•

-Critique f ;: .f

Politi I

-

-

no my_

Bernard Stiegler

For a New Critique of Political Economy

BERNARD STIEGLER

translllttd by

Daniel Ross

polity

AN .,..t.It.hnl ... """', .... _wi/, «i,,,,... M 1"-., i*u ..... C fA,t;"", G..Ii!h. 100'1. t-., n-,* " "'-".,.I'IIfU1'tft .... 0 I"nut'! Soqln. !OlD. lhl. ".wI'" <dl.lun 0 1'0110,. rruo., .!Oln

O\no •• rufoIIi uu It � d� Mini,",," ID�. do b c..d.�,.......G.n,.., .... ;.,.,.,1 dw 11m: I'ublir.htd wl,h .1 .. , .. ioAn," "(,h< ':l'<'IJI'h M,n .... .,.v(CUltuI'<'-N .. Io ..... Ccno,., r". , ..... !'nl111 I' ...... Ii) HridfIr 5, ..... Coonbridp- CIIlIIJR. UK ""lh1"""-' nu /1,'.10, S, ..... , M,Idm, Mil O!, �8, USA All ria'''' 1n<1_t. b«I" rlll ,M q .... ,.,lon nf """" � ro, .hol"""""'o( t,hld"" .lIIt "",kw. ,,0 p.m "(,hi> »UI>I'a,I, .. , ""1 lit. '.p'uJ...:to1. 'm.ro "" M.k\-.I 'Y"enl. <II' ,,.noll'lln..!.I,, .ny �"m Of by '"y .... .1m. tkaronlo. IIltdu.nlal. pholC.eopru.. -.!"'I 01' ad,m'.' ..;,hou, .... pri<N pt'nnl ....... .,( ,ho publ". ISBN-IJ: '178.o-7�5()...j8nH Ilwdl»dt) ISBN. I]: '78.o-7�5()...jJG.I·O ,,,,,prrback} II CI� m:cm.I � ,hlro '-" Il_lloblt ffWII.ho BrI,iJo Ubr>.t)'

Tl'J'C'<" in I lIN! IS pt �� br Sn.-b AI ....... " .. tal. s....:.p<Ift. a.aI.i .... r"n,td;uod hound Ito G,.. ... lIriwn loy MPG IbIbGIOIIp lld. Bodmin. c.or-.all

Tho: publilIhn hat w....! ... ..... mdea ...... ... o"""rr ,Iw ,hr URu rOf .", .. ruI .....t..i , .. .... .,m! ,0 Ito ,hi . .... UC'a>I ..... ..... ..:t;..,.II ,"" ,imo of ....... 10 pono. �, II .. pIIbIi'" hao lin �Ii.,. .... ,he wdool .... :ond eon -"c no punm<t" th&! • .I,. will .. "n.; .. I,..., 1>1' ,h., 1"'= Nnl<'l' 1'(>1 will rrmaln .ppooptll •••

ft.'nJ' cIIi>n hao ....... INdo tv ,r",o.1I ."""rlP" ho4dcn. bu, if...,. ha.� ....... • nod ..... m'/rOYUlookn! ,hr publiohn wlU hr pit-.! II) 1",,1...k ony nctawy .mli" In .ny.ub..t.:tUCft1 rtllri",,,. �,,;"n. Fo. funh .. lnr"""'tion On 1'011.,.. vi .. , 01" ... ..t..,,�: .. _.poIi'Y ......... ..,m

CONTENTS

For a New Critique of Political Economy 1

Heads buried in the sand: a warning 3 Incroduction 8 Pharmacology of the prolt!tariat 1 4

To work 45

Pharmacology of Capital and Economy of Concriburion

Nom IllIux

7 1

130

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 ohibi­tion 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 T yr.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 stimu­lus plans in order [0 limit (he destructive effects of the first planc:tary economic crisis of the:: capitaliSt indus­uial world. Now when, in such debates, "investment stimulus" and "consumption stimulus" arc: spoken of in opposing [enns, twO distinct qucsrions become con­fused, questions that, in fact. do require simultaneous treatment, yet according to twO different scales of time,

3

fOR 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 mas­sivdy 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 strufturally prtVt'f//S Ult T«omtitution of a kmg-tmn horizon. This "invest­ment" 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 ncuc­rure, 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 short­termism 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 of a 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 urgency which obviously

imposes the imperative 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 what prrciJt!/y this 1fIflflU;Oll consim. 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

<TWO

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 of aptritnn, 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 as

secondary retemion, that is. as all those memorial con­(ents [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 as world. And as 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 mne­motechnical 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-slICh � systems of writing and numeration. It is in thi� wir that .logos is constituted: 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 cOlll;nuozu chain kncbabu· mm:] of gestures, and the learning [apprmt iHagt'J of a 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 logos of the souL but rather the gestures of the body that become analytically rt'prodllcibit' as tertiary ret�ntion. This rero­dudbiliry 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.

1 0

Introduction

In the course of the nineteenth ce::nrury, technologies for grammati1.ing alldiolJiSllal Irruption appear, through which the:: Rows of the sensory organs are discre­rized. 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 of grammatization

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..a­tioni

• 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 of 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, and of what Marx was

unable to foresee, which 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 of illdustry 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 Comriblllioll to a N�UJ Cr;tiqll� of Political Eco1lomy, 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. in speaking today about a

new critiqui', 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 POSI-

14

Phl1.rmnco/.Qg of fh� 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 longrr folmd�d 011 tl sJlttm of oppositiolls.

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 com­m�rc� formulated by Arnould in 1791, in this work here iris a marter of a political economy w/Jich is I/O longtr

15

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 n�w critique of political economy-

1 6

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 NEW CRITIQUE

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-

1 8

Pbammcolog;y of the 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 [0 � called" ide­ology." This ideology is �ginning to reappear, this time aJ fuch: 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 1"0 a

mutation of /abor. (0 a functionaliz.ation of me processes of production and consumption. to a resultant function.

aliurion of focial rtlations, and such that they can no longer be envisaged without mechanical tcchnology­requires 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-and there arc a few-they are

19

FOR" NEW CRITIQUE

both inreresting and important. but they are in general

not philosophers: they 3re sociologists or economists. or

even computer sdendsrs.

7h� qu�stion of work

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 of th� 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 phnmldkoJl-and as an hypomncsic phar­

makon, that is, as a teclmology of tlu spirit which, as

tertiary retention, can JUSt as well lead to [he proletari­anization 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.

J 908-2008: the ,e.dential foil of the 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� of Political 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 til fillir 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, of tb� pro /�tarint

one calls the market economy. would r:l.pidly reach ill

limit as the role of labor-that is. variable capital­diminishes due £0 productivity gains achieved in the

global 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 unable 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:

Hunger is hunger; but the hunger rhat is satisfied by

cooked meat eaten with fork and knife differs from hunger

that devours raw mt;u I . . . J Production thus produces

26

PlJarmaco/lJi:f of IIJ� 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 (olUumptioll-which poses the question of whal I will describe in what follows as prousscs of "" IIsi lid; "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 of SIl/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 4 crtating availnblt labor forct. 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 lt11dt11lilll fatl ill

tiJt mit ofprofil. This is the very question posed by Guy Debord,

who extends the concept of prolet2rianizarion­as the expropriation of human rime submined to commodiry.time-to the figure of rhe consume-r.21

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 of til, 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 of lh� 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 metaphysics on Ihe basis of his reading of Pha�drus, by

showing how this dialoguc opposes philosophical allam­

ntsis (that is. rhe remembrance of the truth of being) to sophistic hJPo1J/ll�sis (rhal is. to mncmorechnics, and in particular t'O 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 impos­sible to oppose living memory to the tUad memory of

the hypomn�matoll, which the final Foucault will find 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 Pha�dl1/s, namely

mar the (XUriOriznl;OIt of IfItlllOry is a loss of lII�mory and ImolUltdg�, 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

!'OR A N E W CRITIQUE

our obso/ncmcr--ar the very moment when the extra­

ordinary ","�s;{, powt'rof digital 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): sauoir-foir�.

Jiluo;r-u;ur�. theoretical knowledge (.JIluo;r rhioriU'Ti. ill

Ib� nbsmct of which nil Jilvor is 10Sl. When o;urioriwtioll. which plays a major role in Tb�

Gmllllll Id�olbgy. and which is the roor 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 primitive terrilOrial machine codes flows. inn'sls

organs. and marks bodies. [ . . . J ITJhe man who enjoys

the full exercise of his rights and duties has his whole

body marked under a regime that consigns his organs and

their exercise 10 the collectivity [ . . . J. For it is a founding act-that the organs hc hewn into the socius. and that

the Rows mn OV(,T its surfitce--through which man ceases

to be a biologiC31 organism and hecomes a rull body. an

earth, to which his org.1ns become attached. where they

are attracted. repelled. miraculated. following me require­

ments of a socius. 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 collcctive [ ... J. uPcrbaps indeed

there was nOlhing more fearful and unC3nny in ,he whole

prehiStory of man 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 sphere of logos. with which it is placed by Deleuze

32

PlllfnllllCoioK'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 "prot/tit'­tioll-while 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 NEW 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 of tb� proluariat

If in toe hyperindusrrial era we rcopen the ques­tion po� in PIJfl�drus concerning the hypomnesic

object. and if we do so from the standpoint of this kind

of general organology (founding a political organoloD, an "onomie orgmtology, and an a(1/b�tic orgal/ology), we discover rhat [he Platonic question of hypomncsis constirute'S the First version of a thinking of proletariani­ution, 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

means 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 this produces short-circuits in the transindividuation process. Examining the question of technical memory today means investigating the Stage of gt1ltraliud pro­lnarianization induced by the spre:ad of hypomnesic technologies.

The trurh of Plato would then be found in Marx, bUl

35

FOR A N E W CRI1'IQU£

only on the condition th:u twO sllpplement2ry conclu·

sions arc drawn:

• Man; himself fuils to think (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 living.

• 111e iI/Hug/mIl struggle of philosophy ag:1inst

sophistic around Ihis question of memory and irs

technicization is Ihe heart of tim polirical strug­gle which philosophy was from the very beginning.

Hence the reevaluation of the place of hypomnesis 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 is

therefore the question of a sociotherapy,18 which is

what political economy is, and of which grammatiza­

tion is the dynamic process.

36

Phnmmc%D of rh� pro/�tflrifll

Pro/�ttlritlniZlltion tIS loss ofknOlQ/�dg�

Th� proletarian. we read in Gilbert Simondon, is a disin·

dif}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, of cou�, the products of their use. They opm

lip 101illmltl Ihis milieu of which they arc the workers

(olil/rim!. Proletarianiz:nion is that which excludes this panicipation of the producer from the evolution of the conditions of production. and through which he works.

In other words. proletarianization is a process 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 of women. Differences of age and sa have no

longer an)' distinctive social validity (or the working c1:w.

All are instruments orJabar. more or less expensive to usc,

accord 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 of th� 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 proletari31 is recruilcd from

all classes of thc population.j(I

Certainly, in (he Mllnijf!lO as in the Comribuliofl. the:

Gru.ndriJs� and in Capital. 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 NEW 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 of Lob or: 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 buying powtr upon consumers, to accord them mort than simply the

renewal of their labor powtr, and to fundamenrally and

prncticnlly weaken me Marxist meory of class struggle.

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: (/ IIfW critiqut of political tcollomy ;s 1ItctJSltry,

40

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 bypomlltmarn32 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 bJPomllt'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

question of tTImsilldividltllfion insofar as it clln prodltc�

long drmits o/individ'IIlHo" os �lIl1s short-cimtits, that is, disbIlJivid/ulIio,u.

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

FOR A NEW 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,

thai is, deslroy Iheir sa/loir-lii/lr�, 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:

• create long circuits. that is. flrCl/lllldtltt libidinal

tlltrgy by illttllSifying indiIJidulltion, and give ObjCCLS

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

bit jill;,iZltt;OIl of nllrMugs, 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 of dnirt 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: individual ion at the:: pharmacological lcvd (technical

individualion) trnnsdllcrivdy inte::nsifies rhe individua·

rion of lite:: other two levds (psychic individuation and

collcclive:: individual ion).

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 of the 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. it

45

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

of Imowlt'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«" uduud to

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 of being

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 Imah glli "otllurmt Ii rim dll fOllf): to work

46

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 to the brink of

catastrophe, as well as 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 OWII logic IIlId by

thtir oam logic-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...azzan.tO nevertheless

perceive in this cerebral or cognitive capitaIism4 an

element of novelry opening OntO some kind of alrer­

native? My thesis (if not theirs) is that here, rhar is, y

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 gram­math,adon. Such an alternative prcsupposl..'S. however. a veritable revolurion of rhe dominant induStrial modd­which 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'nll1lity. 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 CRITIQUE

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 (0 rake care.IO domcstically as well as

politically.

50

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 libidinal 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 CRITIQUE

. . . 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 the 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

F O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

"care of the sc:lf." Ot;lIl1I, from an economic perspective

inscribed in 3. 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 "ypom­lI�mntll, thaI is, an epoch of grammatization. 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 f01ll1llt'ra iT/sofnr ns il is II proft'S! of psychic

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 lazzarato 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 olilOn, 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. l1

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, Ibis is lIot III nil n qUNliOI/ of brillgillg 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

DesolidariZlltion 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 well

as on the private sphere. leading to the pure and simple

liquidAtion of sodal 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

f O R A NEW C R I T I Q U E

dissociation and of 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 Iplllsj(}lInr�

58

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

F O R 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 transin­

dividuarion that are clearly characteristics of Stalinist

bureaucnnic totalitarianism, 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 beginning

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 exist-

GO

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 110 tOllgl'r

works. because it wants the psychic individual to be self·

61

F O il A NEW C R I T I Q U E

direct�. to become the "entrepreneur of 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 110 long�r b� nn} rtblfj,,� rt-m(hnlltm�m-as was. 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 by 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 symbolic

misery [mistre lymbolifJlle: 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

f O R A N E W 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 of proltl1tiom. 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 ryJlr1llJI-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·

[ecmh and rwcmieth centuries \V"dS the organi1 .. uion

of the capitaliSt "protemion-aliz:ltion" of the world.

which consisted firstly in the disel1chanrmcnr of the

67

f O R " N E W 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 �/aborari"g Ito!'1ldn] an indttttrial

prolnlliolt: 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 (0 culrivate a relationship

TO 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

F O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

inco the service of 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 of pharmacology. for which an economy of

contribution constitutes 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

For J�an.Micbt'1 Snlllll:Jlds To the nJtll/ory ofJI'IIII-Frallfois Ly()((//'d

The suprt.mc dfon of the writer as of lhl! artist only suc­

ceeds in paniall)' raising for us the veil of ugliness and

insignific.mcc that lcavts us unCl.ring [inruritllx) before the

world. ,'hen, he says to us:

Look, look

Fragr:l lu wilh clover and ancmesia

Holding tight their quick. narrow streams

The lands of the Aisnc and the Oisc.

Morerll'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 liquid ad on the consequences of which began

ro appear at the end of the 1 970s (fA <o"dirioll post­modtmt 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 CRITIQUE

libidinal diset'ollolJlY [hal is 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 it­and 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 of Polifiml

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 of PoNti cal EconomJ.

74

Phnrll/tIl'ology of Capital

This work examines t\vo questions:

• How should one understand "profit" 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 with 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 profit 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

T uming 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::mune::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 is 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

F O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

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 <IS proflts? Yes,

without doubt. Bur these profits ""cre fraudulent, nOI

very durable. and pllrt" roxie. because rhey were created

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. an accounting gamt'

Veu d'icritllm, 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 C R I T I Q U E

Let us propose (hat (his tendency leads (Q cn"lm1lm [illcttritl : 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 tmdmcy to cnrtUSSIIt1I, and becallse it is 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 and sundy hold on thingJ, thl1l n. on intJt!tmmt, given the

instabiljty of capital 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. in which one finds money. actions and obli·

80

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:lncial

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 in 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

8 1

POR A N E W C R I T I Q U E

a man�r or 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 innova­tion-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

innovation." Novdry is thus systematically valorized at

the expense of durabilil)'. and this Orglll/;Ulioll of dttach· mtm, Ihm is, 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

as "dissoci:Hion"'1-the SYSI/!ms of amicipation of free

capital and 1111: hyperlabile behavior of consumers act

in harmony and are "potcn!ized" [polnltialismt), in the

�nse that combining drugs can pOUlltiu IpormtiabJ"1 !heir curative bUI also their roxic effects (as when, for

insmnce. alcohol is combined wilh psychotropes or

an Ii-i n Aamma rories).

Amicipations of fflOC capil';!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, speculations 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 dynamic: capiralism presupposes the existence

of free Clpittl o�n 10 speculation understood in this

sense.

The "advance" on realiry mar produces these antici­

pations, however, such that Ihey arc structurally exposed

(0 speculation, mUSI proceed before anything else from

84

Pharmacology of CapillI!

a motillmiofl, itself inscribed within an «onomy of moti­

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 own

10 dicil thcir e.ngagcmcnl. Duress kOIl"ai1llt) 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

F O R 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 and funny monry {monnaie de singe}: th� math�matizntion of cartkssntSI

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 severn I 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

F O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

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 there­fore 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 that, having mtltiJm/(uiud its pham/(tcologiCIII tt'lldruf] 10 cnrelrsS1Im, its other pole is constituu.:d by deceptions (ll"urml dtlibtmttdy organizing the dilmion of respon­

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 invesr­menr 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 of Capital

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 short­tnmist 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

f O R A N E W 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.----either 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 of Cnpitnl

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 a libidinal economy

that in6niciz.cs ir.sclf, [hat is, an «01lomy of acmiue­

ntu 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. III

93

F O R A NEW CRITIQUE

In other words, the prorenrion mat constitutes psy�

chosocial temporality presupposes mat me assumption

of an illfi"iu mpo,uibility will come co "back up" this

temporality as a kind of (rdit, where credit cannot be

reduced to trust [ctuifianul understood as calculadon.'9

but presupposes 3 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 is 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 C R I T I Q U E

• 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 specula rive: 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 of dis.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 in 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 forcapital TO complc£c1y

97

F O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

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 indus­

trializ.ed and technicized)-the becoming of this gbJbal, ttchnical sysum tends to become totally inttgrattd into the uonomic sJIum and submirud to its priorities as UNU as to its contradictions.

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 of readjustment as they become necessary.

Bertrand Gille wrote in 1978-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 CRITIQUE

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 in 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 of Capital

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 into 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 lO the operation of the market

alone. thar is, [0 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

f O R A N E W CRITIQUE

Confounding the technical and economic systems as a principal foetor of carelessness

This unlimiud exploitation leads to the slow but inex·

orable liquidation of [he apparatus of prOdJlctioll of

libidinal magy. an apparanu form(d by conjoining psychic

apparafusN and social syst(1f1S so as to produC( Sflb/i"IIuion

sysums (and which concretize individuation insofar as i t

is always at 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 amouoc-

102

Pharmacology of Capita!

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

F O R " 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 psy­chic systems find themselves disadjusred, leading to their disequilibrium, rather than TO beneficial disrup­tions (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" of the sysum of motivations

Human becoming is lhe resuh of a threefold process of individuation for which the technical system. social systems and psychic apparatuses are the meta­stable 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 orga­nological levels which must be distinguished. and which

have their own logic and their own tendencies. bur

which can nor be considered in isolation from one

another:

• The psychic appar:ulIs is bast.-d on a system of psycho­

som:ltic organs;

• The technical system connects artificial organs which

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) of systems and individuals.

105

f O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

That the psychic apparatus is in 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 per­petuate 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 in which these systems

cons in: 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 of 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 of production 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 of Cllpitlll

Pharmacology of technical 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 simil 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

POR 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

1 1 0

P"nnllncolo� of Capital

tendency)-the manifest comenr expressing fie larenr content only by dissimulating it, tkftrritlg (diJfirnntJ it,

and 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 coumer­tendencies 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

1 1 1

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 of smnes. wind, trees. and

animals. but also as rhe bearer of the objecrs and the ideas

of diRerenl human groups.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�

1 1 2

Pbarmacology a/CapitaL

thing here is a maner of arrangements between dynamic systems.

The economy of contribution as the overturning {renversemenr} of the bearish macro-tendency

The technical tendencies proper to human groupsJl

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, in some way, by hollowing alit this interior.

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

1 1 3

F O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

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 Of CapitaL

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 perma­nent 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 "ceUs­in 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

1 1 5

FOR A N E W C R I T I Q U E

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 protention-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 of tendencies and of their 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 1 7

F O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

• 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

1 1 8

Phllmlacology of Cilpitill

of psychic individuals themselves individuated and

diachronically singularized through their relation [0

pbllrmllkll (and to technical tendencies), wherever

therapeutic spaces deriving from the social level make

rhis possible.

It is 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.1-

tion-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 expressions 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

1 2 1

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 [dl'!lmirj turns out to no

longer have any future [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

124

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 technique 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 and cotmur-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.

"Internalizing" ,"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 of contribution as a ntw r�/ation btlWttlJ tht uchnical rysttm and social rysttms

Under the influence of t«hnical tendencies. the bttom­

ing of the (<<hnical system-in particular after the

advenr of industrialization. and through those very

specific t«hnical objects that are machines. chen appara­

tus-is traversed by 3 process of concretization which is

rc=aliud through the integration of functions. a pr<>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

N O T E S

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 m finir

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/� End ofWo"": tbt Dtt/hlt of tilt 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. VIII' /lil/tur I'll voit dt dispnrj­,ioll (Paris: Aubier, 1995).

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).

1 0 McKenzie Wark. A HtU:k" Mallifrsro (Cambridge. Massachusttt'i: Harvard Univtrsity 11reS$, 2004).

I I Pekka Himanen. 77J1' H,uJur ftllir: A &Idirnl APPNJflch t/J Ihl' Philosoph] of BI/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 gen­trmions. ! argued in L4 TtllrMtit rOlltrt III dtll/orrmit (Paris: Flammuion. 2006) that the demonStrations of French ULt­

dents against The CPE (Conua[ Premier Emploi: a first job contrao) were Ixfore anything else 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. ro individua­tion. that is. the process whereby you am make a placc for youf5Clf in society as a producer. mill not Oil" ItS a COlmlmtr

whost job !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 of tilt kllow/tdgt 0111' IIilS of it. 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 [0

the time spent in employment: this is what results from the

1 3 1

NOTES 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. 13 It Is this �3t ClI1CC" th31 Immanuel Wallerstein has perhaps

overlooked in his refercnce 10 Ihe Ihear}' of cydes. 14 r try 10 describe the negalive dynamic of rhis exhaustion in

POllr til jillir /1/1« la mkroiSSllIlt't.

1 5 That i� to say, thc increasc in the fixed Clpiral component (the mrans uf production) and the curresponding decrease 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 psychOPbll­fIOir. Elltrrt;tIIs (IIIfC Pbilippr PniJ n Vil/et/It BOllltlu (r3ri�: MiJlc er une nuit.�, 2008).

17 POllr tn jinir tlV« la mkro isstlllt't.

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.

J 9 Kar] Marx, ContriblltiOIl to fl Critiqllt of Politiclt! Economy. trans. S. W. Ryanzanskaya. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970). pp. 195-6.

20 Ibid., p. 197.

21 Guy Debord. 71)t Sodtty of tbt Sptctllck. lrans. Dooald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books. 1995), p. J 59.

22 Jacques Dcnida. OiSStmi"fll;OIl. lrans. Barbara Johnson {Chicago: Chicago University Press. J 98' l. pp. 61-171.

23 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 34-4 J

things. a memory of signs and no longer of cffects.� Allti­OrdiprtJ, 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-communicalion 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 grllm­matization 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 Polity, and Sliegler 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 Assoun, Lt Fhichisme (r�Tis; PUr. 2006).

133

NOTES TO PAGES 4 1 -46

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 :m idrology abounds which would havc us be:lievr Ihat Ihc very cognitiv(" capitalism responsiblc for prolt'l:l.rian­i'l.ing Ihc Mknowt'f5� [MJddHtllnMJ. as Jean-Fran�is Lyotud caUt'd Ihe:m. could in F.ia be: m:l.de: 10 pass for :II �knowl­t"<igt' society. - 5t't' I..azz.atllto. IJ Goul,""nrlnlr d� ifflKnlith. Criri'lur d� f'imirurirl "ioliblra/� (Paris: Amncrdam. 2008).

2 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 COIIIJtmmrllf dn illigalitb. In Iht' analyst's propo.'II:d in 2002, LlI7.7.araco. who n .. fe:f5 10 Gabrid dt· T ardt, �ingularly lltgk'CIS tht question of hypomnesis without which such coopern­lion would be impossible:, 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 of consumption. On Ihc orne:r hand. in 2008. he: desc::rioo the dfccts of Ihis prolt'larianiution and the SY5lem of!ht' management of inequalities wilh :I. view, not to coop­crouion 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

NOTES TO I'AGES $0-60

of Bakhtin. Sa- Ln Tllimui, romrr III dlmocrali, and 8ft"'''""tt, Ir mOlld,.

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, IlIImlflliolial d, phillJloplJi, as a pm of [he theoretical acdvities of An; Induwialis. An audIo recording is available at www.an;indwtrialis.org

1 1 Corsani and u7.lar:uo, Immll;nmls tI prkaim. 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. IlIIrrmittrlllS 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 reg­ulation 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 April 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 annm

undCTStand the: posifions of ,heir Sovi('( comrades who 101:llIy conde:mn Ihis intpormOi a�JX'C1 of p§),chlany. A MarxiSi analy­sis 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 of Lr 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<rldit I. 30 If money is a form of grammalizalion and of te:rtiary re:len­

[ion. one: essc:mial question is 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:nlU­ally replaced by John Law's paper mon()" and in rurn by the: Fre:nch Re:volution's assig1lnrs. This is onc of the: impom.rn stakes of Jean 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:. 1992).

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 ::It so 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 10 dnire culmrc:. I . . . / P«lplc: rmU[ be: Irain(od 10 desire:. 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 of John Bowlby. � AI Gore. 71lt AlsRu/t till RrllJ(JlI.

1 1 Bolt:lnski and Chiapdlo an:d)7:e: Ihe con5Cquences this Rex­ibililY 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 tlf PrJlntria 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 'hprit pmlu 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

NOTES TO PAGES 86-1 08

16 h is because the IIbidin:tI economy is prolcntional and becau� capilal is an organiution of the production of pro­lemions thai capitalisnl is :an cpoch of libidinal economy.

17 Max Weber. 71J� Protnrllnt £llJir al/(II/� Spirit a/Capila/illll (London: Unwin, 1930). p. 71 .

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 of lorina/ imlomtioll.

1 9 lhis poim is dc\'c!0IX'tI furthcr in MlrrillllU rt diJ(ridit I. pp. 95-107and 120-4.

20 The wave of suicidc commilted by cmpto)'t'O of Fromcc­HJ&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: rela­tion 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 Christian Fault, Alain Giffard and

B�rnard Stiegler, POllr til fillir nUff 1t, mkrtJislllllu (Puis: Flammarion. 2(09), pp. 20-1.

26 On Ihis subj�t. sec the Al'5 Indumialis seminar, " TrolllJf'r dt 1I0lWtl/rs ,mllrs�: hllp;lIwww.arsindwtrialis.orgl

140

Nom to paga 108-117

le-stminairC'-trouver-de-nouvdles-armes-colltt;e-internatlo­nal-de-philosoph ic

27 Sec p. 37 and Bernard Stiegler and Ars InduSlfi:IIi�. RimdHlmt, II' /1/011111': In mltll' npn', (/Jlllrt II' populilllll' il/d,mritl (Paris: Flammarion. 2(06), pp. 49-55 forthcom­ing 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. T rclJllirr III/d Tilllr. J: 111t FIIIII, ofEpimrthrlll. trans. Gcorge Cullins and Richard BC".Ird,wurth (Slanforo: Sianfi,rd Univcrsity Press. I 99tl). lhtse lendencies arc exprcss('d 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 telecom­municuion 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 bidi­rcctiollal ne"vorks. jusl as Jeremy RifKin pr(:dicll:d. as the

141

NOTES TO I'AGES 1 24- 1 2 8

contributive: production of encrgy begins [0 be inrroduccd., making possible new infl'1lStructul'd-logical as well :IS

rcrlcularcd-infr.utruc[uTCli Ihal art' somelimes call� Jmlm

(;riM. 33 lhis nolion of Mm::ln::lgeri::lJ oog.m::lrismM com" from Pierrc

�cndrc. in l)ominium Muntli, L �mpirt till Itllfllllgmlrm (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 Simon don 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 D E X

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 ahunmiva; 120-3, 123 "",mll/tljl 29, 4 1 , <13 Andre, Jt2n-Maric 53 antici�tion Sptcms 78-81,

84-6. 91, 93-6, 107, 1 16, 124

AriSlolle 6 ArllOYld, AmbroiK Marie 1 5 anisfic profl'$.'lions 51-6, 69 auoclattd milieus <18-50, 51,

65-6, 69-70, 108, 1 17, 1 27-9

anemion, ch�nnding of 68-9, 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

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 as indivldualion 104-8 Indum}' and hs ImcrirtlUI1 In

13,31 Icchnic.tl 82--4. 124-5

Belgium 57-8 beliefs, change in 67-8 be:ndiu: 20-1. 22, 52. 56, 86 Benjamin. Waltu 33 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

BrWDn \'('oocis 3"rttm�nI 97

C'Jlcul�bilhy 46. 5 I . 54. 67-8. 82. 93, 125

('::IpitOiI liclilious n. 78. 79-81 . 84-6,

87-9.90-1. ')3, 96. 10j-4. 107. 120. llJ

frC(' 7'.), 80. 84 ph�mucology or 71-129

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 nf global and thc

indumial �)"'tcm 7 nqplive dynamic in 75--6.

84--6. 89-9 1 as prOlenl;O" produclion

splcrn 66--70 I'C:licul.1ltnl47-50 sharehulder 88---9. 92-3_ 103-4

om ofthr sdCS4 $)'5lenl or44, 50. 70, 86. 108.

120. 111. 1 26 ('::Il1,'icssncu

economy of 1 25-6, 129

144

m3themaliul;on 0(87-9. 90 in pha(m�colog)' of c�pit:l.l

79-81. 125-6 �ymmic 92-3. 102-'1. 107_11

u.slel. Raben 55 cells. clhni.' 1 1 4-17 Chiar.dlo. Eve, 1IN Nrw Spirit I}/

Crtpimlism 85. 126 Chil':lc. Jacques 20 co-Individuation 100. 106-7.

1 1 1-12 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. 71.

87-9, 91-3. 107-8. 1 1 5. 125--6

end or4-7, 22-3. 5}--6. 69, 10'

conSlLlllption ;IS Ih(' dt:Sltucdon of I<II'tJir­

filirt ami SIII'tJir-l'i/'rt 27

gr.lmnmiz:uion or 1 1 and iLl rdation 10 desire 12.

41-4.65. 82-4, 121 . 125 mass 88 :u a pJlllnltnkQl/ 83--4 relations wiJh produclion 4.

23-8. 50. 90-1 stimulus policy 3-5

contempor:meiry gcner:lIional tirne or 58 rl"rri!Orj�1 spact" 58

contribution. t'Conomy or2 J , 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 21. 22, 51-2, 54.56

�rcalivilY 46--7, 51-6 crrolt 67. 80. 94. 106 critique 8. 1 1

dcomsffiJcrion as 1 5 K2nli:lJ1 1 9 orlibidinal economy 40-4 �nd metaphysics 1 5 n� or palirla! economy

1 4--15, 16--19. 36. 40--4.70 culture indumioo; 4. 31. 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

lude.\·

deregulation 101 . 103. 107 Derrida.Jacquo

dijpTiltlrt 1 I 1 O/Grnmnsalo!1J1J 29 �Plato'S Pharrnacyw 29. 36

desire inliniriuuion or 43. 82-4. 86.

93-6. 106-8 rdmion 10 consumption 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) 41 dijJhnllrt 1 1 1 digital networks 24

mncsic powt"r of3U. 1 22, 128-9

digital !('tieulalion 47-50. 1 14. 1 1 7

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 disequilibrium 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. Nicola! 65

145

I N D E X

drivC':$ 40. 59-GO. 86. 121 eonsumpliou �ud material

of 12. 82-4. 8S-9, 95-6. 124-7

economic crisis (2008) 3-7. 22-3. 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.

\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

ronuibulM:ill. economy of economy of prolc:mions,"

prolenliOlu, economy of 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 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 . 113-14

146

elCcessivellcss 93-6 existence 1 2 1 . 124 aledor milieu 112, 1 1 4 ClIterM:iri7.<1lion 9, 27, 126

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

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 Fordism 23-4. GO. to-a Founult. Mkhd 29, 54 Fren(h government

emplo)'mem policy 20-1 '!.fld inlrrmirunrs all ,ptttdd�

51-" invcstment policy 4-5

Freud. Sigmund 28, 41, 74, 76. 88.94.99

Fritdm�n. Milton 22 functional imegnuion 127-8 rUlUrt possibilili(':f 6-7, 84-6.

107. 124

Gaullism 99 generatIons. tr.ltlSindividu�tion

or58-9 gcslUrc:

di5('rt'til.:uion or 10, 33. 35

Gillr. Brnrand 98. 99. 100. 1 10. 1 13-15

glob31i7.:uion 97-8. J 16 God. [he d�th of94 Gon:. Andre, MiuIII'''rphosn au

II"ItlNlil 20 gO\'�rnmentaJ power. m:w 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

" induslrl.11iution :ll a proctsS of

13. 30-5 Ilmr:nion of48-50 new forms of 1 1-13, 39. 54..(,.

1 19-20 as phum:t<:ologiOlI 42-4. 70,

1 1 9-20 tnn5form, fetishism 41 which short-circuits

tnnsindividu�don 3S-9 grnmlllt1 (retl'ntional gl"lliru) 1 0 GIl':lt Britain 73. 97. 99. 101.

123 Clffnspan, Abn 47 Crogman. i!veiyne 3, 16 Guamri. Felix. Ami.OtdipUJ

32-3

Mhacker e[hies" 22. 48 H:l.tchud, Armand lG hirr.ltchicll societi« I I3-15 Himanen. Pclli 22. 48 Hirschman. Alben 85 hominiution 8-9 Mhomo economicw- 1 7 Horkheimff. Mu 96

Imux

'l/1bris 1 1 5 Hum/mili. L'14 HUSKri. F..umunU 8 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. 8}-4

ideulogy S. 19-20. 123 im�gil1nry. [he 12 indIviduation -17. 9'.1-100.

12. :uwcialed milit:u.� of 48-50.

1 17 psychic and colk'Ctivc 44.

48-50, 54--6. 59-60. 61. 99-100. 102. 1 ()4.....8, 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 and human bcroming 1 3 . 3 1 noopolilical of memory 3 1 rc:in"ention 108

indumial modd collapS!: of obsolett 4. 22-3.

49. 55.87 consurnerul JrrCOnslImeriSni

indumbl polili(".5, ntw 7, 101

147

I N DEX

indusuial mlolulion 10, Ij, 32-3, 67, 98, 1 14, l i S, 127

infanillc 'rn�ploscnCli) 44, 83 infinitiulion of d(:)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 in.idcr I!'ltding 93 irulitUliuns 108 hUcthca 128-9 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 io\'Otmo:nl

:IS anddp:uion 78-81 desrNCtion ofS-7, 59, 69. n.

107, 116, 124 new t}·PC of tcQnomic 6-7, 66,

1 1 7, 122 profil as rClum on 76-7 sod:al ilfld polhk:al 6-7 stimulus politICS 3--6

Jospin. Uond 20

Kant. Immanuel, Criliqu(#/I'U" RtIlS#II 8

Ko:ynaianism 60, 95, 97, 99 knowledgc

C'lffcriorir.:uion :lS 11m 0(29-30, "

infornmifll\ wilhoUi 129

148

Iho:rary hypomn()K 30 �lic H ... 6 prolcr:lli:mil.alion as loss of

37-9, 40--4, 4S-50. 56, 60,69

and tc1cntion;tl time 69 Iho:or�k:aI 30. 46 IN 1l1s61111'Gir·fo;rr. S/1/I0iNIfI!Tt'

LA TrrlJlliqlll'rtk rnnp1 (Stiegler) II

I�bof dcf;nidon of and thc question

ufpruduclion 12 mUiation of I'), 18 oycrdetcrmined hy the ml� (If

gralllmululion 12 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.

31-3 and j»)'Chosocial indi\'idWition

17-8 Ush. Scon 34 bw

and prolt'llIioru 69-70 on "..,..king Wttk 10. 22. 51

Lu.ur:1I0, MauriJ.io 21-2, 47, 51-2. 54, 55.56

Lcroi-Gourlun. Andri 9, 109, 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

critiquc of 40--4. 73--4

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 of%. 108. 122

life force. Ihc:ory of 109 limit. p:w:ages to the 59-60.

75-6. %. 1 16-17. 121 logle 10.76

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 71. 73-4

machine-tools 34 . .17. 1 1 9 m�thlnn: 19. 30.33.35.37. 66.

1 14. 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. 101. 103. 124

!echnini SYStcntS ;md social sptenu 99-101

Man:. Karl 12. 28. 33. 35-6. 88 Cnp"'1I1 26. 39. 75 Qmlll/l1l/isr Mlmifol(J I I . 38.

" untriblllill" til II Nn;., eri/i'l'll'

IIj'Poliriral &1/I111I11J 14. 23. 26-7.39

Grrnlllll UMIIIKJ 30-1 Grlllld,inr 39

Indo<

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 Meadows tepa" 92 Mkmm(f l'1 dimMil (Stiegler) 53 Mnb. Dominique 20 M�ef62 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

living nppu� to dead Z'J-JO. 36

:IS mat�riaJ culmr!.· 9-1 1 memory (tont.)

noopolidcaJ indumill cconomy of31

lec:hninijl,35 S« IIIsII mllmuurr:/",in

mc:t:l.physics and ultique 1 5 d«OIutruaion of 29

nlC1Utabi1i;r;;otion 1 1 8-20. 121 middle d� 63-4

S« RIAl bourgeoisie:: petty bourgc:oi�ic:

Milner. Jcan.CI�ude 65. 69 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 21, 47, 49-S0

mmu..JiUlioll m�h:ll1i,mJ S I , 56

UJnmt'chnologieil j I ncg-.olium 53. 5<1. 121 neg:lliYe In 22, S6 llq;emropy46. to<l nrolibenlil.m lS, 62, 101 nervous J)'$tcm. prolcurimiz:llion

oflhc45-S0 Nictuche. Friedrid! 32, 76. 9.c llihilli;m 9� nOCticity 53-6. 64. 69-70, 120 noopolhia 3 I, 50 N(}lIvdb Criti'1ur. U 14

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 orthographit coruciousnw 3O OIium6H. 120, 121

and poJilivc extcrnalhle11 53-6, 57,64.6S

1 50

PoUKI. ReM S�. 9l �upcriulion 88

confuKd wilh proktvi;rniz:uion 60-1

ofyoulh S9 pcrcq>lion. gramm�liulion o(

)).42 pcrformaliviry. Auslin'l theory

0(67 pcrmallC.'llI rt'YOlmion 66-70 pwy bourgeoisic 64-5 plurmxology

o(OlpitaI 71-129 C'lIIeriuri1..:11illn ttthniques 27.

29.70 pr"lelari�niudon �nd <10...1 of Ihe prolclariat 14-44 o( u:chnical lcndcncies 109-13

pil/lrlllaim (If ab511"aCiion 49-50 consumption u 8}-.4 digital 48 diHconomr of 4<1, 79-81 economy of u Ihcrapculic

43--4, 104 auhe mish 41, 65 o( fiaitious Clpilal 77, 78.

79-81. 84-6, 87-9, 90-1. 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 phililf 6 philosophy

conlcmpul':lry 16-20 French 14-15. 17-19

politia.1 struggle 36 tuk of no:\\' critique 8. I I vs. sophistry 29. 36. 42

Pbto on .""lnlll'JiJ 29. 41. <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 61 p()lIda.I .�I'm� 58 1)OIl!lc�l will 6-7. 124 politics

drive·b3sal63 andthc !aw 18-J9

poSf·nrucrnr.llism 14-15 po�tmodemil)' 73-4 P()ur m finir IIV« fA m/rroiWlllct

(SlitglerJ 17,24 powerlmnm- 29 Pro«:S$CS, :lnd rolc of bbor 4>-6 production

and Ihe definition ofbbor 1 2 exclusion o f workC"r from

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

IlIdrx

and profit nlc 92. 97 ;lI return on investment 76-7 lendentlal fall in the I':Ite of

23--8. 59-60, 68. 75--129 profitability 4. 86 proletarianization

cognitive and alf«'l;\'(, 30-1 of the 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 of the psyche 43 tcrtiary retcmion as the

condition of 1 1 . 21 pro]ct:;lriat

definition 40 as disindividualnl workers

37-8 the imponance today 13. 28.

3S pharm�cology of the 14-44 I'bto and Ihc 28-36. 35 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

1 5 1

I N D E X

"""', 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 psychology 76 psydlopowcr 46, 50,65,90-1.

95-6.98, I 2S-G

Randere, jal;que'l, 71J, Ni:/Ill of LAbor 40

r:nio 46, 50 Rca];�n. RUllald 97, 101, 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 . 21. 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:!. M khtl 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

SIIllOiN'ill" 16. 27, .W. 33, 40, 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

produttion by sdr JO--I I�hniqua or the (FouClull)

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 injustke, 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

Spaggiari. Albert 79 speculation 6. 59--.60, 77. 78-81 .

84-6. 89. 92-6, 102. J07. 1 1 7, 122

and innovation 81-4 spirit (Weber185 Stalinism 60-- 1 state 97-8, 99-100, 123

Napoleonic 99 JU II/sQ wdfare st�te

�timuhlS piatls �7 sublim�tion 40--4. 6 1 . 65. 102.

1 07. 120, 122 �ynchronilatlon 1 18. I 19 systemic Sfupidity 5. 47-50. 126

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 of conuibution 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

IJld�x

tcndcncic� and count�r·tcndcnci<!$ 43--'1,

75-6. 87-9. 91. 109. 1 1]. 122

orgallolog)' of 1 1 7_20 overfUrning of 124-7 as potentials 123 to carde�ness 79-8 1

tertiary rctcllIion 8--1 1 . 2 1 . 70. 106

as the condition of prol<'t:tri3niz�tion 1 1

l'Yulution 0(9-1 1 Thatcher, Margaret 73. 97. 99.

l O t . 123 thmpeutiCS 36, 43-4. 50, 100-1,

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

1 5 3

I N D E X

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

of gen(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, r�rnembrnl1c( uf

th� 29 TyDddlis. Dlnid 3

unconscious. Ih( 8. 12,28 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

154

new colICC'JHion of economic S1

l«hnological90 Vauanson, JacquC'$ d( 10 \'«Ioralisu 48, 49-50 \'ision 6-7

1O'lIgt'-carncn ofthe Idcal 65. 6.

Wark. Md«(nm 21, 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 as a '}'IT'bolk milicu 37-8 linu: outs.idc of mlplormcnl

22. 54--6 writing

as di5cmiz:uion of I� f{o... of sfXUh 31-2

:IS illusion for manipulation of minds 29

the plMnmI�" of 79

youlh. paupcriulion of 59