-II. 31-2
diseconomr 62, 73--4 discnehantm('nt 59-60. 62-3.
67-S. 94-6
disequil ibriu m 104
disindividuation 31, 37-S. 41-4.
62 disinvtstm�nt 4-6. 79-B 1 . 116.
89 dispmabilil}' 30. H3. 86 dissociation 37-8, 49-50. 58-60. 84. 107. 1 1 5-16 communist 60-1 Donin. Nico la! 65
145
I NDEX
drivC':$ 40. 59-GO. 86. 121 eonsumpliou �ud material
of 12. 82-4. 8S-9, 95-6.
aledor milieu 112, 1 1 4
124-7
ClIterM:iri7.<1lion 9, 27, 126
economic crisis (2008) 3-7. 22-3. "
elCcessivellcss 93-6 existence 1 2 1 . 124
74. n-9. 92-3. 102. 124 e�ouornic tv()lulion� (Schump<:tN) 83. 87
a:onomic S)'Stc:m 3nd p-\ychic S)'!1c:m 122 3ud social syttems 81--4.
of memory and knowledSI' as 10$' 29-31 , 33-5 ClIltmalitie; nq;ative 49, 57-60, 62. 92-3 po,]dvc pharma(ulugic:l.l 49-50 . 5 1-6. 129 and Ir"I1sindi\'idu�tion 13. 49-50
\06-8, 1 1 6-17. 1 2'" 3nd ta:hnical syitl:rn H2-4, 96-8, 102-4. 1 1 9-22 l'COnomics. aud philosophy 16-20 econllmiun 17-18 l"collomy or contrihutlon Itt
1':I.\"'rtau. Olivier 1 6 fin�nci�1i1.:nion 83. 97. 106-8. 1 16 finitiution "'2. H6. 95-6. 106-8 Fbu\xrt, Gu.mlye 63 flexibility 8}-4
ronuibulM:ill. economy of
Fordism 23-4. GO. to-a
prolenliOlu, economy of
Fren(h government
economy of prolc:mions," rouc:nional system 96
c:lev:ltion 120-3 employmcut, and time qUC':$tion 51-" Enauda.u. Corine 74
c:nergy, libidinal IN libidin31 energy
Engels Fri�rieh 24-5. 28 .
umllll"';s, Mllllifrs,o 1 1 . 38
cntreprent'ur 87
Founult. Mkhd 29, 54
emplo)'mem policy 20-1
'!.fld inlrrmirunrs all ,ptttdd� 51-" invcstment policy 4-5 Freud. Sigmund 28, 4 1 , 74, 76. 88.94.99 Fritdm�n. Milton 22 functional imegnuion 127-8 rUlUrt possibilili(':f 6-7, 84-6. 107. 124
tnltllpic ad3pt3tion "'6-7, 1 16-17 environment31 de;tructlon 49-50, 57. 92-3. 102 c:thnic group, intc:rior milic:u of 109- 1 1 . 1 1 3 - 1 4
146
Gaullism 99 generatIons. tr.ltlSindividu�tion or58-9 gcslUrc: di5('rt'til.:uion or 10, 33. 35
Imux Gillr. Brnrand 98. 99. 100. 1 10. 1 13-15 glob31i7.:uion 97-8. J 16
HUSKri. F..umunU 8
God. [he d�th of94
Gon:. Andre, MiuIII'''rphosn au II"ItlNlil 20 gO\'�rnmentaJ power.
m:w
'l/1bris 1 1 5 Hum/mili. L ' 1 4
form of
5 1 , 97-8. 101 gr;lm"'�tiz:lIion 10-1 1 . 33-'1. 36. 1 14 as coopera[Ion bc\wun b/""Jiru
hypcrindllSlrial em 30-1. 33-5. 1 14-15
hypl'rmau:rial 24 iJYPO"W(IIIIUIl 29. 3-1-5. 41-4. 45.54 hypomnesic mllkus 30-1
"ypo"lIIniJ 29, 35. .J6
"
ident!fiutlon. primary 58-9.
13. 30-5
ideulogy S. 19-20. 123
induslrl.11iution :ll a proctsS of Ilmr:nion of48-50 new forms of 1 1-13, 39. 54..(,.
8}-4 im�gil1nry. [he 12 indIviduation -17. 9'.1-100.
1 19-20 as
phum:t<:ologiOlI 42-4. 70,
12.
:uwcialed milit:u.� of 48-50. 1 17
1 1 9-20 tnn5form, fetishism 4 1 which short-circuits
psychic and colk'Ctivc 44. 48-50, 54--6. 59-60. 61.
tnnsindividu�don 3S-9
99-100. 102. 1 ()4...,..8
grnmlllt1 (retl'ntional gl"lliru) 1 0 GIl':lt Britain 73. 97. 99. 1 0 1 . 123 Clffnspan, Abn 47 Crogman. i!veiyne 3, 16 Guamri. Felix. Ami.OtdipUJ 32-3
1 1 1-12. 1 1 5 . 1 1 8. 123 of rc:ference 57-8 !«hnial44. 1 16-17
individuaI;on (cOni.) Jrr
Ills" co-individuation;
disindividuallon;
Innsinaividualion inausuial economy
Mhacker e[hies" 22. 48
and human bcroming 1 3 . 3 1
H:l.tchud, Armand lG
noopolilical of memory 3 1
hirr.ltchicll societi« I I3-15 Himanen. Pclli 22. 48 Hirschman. Alben 85 hominiution 8-9 Mhomo economicw- 1 7 Horkheimff. Mu 96
rc:in"ention 108 indumial modd collapS!: of obsolett 4. 22-3. 49. 5 5 . 87 consurnerul JrrCOnslImeriSni indumbl polili(".5, ntw 7, 1 0 1
147
I N DEX
n i dusuial mlolulion 10, Ij,
Iho:rary hypomn()K 30
infanillc 'rn�ploscnCli) 44, 83
prolcr:lli:mil.alion as loss of
�lic H ... 6
32-3, 67, 98, 1 14, l i S, 127
infinitiulion ofd(:)irr 43, 82-4, 86.93-6, 106-8 innovallon prm1:1ntnl l i S JOdaIiulion 0(82
and ,p«.\II�tion 8 1-4, 90, 92-3. 102
37-9, 40--4, 4S-50. 56, 60,69 and tc1cntion;tl time 69
Iho:or�k:aI 30. 46
IN
TrrlJlliqlll' rtk rnnp1
LA
(Stiegler) II
in.idcr I!'ltding 93 irulitUliuns 108 hUcthca 128-9
I�bof
dcf;nidon of and thc question ufpruduclion 1 2
inltrlurillilicu 109- 1 1 , 1 13-15. 1 1 6-17, J26 intcriorirndon 18-1\1, 126 InlcrrncJlarinn 62 ill1o:rmil1o:ncc S 1-6, 57, 69 inu�rnalional law 1 14 o i \'Otmo:nl :IS
anddp:uion 78-81
desrNCtion ofS-7, 59, 69. n. 107, 116, 124
new t}·PC oftcQnomic 6-7, 66,
mUiation of I'), 18
oycrdetcrmined hy the
sod:al ilfld polhk:al 6-7
stimulus politICS 3--6
ml� (If
gralllmululion 1 2
al> vari:ablc
�-:tpital 45
l�bor po....cr . 38-9. 40
without knowted� 43, 46
la"£� :lnamnesic knowledge 000 aUfODUfo:cl proca.sing 33 discrctization of Row of 1 0-11.
1 1 7, 122
profil as rClum on 76-7
1l1s61111'Gir·fo;rr. S/1/I0iNIfI!Tt'
31-3 and j»)'Chosocial indi\'idWition 17-8
Ush. Scon 34 bw
Jospin. Uond 20
and prolt'llIioru 69-70 on "..,.k . ing Wttk 10. 22. 51
Kant. Immanuel, Criliqu(#/I'U"
Lu.ur:1I0, MauriJ.io 21-2, 47,
Ko:ynaianism 60, 95, 97, 99
Lcroi-Gourlun. Andri 9, 109,
RtIlS#II 8
knowledgc C'lffcriorir.:uion :lS 11m 0(29-30, "
5 1 -2. 54, 55.56
1 1 0. 1 12, 1 13. 124-5
libidinal o:conolll)' 2S. 27, S 1-6. 6 1 , 83--9. 93--6, 108. 1 1 8
infornmifll\ wilhoUi 129
148
critiquc of 40--4. 73--4
Indo<
libidinal enel'S), 25. 40. 46. 59. 61. 68-9. 82-4. 85-6. 88--9. 90. 92. 102. 1 16-17 nc:w �pp�r.mHes for production
tendcnq of talC of prufil
10
flll
23-8.75. 76-7.89
�hn:ism 17. 40. 60. 75 maM m�ia 96-7. 101
life force. Ihc:ory of 109
Meadows tepa" 92 Mkmm(f l'1 dimMil (Stiegler) 53
limit. p:w:ages to the 59-60.
Mnb. Dominique 20
75-6. %. 1 16-17. 121 logle 10.76
M�ef62
of%. 108. 122
of the tf:l� 19 ItIgOf 10. 32. 46 tury. Cdil 34 Lymaru. Je�n-F"'ln�ois. 7hr l'IIT1/lIod,m Omilit;,w 7 1 . 73-4
mcmlmulc 109 memo'}' C'X\crioriution of as loIS of 29-3 1 . 3J-5 hypomneslc �nd anan1rleJic len5ion j ] , 79 inlcrgcner.lliol'lul )Uppor, nf 9-11
machine-tools 34. .17. 1 1 9 m�thlnn: 19. 30.33.35.37. 66. 1 1 4 . 127
Maduff. l1emard 47. 78-9
mafi�. npitaliH 60-6. '12-3
Marc:usc:. Hcrtxn 40
market economy 5ff capitalism marke! offools 43. 47 matkcring 60-1. 62. 82-4. 88-9. 90-1. 95-6. 98. 1 0 1 . 103. 124 !echnini SYStcntS ;md social sptenu 99-101
living nppu� to dead Z'J-JO. 36
:IS
mat�riaJ culmr!.· 9-1 1
memory (tont.)
noopolidcaJ indumill cconomy of31 lec:hnin i j l , 35
S« IIIsII mllmuurr:/",in mc:t:l.physics and ultique 1 5 d«OIutruaion of29 nlC1Utabi1i;r;t;o ion 1 1 8-20. 121 middle d� 63-4
Man:. Karl 12. 28. 33. 35-6. 88 Cnp"'1I1 26. 39. 75
S« RIAl bourgeoisie:: petty
Qmlll/l1l/isr Mlmifol(J I I . 38.
Milner. Jcan.CI�ude 65. 69
"
untriblllill" til II Nn;., eri/i'l'll' IIj'Poliriral &1/I111I11J 14. 23. 26-7.39 Grrnlllll UMIIIKJ 30-1 Grlllld,inr 39
bourgc:oi�ic: mind
rffect$ of nl�chineJ on J4 and hypomnesic lind anamnt'llic lension 3 1 . 79 prolel�rjaniutiol'l uf the life of Ihe 2 1
149
I N D EX
1TUlm101«hnia 8-1 1, 21)..) 1, "
modem :1.II 63 Monlchrenim, Antoine: de I S money 66, 80 "funny" 87-9 mOliv.uion 60-1. 69-70, 85-6, 9 1 , 9� eoliapit' of 104-8 Moulief"80ul�ng, Y�nn 2 1 , 47, 49-S0
PoUKI. ReM S�. 9l �upcriulion 88
confuKd wilh
proktvi;rniz:uion 60-1
ofyoulh S9 pcrcq>lion. gramm�liulion o( )).42 pcrformalivi ry. Auslin'l theory 0(67 pcrmallC.'llI rt'YOlmion 66-70
pwy bourgeoisic 64-5 plurmxology
mmu..JiUlioll m�h:ll1i,mJ S I , 56
o(OlpitaI 71-129
C'lIIeriuri1..:11illn ttthniques 27.
29.70
UJnmt'chnologieil j I
pr"lelari�niudon �nd <10...1
ncg-.olium 53. 5<1. 121
ofIhe prolclariat 14-44
neg:lliYe In 22, S6
llq;emropy46. to
nervous J)'$tcm. prolcurimiz:llion oflhc45-S0
Nictuche. Friedrid! 32, 76. 9.c
o( u:chnical lcndcncies 109-13
pil/lrlllaim
(If ab511"aCiion 49-50 consumption u
digital 48
8}-.4
diHconomr of4<1, 79-81
llihilli;m 9�
economy of u Ihcrapculic
noopolhia 3 I, 50
auhe mish 41, 65
nOCticity 53-6. 64. 69-70, 120
N(}lIvdb Criti'1ur. U 14
43--4, 104 o( fiaitious Clpilal 77, 78. 79-81. 84-6, 87-9, 90-1.
Obam�, &ratk 4, 7 obsol�nce 30, 83. 9 1 , 92-3 orpnolog )1, 34-5. 36, 44. 105-8. 1 16-17 oftcndcndn 1 17-20. 121, 12>-6
93,96, 10}-4, 107. 108 hypomnesic 21. 29, 34-5. 41--4. S4. 120
in ft'ticubtcd Clpiplism <17-50
and lechnital sysu:m 105-8
orthographit coruciousnw 3O
phililf 6
OIium6H. 120, 121
philosophy
and poJilivc extcrnalhle11 53-6,
57,64.6S
1 50
conlcmpul':lry 16-20 French 14-15. 17-19
IlIdrx politia.1 struggle 36
and profit nlc 92. 97
vs.
lendentlal fall in the I':Ite of
tuk of no:\\' critique 8. I I sophistry 29. 36. 42
Pbto on .""lnlll'JiJ 29. 4 1 . <13 11h1ttirw 29-30, 35, 36 and the proletari�t 28-36 polldal c:wnomy ddlnnl I5.36 new tridqu� of 14-15, 16-19. 36.70 {eniary retention pcDpcctive 0-1 1 as a w:ly uf ol'};aniting tr.lJIsindil·iduation 6 1 p()lIda.I .�I'm� 58
1)OIl!lc�l will 6-7. 124
on investment 76-7
23--8. 59-60, 68. 75--129 profitability 4. 86 proletarianization cognitive and alf«'l;\'(, 30-1 ofthe consumcr 25. 27-8, J5. ,"-" ClIICnsioll of7<1. 103-4 ;lI
10M ofknuwlnlge 33. J7-9. 60,69
of middlc duscs by consumerism 63-5 of the nervous system 45-50 prol('t�rianj1.lltiOJ'
(rolll.)
ncw form of 1:3. 27-8 �nd ph�rm�oo]ogy �0-4
politics drive·b3sal63 andthc !aw 18-J9 poSf·nrucrnr.llism 14-15 po�tmodemil)' 73-4
P()ur mfinir IIV« fA m/rroWlll i ct
(SlitglerJ
;lI return
17,24
powerlmnm- 29
Pro«:S$CS, :lnd rolc of bbor 4>-6 production
of the psyche 43 tcrtiary retcmion as the condition of 1 1 . 2 1
pro]ct:;lriat
definition 40 as disindividualnl workers
37-8 the imponance today 13. 28. 3S
and Ihe definition ofbbor 1 2
pharm�cology of the 14-44
exclusion o fworkC"r from
I'bto and Ihc 28-36. 35
conditions 008 and the financial sub-splcm " gr.lmmatization of I I , 1 2 relations with coruumprion 4, 23--8, 50. 90-1 profe.�rs 65. 69 profit
durdhlliry and toxicity 77-9
m:ruitnl fWIll all dass<'S 39
propmy 2 1
new objects of publit: 5 1
SOci3J 55-6
pmftllllons 8. 66. 93-6. 106. 107. 123 <.'Conmnyof66-70. 78. 80-1. 84-6,87-9 ProuSt. M�rcd 71
151
INDEX
SIIllOiN'ill" 16. 27, .W. 33, 40,
"""',
prolC1�ri�nil'lIion or the 43 rdation 10 infinity 9S
pS)'Chil; :lppar:llu§C$ 99-100, 104--8, 1 1 G-17 �nd �onomk system 122
42. 103, 1 14. 1 2 1
$thumpcter. jOKph 83. 87. 90 ""lor. .social 56 scdcl1tariz:l.lion 9-10. 12. 1 1 5 �If
psychology 76
produttion by sdrJO-- I
psydlopowcr 46, 50,65,90-1.
I�hniqua or the (FouClull)
95-6.98, I 2S-G Randere, jal;que'l, 71J, Ni:/Ill of
LAbor 40
r:nio 46, 50
Rca];�n. RUllald 97, 1 0 1 , 12.3
rrgulalory s)'Slems 80, 96, 9'), 100
I"CSCarch, intlcpendenl of priwle inveSlmcnt 100
responsihility 59-60. 89. 97 infinite 9U! relallion primary 8-9 �ond�ry 9 tertial)' 8-1 1 . 2 1 . 70. lOG retemion�1 Konomy 8-1 1 . 66-70 reticulation, digit:;ll -47-50, 1 1-4. 1 17 rcvoludon 7, 49-50 permanent 66-70
Rifkin, jeremy 20. 2 1 . 24. 52, 56
RoclrI:!. Mkhtl 20, S6 Roo�dl. F.O. 95 !rn�nski�. Je�n.Mkhd 7 \ , 74 Sarkoty. Nicol� 63. 12J
$Ilwi"'/nirt 16. 27,30. 3.3.40. 42. 43. 1 1 4
152
54, 10}. 1 20 sensibility, mechanical lurn in 65
servke .-conomil'f. hypcrindu�trial }}-5. 1 14-15
shareholder man�J;emcnt 88-9, 92-3, 103-4
shoft-lermism 5-6, 57-60, 6S-\l. 81-4. 86, 88-9, 89-9 1 . 95-6. 102-3. 107, 124 Simondon. GUlle,t 37. 42. 46.
54-5. 93, �-IOO, 127-11
Smith, Adam 34
social c� 13, 39. 40, 60--6 wdaJ engineering 1 1 4
sodal n i justke, economic crisis -and 6
social netWOrking 44 social relations
functionaHution or 19, 67
liquidation or 57-60 SOI;i:d SYSlems
bccomin g of82-4. 105-6. 123
�nd lechniClI system 109-16. 12), 1 24, 127-9
t«hnicd i)'5!ent �nd markeling <)<)-101. 102-4 socimhel';lpy )6, 70 Wrt power 95
IJld�x
Spaggiari. Albert 79 speculation 6. 59--.60, 77. 78-81 . 84-6. 89. 92-6, 102. J07. 1 1 7, 1 2 2 and innovation 81-4 spirit (Weber185 Stalinism 60-- 1 state 97-8, 99-100, 123 Napoleonic 99 JU II/sQ wdfare st�te
tcndcncic� and count�r·tcndcnci
potentials 123
to carde�ness 79-8 1 tertiary rctcllIion 8--1 1 . 2 1 . 70. 106
�timuhlS piatls �7
as
sublim�tion 40--4. 6 1 . 65. 102.
prol<'t:tri3niz�tion 1 1 l'Yulution 0(9-1 1
1 07. 120, 122 �ynchronilatlon 1 18. I 19
the condition of
Thatcher, Margaret 73. 97. 99. l O t . 123
systemic Sfupidity 5. 47-50. 126
thmpeutiCS 36, 43-4. 50, 100-1, Tarlnrism 88 �technical ensembles" (Simnmlnn) 46 technical sysrem 1 1 0
and economic synem 82-4. 96-8. 102--4, 1 19-22 aod phnrmnlm 1 05-8 and social S)'5tems 109-16. 12,3, 125. 127-9
social systems and marketing 99- 1 0 1 . 102-4 cechnic:J tcndenda �nd economy ofconuibution 1 13-17, 1 18 pharmacology of 1 09-13 t�'ChniC5 8. 36 t!'dlnnlogy
mechnnkal 19. 30. 33 of the spirit 2 1 tcmporJliry new social 55-6. 93-6 Jrr lliso
timr
103--'1, 1 17, 1 19. 120. 126 "thingificatinn" 34. 38-9 dme and ctnpJoymem 51-6 (rtc 55-6 human 5ubordin:llN to commodity.time 27 imcrgencr:nion:l.! social 100 light. 24
of nClCtic in{ermillence 53-6 mcmional and protentional 69 short term versus Inng term 77. 124
spatialiution of conscioll.5 8-10,66 sp('cllblion rouilizcs 107 �s studious leisure 1fr otium usc or 52--6 1ft al!�
cotllempol'llneil),;
temporalit), tnt�limrianism. St;llinist 60-1
153
INDEX
loxidf)' pharmacologial 5. 49-50. 59. 84. 88-9. IO'J. 123. 125-6 ofprofil IT-9
I�( 21)
tr.uuJucli\� rcbtiolUhip }4-5. 100--1. 104-8. 1 17-20 lI�nsindh'iduation 1J. 27. 41�. 48-50. 93. 105-6. 1 18-19. 126 ofgen(r.tt!!lI\� 58-9
longdrcuhs of 50. 51�. 57. 9}-6. 101. 123 �hon-cltcuheJ .�5. 38-'). 44. 57-60. 60. 6 1 , 103. 107
tr.l!lsllional object 4 1 , 44 trun 67
truth uf an idel (i'1�101 43 mllh orbeing, th� 29
r�rnembrnl1c( uf
new colICC'JHion ofeconomic S1 l«hnological90 Vauanson, JacquC'$ d( 10 \'«Ioralisu 48, 49-50 \'ision 6-7 1O'lIgt'-carncn ofthe Idcal 65. 6.
Wark. Md«(nm 2 1 , 22, 48
Weber, Mall 85, 87. 9<1
wdfu( Slal( 95�, 97-8 wilt.. Ir.tnsformalion of 67. 9J..(" 1 16 work 2G-3. 45-70 definition of2!, 22-3. 55-6 the ·enJw of2� neg';lIin Iall
for fcmUncr:llion
of nun·waded 22 new pr.tctitef 22
a '}'IT'bolk milicu 37-8
TyDddlis. Dlnid 3
as
unconscious. Ih( 8. 12,28
linu: outs.idc of mlplormcnl 22. 54--6
UnMIt2G-1 uncmp�)'m<'m 2G-1. 52. 55-6
Unil� Statts 20. 28. 73. 87-9, 97. 101 u�nit.alion 1 14-15
writing as
di5cmiz:uion ofI� f{o... of sfXUh 31-2
:IS illusion
for manipulation of
minds 29
the plMnmI�" of79 youlh. paupcriulion of 59
154
