-

-Critique
f ;: .f
Politi
I
no my_

Bernard Stiegler

For

New Critique of

Political Economy
BERNARD STIEGLER
translllttd by
Daniel Ross

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CONTENTS

For a New Critique of Political Economy

Heads buried in the sand: a warning

Incroduction

Pharmacology of the prolt!tariat

14

To work

45

Pharmacology of Capital and Economy

of Concriburion

71

Nom

130

IllIux

143

For a New Critique of Political

Economy

For An/fluid ck I'Epilu Imd Chris/itlll rlmri

ONE

Heads buried in the sand: a

warning
lhe [hests put forward in this small volume were hrst
set aU( on January 15. 2009 at the Maiso" de I'Ettrope,
during a lecture which tvdyne Grossman and the
Co/Mgt inrffllat;onal dt ph;[osopbit invited me (0 deliver,
and they wert also discussed in my conrribution 10 the
catalogue for "Work: Meaning and Care," an ohibi
tion held in Dresden from June 2009 to March 20 I 0
at the initiative of the Demsches Hygiene-Museum,
the German Fedtral Cultural Foundation and Daniel
Tyr.addlis.
1 decided (0 publish these rdlecdons in the midst of
economic and political debates taking pla throughout
the world about the necessity of implementing stimu
lus plans in order [0 limit (he destructive effects of the
first planc:tary economic crisis of the:: capitaliSt indus
uial world. Now when, in such debates, "investment
stimulus" and "consumption stimulus" arc: spoken of

in opposing [enns,

twO

distinct qucsrions become con

fused, questions that, in fact. do require simultaneous

treatment, yet according to

twO

different scales of time,

3

f O R A NEW C R I T IQUE

:l

difficulty which is all the greater. given that

th pmmt

crisis hmdds tlu /'lid o/Ihi' COlJJllmm'sl modi'l.

Those\.'ho advocate srimuladng consumption as Ihe
pouh to economic rccovery want ndlher ro hear nor
speak about the end of consumerism. But the French
government, which lldvocoues stimulating investment.
is no more willing Ihan those who advocalc stimular
ing consumprion to C.11l [he consumerist indumial
model inw question. The Frcnch version of"stimularing
investment" (which seems morc suhtle when it comes
from Barack Obama) argues that the best way

(0

5.1Ve

consumption is through invesrmenr, rh:tt is, hy restoring

"profitability," which will in

rurn

restore an entrepre

neurial dynamism itself founded upon consumerism

and its counterpart, markerdriven 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 bllryil1g011S had 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 bome
self-destructive, denying and concealing for as long as
possible the faCt thar the consumerist model is now mas
sivdy toxic (a [oxiciry extending far beyond the question
of "toxic assets") because it has re'J.ched its limitS. This
denial is a matter of trying, for as long as possible, to
maintain [he colossal profits that can be accrued by
those capable of exploiting iI.
The consumerist modd has rcached its limirs because
it has become systemically short-termist. bCC'J.use it has
given rise to a tyJUmic Slupidity that
Ult

Tomtitution of a

strufturally prtVt'f//S

kmg-tmn horizon. This "invest

ment" is not an investment according [0 any terms other

than those of pure accounting: it is a pure and simple
reestablishment of me st,Ue of things. trying to rebuild
the indusrrial landscape without at all changing itS ncuc
rure, still less its axioms, all in the hope of prorecting
income levels that had hitherto been achievable.
Such may be the hope, but these:: are the false hopes
of those with buried heads. The genuine objt of debate
raised by the crisis, and by the question of how

(Q

escape

this crisis, ought (0 be how to ovcrcome the short

termism to which we have been led by

consumerism
5

FOR A NEW CRIT1QUE

intrinsically destructive of all genuine investment-that

is, of investment in the furure-a short-term ism which
has

Jysuhlically, and 1l0t acddmtfllLy, been translated into

[he thcomposition ofillvestnltnt into tprculdriol1.
Whether we must, in order

(Q

avoid a major eco

nomic catastrophe, and to anenuate the social injustice

caused by the crisis, stimulate consumption and the eco
nomic ma<;hinc SItch

as il slill is, is a question as urgenr as

it is legitimate-as long as such a policy does not simply

aggravate the situation at the COSt of millions and bil
lions of euros or dollars while at the same time masking
the true question, which is to produce a vision and a
political will capable of progressively

moving away from

the uOl1omico-politictlL compLex of C01l1llmp'ioll so asJO
enter into the complex ofa new type of il1Vf!Jtment, which
must be a social and political investment or, in other
words, an investment in a common desire, that is, in
what AristOtle called philia, and which would then form
the basis of a new type of economic investment.
Between the absolute
imposes

the

imperative

urgency which obviously

of salvaging

the

present

situation-and of avoiding the passage from a global

economic crisis to a global political crisis that might
yet unleash military conflicts of global dimensions
and the absolute necessity that consists in prodUCing a
potential future in the form of a political and social will
6

Hmds buried ill tl;r sand: a wamillg

capable: of making a break wirh the: presc=nt situation,

there: is dearly a conrmdictioll. Such a contradiction is
characte:ristic of what happens to a dynamic system (in
this case, the: industrial system and the: global capitalist
system) once it has begun to mutate.
This question is political as much as it is economic: it
is a question of political economy, a matter of knowing
in whatprrciJt!/y this 1fIflflU;Oll co nsim. and to what potit.
iol, bur also industrial. choices ir leads: it is a matter of
Itnowing what nt!tv indus/rial poli/ics is

reqllirtd (on

this

point at least. Samck Obama seems slightly ahead of (he

Europeans, who remain expertS at functioning in a stale
of denial).
Only such a response is capable of simultaneously
dealing with the question of what urge:nt and immedi
ate steps are: nc=csary 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.

<TWO

Introduction

RetentionaL economy
In 200 1 I argued, in La Ttclmiqll n I TmpJ 3: U

rmps dJI dnbnn 11a qUlIi(m dll mnltlT. and by way of

reading Kam's Criliqllt ofPurt RtaJon. for a nw critiqut".
for a critique addressing the question of tertiary reten
tion. that is, (he question of mnemotechnics-and in
more general terms addressing lhe question of technics
which, qun maurinliZdrion ofaptritnn, always consri
rutes a Jpatia/;zalion of th tim of comciOUSl1tsJ bryond .

comcioltJntJJ and. thetefore. consrirutes an unconscious

ness, if not Iht unconscious. I would like to demonstrate
here that (his question of tertiary retemion opens up a
new perspective on political economy and its critique,
and, now more than ever. that it makes a new critique of
political economy the essemial task of philosophy.
Conscious time is woven with what Husserl calls
retentions and proremions.1 Primary retemion is that
which is formed in the very passage of time, as the course
of this rime, such that, as a presem which passl!S, it is

ImToduCliolf
constituted by the immediate and primordial retendon
(the "primary retenrion ") of irs own passing. Becoming
past, (his passage of the present is (hen consticUled
secondary retemion, that is.
(ents

as

as

all those memorial con

[sollvtnirs[ which together form the woven threads

of our memory [mimoire].

Tertiary retemion is a mnemotccnnical exteriori
zation of secondary retentions which arc themselves
engendered

by

primary retemions.

But from the

beginning of that process of hominization [hac Andre

Leroi-Gourhan describes as a process of exterioriza
tion, all technical objects constitute an inrergenerational
support of memory which, a. mnurifll m/tllrt, overdctcr
mines learning

Inpprt'miHngnJ and mnesic activities, To

this extent. therefore. teniary retenoon always already

precedes the constitution of primary and secondary
retention, A newborn child arrives into a world in
which te((iary retention boch precedes and awaits it,
and which. precisely, constitUlCS this world
And

as

as

world.

the spalialization of individual rime becoming

thereby collective time, tertiary retention is an original

exteriorization of the mind

[npri/),

In the course of human history. however, the mne

motechnical retenrionallayer is transformed, increasing in

both complexiry and densiry. It leads in pa((icular, from

the advent of Neolithic sedcntarization, to the formation
9

F O R A NEW CRITIQUE
I

of teniary reremion systems which consritme increasingly

analytical recordings of prim ry and secondary reten

tional Aows or Auxes (/IIIXI-slI Ch systems of writing

ir that .logos is constituted:

and numeration. It is in thi w

as the discretization of the continuous Aow of language

which, spatialized, can rhen be considered analytically,

which then enters ilHo.its diacritical era, and this

is the

point from which. fundamentally and specifically, log!c

proceeds. But this discretization of flows also affects

gestures. The discretization of gesture was given concrete

expression with the application of Jacques de Vaucanson's

automation technology to the Jacquard loom, and became

generalized in the form of (he industrial revolution.

Gesture must here be com:idcred (like speech) as a

rerentional 80w, iliar is, as a

mm:]

cOlll;nuozu chain kncbabu

[apprmtH
i agt'J of a

of gestures, and the learning

craft consists in producing gestural secondary reren

tions, whereas the discretization and the spatialized
reproduction of the time of gestures constitutes techni

cal automation, but where it is no longer the

the souL but rather the gestures of the

logos

of

body that become

analytically rt'prodllcibit' as tertiary retntion. This rero

dudbiliry resultS in (cremional grains that one can call

gramnlt'S. And this is why we posit chat the evolmion of

terriary retemion, from the Neolithic age until our own,

constitutes a process of grammati7.arion.

10

Introduction

In the course of the nineteenth ce::nrury, technologies

for grammati1.ing alldiolJiSllalIrruption appear, through
which the:: Rows of the sensory organs are discre
rized. All noctic, psychomotor and aesthetic functions
then find themselves transformed by grammatization
processes. Considered in terms of political economy,
this amoums to (he facr that it is the functions of
conception, production and consumption which are
grammatize::d-and whih are thereby incorporated inlo
an apparatus devoted (0 the production of tertiary
retentions controlled by mrmionnl sysrcms.!

7h( work ofgrammatization

I would like to show mat:

the question of tertiary retention. engendered as it

is in the course of rhe process of grammatization, is
the condition of rhe proletarianization described by
Marx and Engels in the Communist MnniftsfOi

new forms of grammalizarion, unknown to Marx

and Engds, constitute new forms of prolerariani7..a
tioni

from this perspective, a new critique of political

economy is the task pttr

l'Xcrllrnct' for philosophy.

II

FOR

It.

NEW C R I T I Q U E

This short book proposes a brief exposition o f the con

siderarions which consrirute the basis of such a new
critique of political economy. focused around several
questions. in order to open a debate with Marx, and
on the question of labor and work today-given that
labor. which firs! apars with sedentarization. is always
overdetermined by the 5t'ate of grammatization which is
current at the time. and given that grammatization_is,
at present. undergoing new and literally revolutionary
developments.
lhe essential aspects of this exposition are the
following:

the

qutSrioll 0/ production.

OIL

a moment when we
.

are entering imo a new economic and industrial era

which, faced with the larest developments in gram
matization. poses anew he question of tht

dtfinirioll

of labor:

the

qlltSriol' 0/ consumptioll,

unable to foresee, which

was

and of what Marx was

the way in which con

sumption would be reconfigured in the twentieth

century in an essential relation to desire and to its
economy-in an essemial rdation to what, through
the pathway

to

the imaginary, that is. to fantasy.

and through that to the unconscious. transforms by

binding to the material of the drives;
12

/mrotiucrioIJ

the qJINtioll of tlJl' prolrtorint, of the unde.rsranding

and extension of this concept, of its uses and misuses
in the. Marxist tradition, of its being forgonen, and of
its imml'lur imponallcl' today.

the qurioll ofilldustry and irs inscription in human

becoming.

considered

from

the

perspective

of

grammatizarion;

the QlltJt;Oll of I'xurfla/itit's, such as these arc inces

sandy reconfigured in the course of the: process
of industriali7.ation. insofar as industrialization is a
process of grammatizadon, and in ,heir rdarion to
tr.msindividuation. tbat is, to (011mll'rcr,

the: qucstipn of

social cltum in

the: framework of

new proletarianization, of (be disappearance of what

one calls me bourgedisie---pc:uy, middJe or grand
and the stakes of a becoming.mafia of capitalism.

13

TH REE

Pharmacology of the
proletariat
From commtrct to tht marktt
One hundred and lifty years ago, in January 1859. Man:
published his

Eco1lomy,

Comriblllioll to a NUJ Cr;tiqll ofPolitical

and hence when I argue here for a new cri

tique of political economy. I am also commemorating

this annivcrliary. But. at the same time, I am paying
homage

(0

the journal, lJJ

Nollvtllr Critiqlli', about

which I spoke in September 2008 ar an annual event

sponsored by the nspaper

L 'Hllmanitl, I

describing

the place this journal holds in my personal history as an

adolescent and young militant: it was in the pages of this
Communist Parry publication that for the first clme I
read about psychoanalysis, linguistics, anthropology and
philosophy.
Finally. and above all.
new

critiqui',

in

speaking

today

about a

I am engaging in polemical dialogue

with an intellectual tradition which is very much my

own, emerging from French philosophy in the second
half of lhe lWentielh cenOry. and which. as POSI14

Phl1.rmnco/.Qg offh pro/fllriflt

mucturaHsm-following Barthe:s. author of Criticlll

EsstlJs, and about whom J also heard for the firs! time
in La NOllwll Crifiqllt'--posited thar cririque was a
concept insepardble from metaphysics. that it was to this
extenr itself metaphysical, and that. henceforth, it would
be less a marrC't of"cririquing" than of dcconmucring.
In my own view, deconstruction remains a critique,
and it is as such that it fC'mains invaluable. Bur none
of this is very dear, and J would say that, in a way,
deconstrucrion failed to critique its critique of critique,
failed, that is, to critique the claim that the form taken
by critique has historically been metaphysical. In other
words, it has not clarified what a critique might be wrt
it no longrrfolmdd 011 tl sJlttm ofoppositiolls.

What do I mean when I speak of having to

stttr/

afrsh in the critique of political economy? And firsr

of all, what is political economy? J will nor in faCt give
any kind of detailed answer to this question, which
has in any case already been meticulously explored
.
by Gido Berns. J will restricr myself to pointing our
mar, whereas Berns relates the definition of political
economy given by Ancoine de Monrcbrcsrien in 1 6 1 5
(according t o which it refers

to

an economy surpassing

the domestic sphere of the oi/(os) to the question of com

mrc formulated by Arnould in 1 7 9 1 , in this work here
iris a marter of a political economy w/Jich is

I/O

15

longtr

FOR

A NEW CRITIQUE

$tricr/y ('ommrdal. 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(tlIoirviun. (The difference berween

commerce and the market was recently affirmed and
explored by Franck Aggeri. Olivier Favereau and
Armand Hatchud at a colloquium in Cr:risy.la.Salle
..

L activit! marchal1d SlutS I mllrchP.')2

Philosoph",. "onomy. and ilkology today

In the spring of 2008. tvdyne Grossman invired me to
speak at the Col/}g ;nunlllf;onal d phjlosoph;. and I
suggested speaking on [ht' [ht'me which forms the tide
of the present work, because I

was

convinced that we

were on [he verge of an unprecedented crisis, a crisis

calling liS meh for a
16

nw

critique of political economy-

PI}(lrmnco/ogy oft/ protrffln'af

the specifics of which I analyze in greatcr detail in Pour
('11 finir IlIJt{ /a ",kro;IJItllu: QlIrtqllt'J propos;t;01Jt d'A"
l"dllltdatiJ.J
There

was

also, however. another rcason for spc:a.k.

ing about this subject: I wanted to provoke a discussion

within contemporary philosophy about the Slate of its
political discourse. given that so often, if flot indeed
most of the time, French philosophers from my own
and the preceding gencration have (wirh some notable
exceptions)" no/bing whatsoever to say about the con
temporary economy. as if nothing new had ,tppc:lrcd in
this domain since (he end of the Second World War:
or, again,

as

if [here were a prohibition on any philo

sophical intervention in the field of economics after the

advent of "onomism"-(he economism of rhe infa
mow: "homo .anomicus," since become shameful-an
cconomism which encompasses Marxism (liquidating
-me political"), leading to all those terrible mistakes of
which we are now aware.
I will try here, then,

(Q

open up a conversation with

those who come to us from this twentieth cenrury. Blit

I Would also and above all likC'
(Q invite their readers.
and among rhe laner, those who,
unlike mysdf. arC' still
)'IOung philosophers, and chose who arc not employed

philosophC'cs, but
who study philosophy because
they have made it their 0(;/1111: all (hose who
are nOI
17

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

professional philosophers. but who are lovers

(nmntt'lm)

of philosophy and. as such. friends of wisdom-that is.

who are. as such, true philosophers.
In opening up this exchange. what I waD[ to say
before anything else is the following: the philosophy
of our rime has abandoned (he project of a cririque of
polirical economy. and this consritutcs a disastrous turn
of events. Because if it is true that economism has led
to

horrific ourcomes. neverthelcs. the absence of a cri

rique of raday's economy prepares oTher horrors-and

at rhe same rime leaves the coming generation tragically
unprepared. As for this philosophical abdication in rela
tion to economics-which characterizes the an,icudcs of
so many and which amounts to a renunciation of the
an(':mpr to think their time. and wh.ich is as such a cor
relate of the renunciation by politicians of the notion of
struggling against a Slate of things which undennines
the law-Ihis abdication was brought about by a certain
rdonion to critique. or ramer by a nonrdadon. such
that it leads to a nonrdarion to current economics
often masked by an obsessive relation to philosophical
textS devoted to the economics of the past.
Now. rhis nonrdarion, which has bc:come an occlu
sion if not indeed an outright denial. was nlso produced.
in large part. by the

snmt' promm that led financiers.

industrialists. [echnocrau and politicians to imerior-

18

Pbammcolog;y ofthe proletariat

iu certain JiNiatio1JS IH fimply givm. wlumlS thry are in

"altty IlItsuftahlabk ar/pm: they will. inevitably. reach
theit limits. and it will then become necessaty to submit
these limits to a critique, in the K:mtian sense of this
word. These processes form what used
ology." This ideology
aJ fuch:

is

[0

called"ide

ginning to reappear, this time

it is beginning to appear for what it is, thanks to

a vety brutal revdation of these limits. And yet, when

f.aced with such questions. philosophy remains almost
entirely mutC'.
To think and to critique political economy as com
mmt that has become txclJllugt under the conditions
of an induStrial society-that is, that has submitted
mutation of/abor.

(0

1"0 a

a functionaliz.ation of me processes

of production and consumption. to a resultantfunction.

aliurion of focial

rtlations,

and such that they can no

longer be envisaged without mechanical tcchnology

requires aiming at the examination of both economics
and politics, and spokjng about them insofar as they are
indissociable.5
As for the political discourse of French philosophers,
rhey say practically nothing about economics. They

apeak of immigration, of Europe, or of dcmocrncy. but

they do not speak of capital, nor labor. nor induStry. nor
marketing. As for those who do speak philosophically
about work and labor-an there
arc a few-they are
d
19

FOR" N E W CRITIQUE

both inreresting and important. but they are in general

not philosophers: they 3re sociologists or economists. or
even computer sdendsrs.

7h qustion ofwork
Faced wirh increases in productivity gains due to auto
mation and digitalization. and with the unemployment
[0 which [his gave rise. a major debate rook place at
[he end of the rwcnricrh cenrury on the possibiliry and
necessity of shared work. It was in this comex[ that in
France, the government of Lionel Jospin. under rhe
authority of Minister

of Social Affairs Martine Aubry.

passed a law limiting the working week to thirry-five

hours.
This law was inspired by research published in 1995.
both by Jeremy Rifkin in the United States (the French
translation of this work was prefaced by Michel Rocard)6
and by Dominique Meda in France? influenced in
rurn by the research of Andre Con., in particular his
work, Mttamorp"oss du travail: Critiqllt d In raison

tcoflomiqu.8 More recendy. afrer rhe election of Jacques

Chimc in 2002, questions were taised, in the first place
by the Minister of Culture Jean-Jacques Aillagon, about
the role of Unedic {the French unemploymenr welfare
20

Pharmacology ofth proletariat

agency). and about the laws determining the condi

tions under which occasional and casual workers in the
theatre and cinema

[intermitteflts

dll

spcttlC/l

could

qualify for unemployment benefits. This in rurn led

Antonella Corsani and Mauri7.io Lauarato again to
address the question of work.')
During this same period. new work practices appeared
in the wake of digital and reticulated technologies. with
respect to which innovative discourses developed in
France and elsewhere. discourses which invite us to
revisit the definition of work in its relation to what I
describe as a

makon,

that

phnmldkoJl and as an hypomncsic phar

is, as a teclmology of tlu spirit which, as
-

tertiary retention, can JUSt as well

lead

to [he proletari

anization of the life of the mind as it can ro irs critical

intensification, when it finds itself confronted with what
McKen7.ie Wark calls "abstraction."IO These new work
practices have brought profoundly into question the
way in which work is distributed in the productivist and
consumerisr industrial epochs, questions which have
frequencly been raised by the journal Multitlldes, and
by the director of this journal, Yann Moulier-Boucang,
opening the question of an economy of contribution
and reinvigorating the question of property.
It was in this comext that an imporranr proposal
resurfaced, from Rifkin to Lazzarato, a proposal first

21

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

suggested by Mihan Friedman. and one mat. when it

recurs during the global crisis, does so with renewed
force: the idea of implementing a negative tax allowing
the remuneration of non-salaried work. Corsani and
Lazzarato, furthermore, show that the benefits regime
in place for French occasional and casual theatrical
and cinematic workers is a case of just such a negative
taxation system.
But wirh this proposition, just as with all those
new work practices invented by those whom Pekka
Himanem11 and McKenzie Wark call "hackers," the
question of

UJork tim o/{t5id of employmmt

is posed

with renewed vigour, having been tOlally ignored by

me law reducing the working week to thirty-flve hours,

JUSt as it ignored the exhaustion of the consumerist
industrial model, a model within which production and
consumption constitute a functional opposition, but
one mar has now become obsolete.1l
Today. as we undergo a global economic crisis of
unusual violence, one that seems to constitute the end
of a long cycle that is at once industrial and economic, l}
can we keep posing the question of work in the same
terms? Does the shake-up of the consumerist model
thar has taken place not profoundly alter the stakes and
even [he definition of work, given that the latter was
essentially conceived, over the preceding century, in

22

PbflmlllCO/ogy oft/u pro/etflriat

accordance with an industrial model resting on the cou

pling of production and consumption, and given that it
is precisely this funcdonal pair that now seems to have
exhausted irself?14 This is precisely the question raised by
me research of Corsani and Lazzarato, considered from
the standpoint of the current crisis and of its destructive
effecrs on the classical forms of work.

J908-2008: the ,e.dentialfoil ofthe rate of

profit and the consumerist response
The indusrrial capitalism of the producrivisr ninereenrh

century, founded on me steam engine and on the

iron rails of railway networks, gives way in the twen
tieth century to a consumerist model founded on
the steel industry, the petrochemical industry, and on
road networks. One hundred and fifty years after the
Contribution to a Crhiqu ofPolitical Economy, however,
the productivisr and consumerist industrial model,
having become global, has in fact di5inugraud, alld bas
tWne 50 to the precise extent that it has consisted in the
economic and functional integration of production and
consumption.
If in 1908, with the launch of the Model T, Henry
Ford invented a new industrial model which appeared
23

F O R A NEW CRITIQUE

(Q

counter the effects of the tendency of the:' rate of

profit

(Q

fall,l5 nevertheless in the course of 2008 the

Ford Motor Company managed [0 lose mree quarters of

its value-while at the same time the road networks of
carbontime ::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(CriaI.16 These qu/,.'Srions h::ave received detailed
analysis in Pour tilfillir flllt( fa microhIflnct'.17
It is in this context of lighHime (dominated by the
issues of aCCeSS to elcctronic nct\vorks and of digital
::automation) that Jercmy Rifkin proposes the following
hypothesis:
Perhaps as lirde as 5 percent of the adult population will

be neroed (Q manage and operate the traditional indumial

sphere by the year 2050.18
Why is it that Rifkin and others who reflect on the ques
tion of work fail to analyze the relation be{Ween what
(hey call the "end of work" and the tendential fall in the
rate of profit, and why is it that, after 1968 and above
all after the 1980s (that is. after the "conservative revolu
tion"). it was so frequently proclaimed that Marx was
mistaken when he formulated this thesis?
Marx and Engels predictcd that capitalism, or what
24

Pb"rmncolog, oftb pro /tarint

one calls the market economy. would r:l.pidly reach ill
limit as the role of labor-that is. variable capital
diminishes due

gl obal

productivity gains achieved in the

economy of production. Now, those: concerned

in me 1 990s with the question of work agrttd that

productivity gains would inevitably lead to an "end of
work," bur seemed also

(0

share the idea, widely held in

the wake of the "conserv:nivc revoludon" and the ideo

logical domination of nco-liberalism, that the capitalist
dynamic had owrrom the rendential fall in the rate of
profie.
Nothing could be more False, and Marx was in faCt
far from mistaken. The recent crisis is, very simply pur, a
constqutnCt of this l]Jumic tendency. Marx could no('
however, have anticipated ml.": role of [he exploitation
and functionalization of a ni!W mrgy. 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

a who/i!, to the point where the

former is destroyed JUSt like the latter, and the former by

the latter.
25

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

In other words, Marx

was un a ble

ro amicipate the

way in which the question of consumption arises in the

rwemierh cemury. and [he way in which rhis transforms
the landscape which Marx tried ro describe in

(Apital.

Marx did, of course, address rhe issue of consumption.

and he did so frequently. Consider, for example, the
following passage from

Contribution /0

tlu

Critiqllt of

Politi((l/ Ecollomy (1859):

Consumption is simultnneously also production. juS! as
in nature rhe production of a plant involvt$ the consump
tion of demcnral forces and chemical materials. [ .

. .1

But

the same applics to any other lUnd of consumption which

[. . .J contributes to the production of some ;1!;pect of man.

Neverthel, says political economy. chis type of produc
don that is identical with consumption is a second ph

arising from the dcstruaion of [he first product. In me

first rype of production (he producer assumes

an

objec

tive aspecl, in the second rype the objectS created by him

assume a personal aspect. I'

And especially:
H unger is hun ger; but the hunger

rhat

is

satisfied by

cooked meat eaten with fork and knife differs from hunger
t hat

devou rs raw mt;u

26

I.

. .J

Production thus produces

PlJarmaco/lJi:f ofIIJ pro//arinJ

nOI only Ihe objecl of consumplion bUI 31so Ihe mode of

consumption.to

Marx here underlincs In a certain way the question

of ,d",io1lJ of (olUumpt ioll-which poses the question
of whal I will describe in what follows

as

prousscs of

""IIsilid;"Muadoll.
And yet, this qucstion of consumption will not
enable him

(0

think ,he ncUJ form of prottnrial1iZllfioll

consisting in the organization of (01lJllmptioll

IIJ

Ib

dntmcri(1II ofSIl/loir/J;lIr witb thr aim of(Wllillg nJIfli/

ablt pllrchasing powtr, thereby refining and reinforcing
that system which rested on rhe dml'llctioll of SIlIlO;""

foirt witiJ tht aim 4crtating availnblt laborforct. It dlXS

not enable him. in other words, to anticipate what,
in the twentie-th ce-ntury, in the form of the capiralist
libidinal economy, will make possible the dtft""l ofblll

also Ibt IlggrllVlllilJ1I of ,bt tjficts oj lIlt lt11dt11lilllfatl ill

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

extends

the

concept

of

prolet2rianizarion

the expropriation of human rime submined to

commodiry.time-to the figure of rhe consume-r.21

as

De-bord was unable. however, to connect this change

in the capimlisr system to the plJllrmllcotogicat qucstion
..
of the eXleriori7
1tion techniques discuss(.-d below.
27

F O R A NEW CRIT1 QUE

It is only possible to come to grips with [his question

by way of Freud and the uses which marketing made
of his theory of the unconscious-in panicular those
instigated by his nephew. Edward Bcrnays. who played
an essencial role in the history of American capitalism.
as shown by Adam Curtis in his 2002 documenrary,

7",

Cmtllry oftil, S'/f. Before returning to this poi!\(

which has been unerly neglected by those concerned

.
with the question of wurk, in spit'e of the f 1cr that
productivism and consumerism arc inseparable-we
muSt first proceed more profoundly imo the question
of rhe essence of that process of proletarianization
through which. according to Marx and Engds, labor
undergoes radical change, but a process which is also. in
my opinion, rhe condition of possibility of consumer

ism insofar as this emails the prolemrianizaion of me

consumer.
Now, as surprising as it may seem, it is necess.1fY at
[his poi!\( to return to the very origin of philosophy,
and to its struggle against sophistry, in order to propose
that rhe first thinker of the proletariat, who thinks the
proletariat without knowing that he does so, if I may
put it this way. bur who thereby grams liS the possibility
of thinking the proletariat, is Plato.

28

Pharmac%t;Y oflh p/'o/larial

plato and the prolttariat

Jacques Derrida. in "PlalO's Pharmacy,"ll developed
a large parr of his projecl of the deconstruction of

Phadrus, by
showing how this dialoguc opposes philosophical allam
metaphysics on Ihe basis of his reading of

ntsis (that is. rhe remembrance of the truth of being)

sophistic

to

hJPo1J/llsis

and in particular

t'O

(rhal is. to mncmorechnics,

writing as a fabricator of illusion

and a technique for rhe manipulation of minds), and

by showing Ihat it is impossiblaccording

lO

what

Dcrrida describes in Of Granmullolor:l as a logic of thaI

supplemem which is the trace-to oppoJt' me interior
(anamntsis) and the exterior (hypomntsis): it is impos

living memory to the tUad memory of

hypomn matoll, which the final Foucault will find

sible to oppose
the

so intereSling and which

COllJtitum

living memory as

learned [saVllnuJ. This impossibility opens the pharma

cological qllmioll, according to which the hypomnesic is
a phanna/toll: at once poison and remedy.
Now, what Socrates describes in Ph adl1/s namely
,

mar the (XUriOriznl;OIt of IfItlllOry

and ImolUltdg,

is

a loss

of lIImory

has today become the stuff of everyday

experience in all aspects of our existcnce, and, morc and

more often, in the feeling of our powerlessness [impllis
Janul, if not of our impoullct limpotencel, indeed of
29

!' O R A N E W C R I T I Q U E

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

ordinary ","s;{,powt'rofdigital networks makes us aware
of the immensity of hum:ln memory. which appears to

have become infinitely recoverable and accessible.

The spread of industrial hypomnesic apparn[Uses
causes our memories

pass into machines, in such a

way that. for example. we no longer know the telephone

numbers of those dose to us-while [he spread of spell
checkers c:mses fear of the end of orrbogrtlpbic COIIJciOIlS

IItSS and of the literary hypolllncsic knowledge (hat goes

with it and. milb Ibm. the anamncsic knowledge (If
language.
Now, rhis amouIHs to rhe everyday and perceptible
aspecr of what I would like

to

presem here as a vast

process of cogl1;riw Ilnd affmiw probillrillniution-and

a vast process of the loss of knowledge(s):

Jiluo;r-u;ur. theoretical knowledge

Ib nbsmct ofwhich nil Jilvor is 10Sl.

sauoir-foir.
(.JIluo;r rhioriU'Ti. ill

When o;urioriwtioll. which plays a major role in

Gmllllll

Idolbgy. and which is the

roor

Tb

of the techni

cal question. lhar is. the question of this production

of self by self in which the human consists. reaches the
stage when= the exteriorization of memory and knowl
edge becomes hypcrindustrial. then it is at once what
eXlends witham limit the power of hJPoml1sic mililIs,
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 mnotcchnics 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-OdipllS:

The prim it iv e terrilOrial machine codes flows. inn'sls

organs. an d marks bodies. [ .

J ITJhe man who

. .

enjoys

the full exercise of his rights and duties has his whole

body ma rked under a regime that consigns his organs a nd

th eir exercise

10

the collectivity [ .

. .

J. For

act-that the organs hc hewn into the

it is a f oundi ng

socius. and that

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

to be a bio logiC31 organism and hecomes a rull body. an
earth, to which his org.1ns become attached. where t hey

are attracted. repelled. miraculated. following me require

ments of a so cius . NietzSChe says: it is a matter of creating

a memory for man; and

man, who was consrimred by

means of an active fitculty of forgetting

(oublt), by means

of a repression of biological memory. must create an ot!r

memory. one that is collccti v e [... J. uPcrbaps indeed

there was nOlhing more fearful and unC3nny in ,he whole

preh iStory ofman fhan his mllmolIJ/liCJ.13
Now, with the industrial revolution. the process of
grammarizarion constituring [he history of mnemotech
nia; slfddmly Stlrpnsm tlJt sphtr oflBnguagt. that is, also,
the sph ere of logos. with which it is placed by Deleuze

32

PlllfnlllolC ioK'l of,hI' prolt!,,,ritrr

and Guanari in an essential and original rdation:14
the process of grammalization invests bodies. And in the
first place, it discrcrizes the gt!shlrn of producers with
(he aim of making possible meir aurom(uic
tioll-while

"prot/tit'

at [he very same moment (hert also appear

those machines and apparatuses for reproducing the

visible and the audible mal so caught the ancmion of
Walter Benjamin. machines and appamtUliCS which
grammatized perception and, through lhat, the affectivc
acriviry of the nervous system.
The grammati13tion of gesture, which was rhe basis of
what Marx described as prolerariani7..ation, that is,

a.

loss

0/sltvoir-ji,irt, i. then pursued with the development of

electronic and digital devices

to

the point that all forms

of knowledge become grammarized via cognitive and

cultural mnemmechnologies. This will include the way
in which linguistic knowledge bttomes the technologies
and industries of automated language processing, but iI
will also include uwoir-vivrt. that is. behavior in general,
from user profiling ro the grammarization of affms-all
of which will lead roward the "cognitive" and "culcurar
capitalism of the hyperinduStrial st!rv;("t economies.
Grammarization is (he history of the exterioriza
tion of memory in all its forms: nervous and cerebral
memory. corporeal and muscular memory, biogenetic
memory. When technologically exteriorized. memory
33

FOR A N E W CRtTiQUE

can become the object of sociopolitical and biopolitical

concrols through the economic investments of social
organizalions, which Ihereby IYn"nflg plJCh;c orgnn;
Ull;Of/S through the imermediary of mnemotechnical
organs, among which must be COUnted machinerools
(Adam Smith anal)'7.cd as orly as 1776 the effects of the
machine on the mind of the worker) and all auromata
including household appliances, as well as the "inrernet
of things" and the communicating devices that would
soon invade the hyperindusrrial market, and which are

hypomfltJ;c obj(ClJ through which what Scott Lash and

Celia Lury have described as t!J;ngijication1S rakes a new
turn.11i
This is why the (hinking of grammarization calls for
a gtnmll organology, that is, a theory of (hC' articula
tion of bodily organs (brain, hand, eyes, rouch, tongue.
gC'nital organs, viscC'ra, nC'uro--vegerative system, etc.).
aniflcial organs (Iools. instrumems and technical sup-
pons of grammadzation) and social organs (human
groupings, such

as

families, clans, or C'thniciries, politi

cal institutions and societies, businesses and economic

organitarions, imernarional organizarions. and social
systems in general, rC'gardless of the extem to which
they are or arc: nOI deIerrirorialized. and whether they be
juridical,linguistic. religious, polirical, fiscal, economic.
et(.).27
34

Pb,m11llColoD oftb proluariat

If in toe hyperindusrri al
tion po in

PIJfldrus

era

we rcopen the ques

concerning the hypomnesic

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

political organoloD,
a(1/btic orgal/ology),

of general organology (founding a

an

"onomie orgmtology,

and an

we discover rhat [he Platonic question of hypomncsis

constirute'S the First version of a thinking of proletariani
ution, insofar

as

it is true rnat the proletariat arc those

economic actors who are without knowledge because

they are without memory: their memory has passed into
the machine rhat reproduces gestures th:at the prole
rariat no longer needs

(0

know - they must simply serve

the reproductive machine and thus. once again, they

become serfs.
Examining tbe question of technical memory raday

ropmil/g tb qlltion of bJpomll!iJ Itot (mly

tIS tlu qumion of th pro/tarjar, bUl also as a process
of grammatization in which it is conSllmrs who ar
hmforth dprilltd of mm/OT] alld Imowldg by (h
smdc indu!tri nnd thir npparnNlS!. We shall see how
means

this produces short-circuits in the transindividuation

process. Examining the qu e stion of technical memory
today means investigating the Stage of

lnarianization
technologies.

gt1ltraliud pro

induced by the spre:ad of hypomnesic

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

35

F O R A N E W CRI1'IQU

only on the condition th:u twO sllpplement2ry conclu

sions arc d rawn :

Man; himself fu ils to thi nk (he hypomnesic character

of technics and human existence, which accounts

for (he f':lct that he is unable to think human life

35

(X istcnce and hence for the fact that, like PhHO. he

-

continues to opposr the dead and rhe livin g

111e

iI/Hug/mIl struggle

of

philosophy

ag:1inst

sophistic around Ihis q ues tion of memory and irs

technicization is Ihe heart of tim poliri cal st rug

gle which p hi loso p hy was from the very beginning.
Hence the reevaluation of the place of hypom nes is

in PlatO,

as well

as rhe deconsrruction of rhe Plaronic

account of hypomncsis which Derrida propou:d,

must constitute the basis of a renewed project of

a critique of political economy by philosophy, a

cririque hI wln'rlJ rdmiN bom lIN cnlfrnl slnlu.
and in which is posed the Ihrfold question of

an

organology, a pharmacology and a therapeutic-it i s

therefore the q ue st ion of a sociotherapy,18 which is
what political economy is, and of which grammatiza

tion is the dynamic p rocess

36

Phnmmc%D ofrh pro/tflrifll

Pro/ttlritlniZlltion tIS loss ofknOlQ/dg
Th proletarian. we read in Gilbert Simondon, is a disin

d if}iduflld 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
machinetool 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 coindividuated. He
does not ex-iSt.
This dissociation is in reality a rupture in (he trllllSi,,

dividun/ fabric which conJtitulN (ht /abor t1lIJ;rOllmtlJl.

as

it does all rymbo/ic milieus, given that work is dearly

Qiso one such symbolic milieu. In the milieu of associated

work. the workers. through their work, fushion an expcri.
ence in which they C!use their milieu to evolve-their
tools, for example, or the way in which they arc used. nOI
37

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

to mcmion, ofcou, the products of their use. They opm

101illmltl Ihis milieu of which they arc the workers

(olil/rim!. Proletarianiz:nion is that which excludes this
lip

panicipation of the producer from the evolution of the

conditions of production. and through which he works.
In other words. proletarianization is a p rocess of
losing knowledge-that is. also. 3 loss of savor and
of existence-which is engendered by grammatization
insoF.:tr 3S it shorrcircuits the processes of transindi
viduatiol1 through which. by becoming individuated
through work, that is. though learning something. the
worker individuates the milieu of their work. It is just
such a shorr-circuit which constitutes the stakes of [h31
loss of knowledge by which Marx 3nd Engels defined
proletarianization in the

Communist Manifosro of 1848:

The less the skill and !!Xenian of strength implied in

manual labor. in other words. the more modem indusuy
bcrom developed, the more is the labor of men super

seded by thaI ofwomen. Differences ofage and sa have no

longer an)' distinctive social validity (or the working c1:w.
All are instr ume nts orJabar. more or less expensive to

usc,

acco rd ing to their age and sex.29

'This expense is what Marx and Engels call labor power.
which is. then, no longer a knowledge bur becomes
38

Pharmacology ofth pro/tariat

instead a commodity. From a beatcr of [Ools and a prac
tilioner of insrrum('nrs. the worker has himself b(:come
a tool and 3n instrumem in the service of a raol-bearing
machin('. Now, as was precisely indicated by Mane and
Engels. this is the F.ue of all producers. and not only of
workers:
The lower strata of the middle class-the small trades
people. shopkeepers. and ("('tired tradesmen genernll)'. the
handicrnfumen and pcas.1I1rs-all the5(' sink grnduaJly into
the prolctariat [.

.J. Thus the p roletari31 is recruilcd from

all classes of thc population.j(I

Certainly, in (he

Gru.ndriJs

and

Mllnijf!lO as in
in Capital. the

the

Comribuliofl. the:

proletariat is always

prtSem('d as being comprised precisely of the working

class. But that this is so is due ro a stale of historical

fact. tied to

an

arcbair sta (archaic in all senses of

the term) of th(' developmcm of capitalism and indus

try. tbat is, of gmmmatizntioll. and which is destint"d
to evolve appteciably by bringing ioro the process
of proierarianization all those whose knowledge is
absorbed by hypomnesic procc.'Sscs consisting not only
in machines. but in apparatuses, expert systems. serv
ices, n('(Works, and technological objeCts and systems
of all kinds.
39

FOR A N E W CRITIQUE

Pro/tarianjZlltion and pharmacology

Th proletariat

is

nOI the working class. All of Marxism

has misinterpreted Marx in confusing the two. A typical

case can be found. for example. in Jacques Ranciere's

7b Nigbts ofLobor: 7b Workm' Drrnm in 191" Cmtllry

Frnnc}1 But 011 the other hand, :tnd above all, gram
matization. by allowing the harnessing ImpwiollJ of
the attention of consumers and. through that, the har
nessing of their libidinal energy, made equally possible
their prolerariani7..:Ltion, by destroying their Sttvoir-lJilJr,
and not only their

SlllJoirfairt,

This prolemrianization

of consumers is what made iT possible-by opening lip

mass markeu enabling resistance against the {enclen
rial full of the rate of profit-to confr
upon consumers, to accord them
renewal of their

buying powtr

mort than simply the

labor powtr, and to

fundamenrally and

prncticnlly weaken me Marxist meory of class struggl e.

The problem is that the surplus that has by necessity
been redistributed to proletarianized producers who
have become consumers led, toward me end of the
twentieth century, to the desrrunion of their libidi
nal energy and

10

irs decomposition into drives-rhe

result of what Herbert Marcuse called "desublimacion."

We must therefore engage in a cririque of libidinal
economy:

40

(/ IIfW

critiqut ofpolitical tcollomy ;s 1ItctJSltry,

PbannacollJgy oftb pro/rnrillf

lind it mUlt IIlso comtitttu a pbarmacological "itiqtl of
libidillal rollomJ.
Frc:udian theory will only allow rhc:sc questions to be
advanced to the e:Xte:nt mat h, roo, is confronted with
the: question of the:

plmnnailon

that is the fe:rish, and

with the: question of grammarization such

as

it trans

forms fe:tishism-which takes place: through an analysis

of the: role of bypo mlltmarn32 in the history of desire
and sublimation, the transitional object being a kind
of proto-hypomJltmllfoll and proto-fetish,JJ while con
tcmpornry hypomnesic objects arc

b JPo mllt'wfltfl

that

henceforth link networks together.

1he proletarianization of the consumer is an epoch of
libidinal economy, and a crucial task of

the new critique

of political economy is to construct a

gmtaltJgy of

this

economy. which is a pharmacology the: ge:nesis of whkh

is indissociable: from

organological

be:coming

and

grammarizadon. Now, this pharmacology raises rhe

tTImsilldividltllfion insofar as it clln prodltc

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

question of

What Plato calls Illlamllcis is hence founded on a

dialectic, and this is a

dia-Iogicll!

commtrct' through

which, in interlocution, lhat is, in a "dialogism that I

also understand in Bakhtin's sense of the rerm,J4 long

circuiu of rr:msindividuation are formed, which tend
41

F O R A N E W CRITIQUE

to be short-circuited by the poisonous uses to which lhe

sophists put this literal

pbarmalton.

More generally. if [he grammatizmion of perception

and of the nervous system-insofar as it is the seat of the'
afft.'Cts--c211 lead (0 the' prole'rarianization of consumers,

sa/loir-lii/lr,

thai is, deslroy Iheir

as

wdl

as

rhe savors

which thL'Se am of living can procure, this is because

libidin:tl economy in general conStitutes circuits of desire
whhin a process of transindividuation through which
libidinal energy is formed and accumulated, but this is
also a process in which gramm:ui1.:ttion may either:

flrCl/lllldtltt libidinal
tlltrgy by illttllSifying indiIJidulltion, and give ObjCCLS

create long circuits. that is.

of desire to the individual [hat infinirize his or her

individuation (Simondon shows that individuation is
structurally unachievable 2nd in lhis

sense

infinite),

because these objects Cln only be given I1S infinite and

incommensurable; or

provoke shon-circuits. that is, disindividuation. and

consequently desublill1atiol1, (hat is. the co",mt'lJlIrtl
bitjill;,iZltt;OIl

ofnllrMugs,

leading to rhe' de'muction

of libidinal e'nergy.
Grammati7.:ttion is

;mdllribly

pharmacological, and

bypomlltlllllla can .he'tefore either:

42

Pbllnllllc%D oftb, pro/t!tnn'(u

proletarianize the pSJc/" which it alfecls; or

individuate rhis PSJellt! by inscribing iI wilhin rhe

lItW circuit of rransindividuarion that it conneclS up.

and through which long circuits an= rormed. lied

10

what Plato apprehended as an nl1aml1Nu-which is a

circuit giving access to a truth founded on the projcc
lion or an idea, thar is. or a consistence: or an object
which does not exisi. because it docs not have any
roundation in the subsistences which constitute the
order or the commensurable. but which is tI" wry

objt ofdnirt imojilr I1f it collsists illt:olllllltnfllmbly,

It is rhis type or circuit grounding

tommerce tim

the shoncircuit replaces. through a marker on which

nothing

remains

except

commensurabilities

(ror

example, labor power without lalJOirjniTt, rorming a

buying power without SI1voirvhJTt)-rhis is a marlw of

fools (dupes], For in rhe final analysis, this marker is not

a market, And this is sol11eming which Socrates already
noted, Contra Gorgias.
Nevenhdess, an economy or pbarmaka is a thetapeu.
tic that does not resuh in a hypostasis opposing poison
and remedy: rhe economy or the pbanl/alton is a composi.

tioll of tendencies, and not a dialectical struggle between

0ppoJirrs.J5 The concrete expression or this composition
consim in arr.mgcmenu or the three Ic\'ds or general
43

FOil A N E W CIlITIQUE

organology. such thaI these constirure a IJltnn of rtlrt:

individualion at the:: pharmacological lcvd (technical
individualion) trnnsdllcrivdy inte::nsifies rhe individua
rion of lite:: other two levds (psychic individuation and
collcclive:: individualion).
On the:: other hand. ;\

diJrollomyJ6

of pbnnllnkn is

what results from the appearance:: of any new phnrmnkoll

insofar as it shoncircuits Ihe other (WO levels-and
this is occurring today with Ihe tcchnologies of "social
networking,"J7 for which no political economy and no
system of care is prescribed by :my public :lUrhority; or,
again. it is what occurs in tlte course of the synaptogen
esis of the infltnrilc cerebral organ when rhe audiovisual
shorf.Circuils the U1l1lsitional object. the infantile:: psychic
apparatus being thereby prole::rarianized.J8

44

fQUIl.

To work

The proletarianization ofthe nervous system.

systmIic stupidity, and new commerce
The mort' the place of producers shrinks. the more must
markers and the number of consumers be enlarged.
automation ceaselessly widening the held of prole.
tariani7.arion while diminishing the role of labor-that
is, of vari'lblc capital.

Trading

has itself been

auto

mated. Engineers have themselves bn proletarianized.

The engineer who conceived.

develod, installed.

and managed a system has disappeared. Today there

are "processes," where more and more !J)pOmlll'lnafa
intervene' to short-circuit psychic individuals at every
level.
Within these processes. it is the labor powe'r of the
nervous sysrem that is being ever more proletarian.
iud, and the'

prolullrillll! of Ih

l1(rvoUJ

rysrrm arc no

less deprived of knowledge chan are the prolrfllrinflJ of

,hr muscular SJsum. The knowledge of which they have
been stripped. however. is not that of

Jlwoir.jairr.
45

it

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

is IJNoutiml knowledge-rhal is, knowledge which is

noelie in actuality. A psychopower then devdops lhal
controls consumers (in which c it is a maner of chan
neling Ihe libido) as wdl as producers al/d digl1m.
whose nervous energy must be pbced into the service of
"technical enscmbk-s," as Simondon calls them.
We thus havc purt coglliri!Jl' Inbor fHJlMT Jma/y dtIJ(Jid
ofImowlt'dgt: with cognitive technologies. it is the cog
nitive itself which has been proletarianizcd.1 In rhis
consists. then. cognidve capitalism. also known as "crca
tive" or "immaterial" capitalism. And this is concretely
expressed in thc fuCI that rht cogl1itilJ( has b" uduudto
mlclllability-Iogos has become. pharmacologically and
economiC2.lly. rntio.l
If skilled professions [mirim] do in facr still remain,
vcry few are connectc,d with that type of production
that is called "c[ive." and most of the time such
jobs arc not really creative, For to be creative-that
is. to

work [ofUVrtr-ro work on something. ro open

Up:1 work]-is to produce negcnlropy. But those who

arc called "creative workers" roday

are

in fact merely

creatOrs of that kind of"valuc" which is capable ofbeing

fvaillflud 011 tiN marki'l. like press officers or public rda
rions officials who work toward rhc t'tItropic adaptation
of the systcm. but who do nor creatc any works or opcn
up any work
46

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

To work

{omvm-l always means

(0

work witb tbe i"cnlc'llab

that is, to work with [hat infinity of the desir.tble which

means that a process of individuation is consdnued

tbrough irs ul/ncbit!tl(lbi/iry.

Such is [he reality of what Mauri7.io l...:tuara(O calls
..the cooperation berween brains."J

;.IS

if is produced

through grammatizarion systems which make possible

the proletariani7..ation of all those (asks conducted

:11

the highest levels of nervous system activity. -Ihis resulrs

in the formation of a sysumir stupMiry. making pos
sible among other things AJan Greenspan's attempt

10

explain before the: House of Rcprcsematives how he

could in all sincerity have led the world
catastrophe, as well as

to

the brink of

the: crctinization of those "finan

cial elites" who discovered they'd bee-n rolli by Bernard

Madoff: the elites have themselves been proletarianized,
mat is. dt!priwd of Imowlt!dge of ,htir

thtir oam logic

OWII

logic IIlId by

a logic reduced to a calculation without

remainder and leading as well to a market of fools.

Why and how can, however. researchers such as Yann
Moulier-Boutang or Mauririo l...aztzan. O nevertheless
perceive in this cerebral or cognitive capitaIism4 an
element of novelry opening OntO some kind of alrer
native? My thesis (if not
y

theirs) is that here, rhar is,

with whar has also been called mi(ll/nud cllpitllliJIII,

where the pbnmlnkofl constitutes a collaborative and
47

fOR

A N E W C R I T I QUE

dialogical milieu. a genuine murntion of gr3mmatization

has occurred; digital reticulation. whereby cogniriv...
acdvities are themsdves proletarianized. constitutes a
rupturt through which

assoriaud milius 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 poletarianization of me nervous system.

is

also what introduces the possibility of a new regime

of psychic and collective individuation and. with it,

the possibility of a new process of transindividua
tion opening OntO an unprecedented politico-economic
perspective: an economy of contribution.
If dissociation results from short-circuits in transin
dividu:uion made possible by rh... phannalton emerging
from that process of grammatizarion in which. in the
epoch of reticulatc..-d capitalism. cognitive technologies
and digitali7.cd cuhural technologies are formed. then

48

To work

the formarion of an associl1ud SodOlu/miml milit'u is

the alternative to (his poisonous becoming of gram
math,adon. Such an alternative prcsupposl..'S. however. a
veritable revolurion of rhe dominant induStrial modd
which may fall short of an ovmhrow Irt'lIIlt'l1t'mm/l of
capitalism, but which would certainly be a rrllOllItiofl of
capitalism.
The question of association and dissociation is also
the question of the formation of wh:\I in l.."Conomics
are called "externalities." When Yann Moulicr-Boutang
takes up the metphor of pollination,1 wh;tt he is
describing is tied to the formation of digital reticll
lation and constitutes a mutation in the process of
grammarization, and engenders a POSifillt' p/JIlnlJlU'o
logical

t'Xtt'nllity.
l1

an associated sociorechn.ical milieu

in which struggles are waged against the dfcccs of the

spread of dissociated milieus, that is, prolerarianized
mi1ieus those engendering on rhe contrary tbe spread
of negative externalities and pharmacological toxicity,S
that is, a generalized environmenral destruction affect
ing not only the natural and geophysical environment
but equally the mental and psychosocial milieus

as

well.
Th associated

sociorechnological

milieu

allows

struggles to be waged against Ihl'Sc environmental

destructions brought about by the "vcclOrialim" and
49

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

opens a field of industrial and commercial reladons

which nullifies the producer/consumer opposition. and
which as such breaks prccisc=ly with the desuuction of
commerce by the market: it consrirutes a

lUlU commru,

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 IhmfplItir 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

(hopolr 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
theraUlic-given that to economize means before
anything else
politically.

50

(0

rake care.IO domcstically as well

as

To //Jork
Odum and positive externalities: illtermittence
Within rhe associated sociOIechnical milieu. the func
tional opposition berween production and consumption
has become obsolete. and externalities must be eco
nomically mlrivaud and valorized, even though. like
values. Ihey cannol be reduced

[0

the calculability of the

economic indicators of a markel economy: they require

a new conception of economic value. and of hs mtllSllrt
mtllt.

such that it is nOI reducible

ru

ca/etl/mion. 111is

culturt is a libidi nal as well as a commercial economy,

which requires new mutualization mechanisms, a new
form of governmenral power. and new objects of public
propeny.
In this regard. me rwo works by Maurizio Lazzarato
in which he analyzes the stakes of the muwe waged by
the inlrmittent performing am workers [inunnitttllts
ill spracltl to maintain their stams (which had in June
2003 been called imo question by the French govern
mem, who were pressured to do

so

by employers), have

an imponance extending beyond the field of the arris

tic professions. Following me publication of a survey
conducted in collaboration with the "Coordination
des irnerminems et Precaires," Amondla Corsani and
Maurizio Lazzararo start::

51

fOR A NEW C R I T I Q U E

. . . the struggle against Ihe reform of Ihe modd for

unemployment benefits is in reality a struggle whose
sl'akes arc those of the usc of time. To the injunction to

increase the amouflI of time spent in employmcnt [which

is Ihe employers' prcscription mOliv.uing the calling into
question of the StalUS of inu:rmincnlSj , Ihal is, the lime
of onc's lifc spent cmplo)' on the job. fhc experience

of intermim:net opposed Ihe plumBry of employmem

times. 11

'(be queslion of rime spent working cannol be reduced,

in other words.

10

the question of time in employment.

and

to speak seriously aboUi increasing or reducing time

spent working me:lns t3king into 3CCOUnt the tmaliry of

these V3rious u:mporalilics. L!

The:: French Jaw rc=dudng th e working we::e::k

[Q

thirty.

five:: hours complerely ignores this question. One rtsu!!

of (his bw was an incre in the time devote::d to can
sumplion, as Rifkin unde::rlined as c=arly as 20061J--but
rhe::re was no incre::asc in the amoum of rime Spclll
working in orher ways. ways lying outside the scope of

employment lime. 1hese other efforts. beyond the time

of employmcnr. belong within rhe realm of whal the
52

To work

Romans cultivated as otirl111, a word which JeanMarie

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 l1egolillf1/. 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 "beingonly.ininrermirrence." behaving most (If the
time: on the conrrary like a sensitive or even a vegcmlivc:
soul. {hat the "inrerminenu" (the occasional workers in
theatre. film and television) ceaselessly oscillate berween
on the one hand the calculable employment of their
noetic knowledge. this knowledge then being remuner
aled. that is. tTlldl'd [negocieJ. and on the orher hand
the actual development of this knowledge. And it is
this noeridty thai rhe desrruction of intermittence (of
the "intermirrenrs") then eliminates and prolerarianizes.
mat is. instrumentalizes-in order to profit the culture
industries.
The time of the passage to the noeric act is that of
otium, which does nOt at all mean idle time, yet d()(s
mean the time of leisure. that is. of freedom and of
53

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

"care of the sc:lf."

inscribed in

3.

Ot;lIl1I, from a n economic perspective

general economy (in [he sense in which

Georges Baiaille deploys Ihis term)-for which it would

be an epoch tied to 3. particular development of "ypom

lImntll, thaI is, an epoch ofgrammatization. supponjng

techniques of the sdf(as shown by Foucault}-and for a
poliliC31 economy inscribed within a libidinal economy
cncomp:tSSing it, constitutes an xumnliry opening tlJi'

spnct oflmmnlJ f01ll1lt'l ra iT/sofn r ns il is II proft'S! ofpsychic

nlld col/uliut' illdillidUlUioll ill which long drellits of
trlmsindiuidllfllioll art' flmud. Nt'g-otillm, on the other
hand, constitutes an economy which is illtemnliZtlbll'
vin all aeeo/Illring

(the possibility uf which itsc:lf stems

from hypomllmlllta) of what is calculable for a business

man, and negotiable: on a marker, all sense of measure

(Itt

I1It'SUrt',

that is, measure, moderation, or tempo; in

Greek, tnt'tro", that is. also, reserve and rhythm) being

rrouced

10

this calculation.

What Corsani and l azzarato describe as the con

junctioll of employment rime (that is. of the labor
internalized by the employer) and work time (as tech
nique of the sdO amounts to the economy of lItitllll
and oli lOn, insofur as these: can be grasped as the te:flllS
of what Simondon calls a rransductive rciationship.
according

t'O

which the lerms are constituted through

their ;'ldiuidlll'tlillg Itmioll.

54

To work

'lbe way in which we observe interminelH workers spend

ing rhdr time obliges us

(0

lean' behind !hc binary logic

opposing employment and unemploymenl, Ihe :lcri\'e and

the inactive, :lnd obliges us to question the very Cllory
of work.

If aCfiviry is also excrciscd during periods of

so-called unemployment or, yet again, during !he COUM of

one's so-alled lifetime. during so-called fret rime. during
the rime spent on rraining and education, righ! up

10

Ihe

poin! at which it occomes rhe lime of rcs!, then \\'h:1I is

covered over by rhc concept of Mwurk,M since withIn it
can be found a plurnliry of actjvil'ics and hcu:rogcncou5
tcmpor.llities 16

lhese analyses show char it is nor sufficient to pose: rhe

question of work i n me terms that were fashionable
in the 19905, when the reality of chronic unemploy.
mem forced a (eRcction on rhe structural consequences
of productivity increasC$. Beyond

these terms. it is

:I

maner of a change in the industrial modd, a change

which would also consrilUle the dawn of an age of a new
conception of work, which must nOt be confused with
employment. and which, as rhe consumerist model falls
apart, requires the invention of a new social temporality

and; as LaZ1..arato has shown. redefines the question of

whar Raben Castel calls social properry . l 1
What this raises. then. but in entirely flew terms.

FOR

II N E W CR I T I Q U E

is '\[he question of a negative tax such as was pro

posed by Jeremy Rifkin-and (hen raken up by Michel
Rocard IS_in order to suppOrt the developmem of
a "'social sector," a sector defined as being nono
nomic insofur as it is nonmarker. Now,
nil n qUNliOI/ of brillgillg

Ibis is lIot III

tlu uOllomy to nil md. but

of thinking an olbr economy, and of overcoming

a consumerism within which the purchasing power
produced by employment in faCI destroys work and
all forms of knowledge in the epoch of the generalized
proletarianization of producers as well as consumers.
The Raw in Rifkin's proposal lies in rhe fact that
his considcration of the ecunomic circuit docs nor
include the question of otium or of knowledge in all
its forms. On rhe other hand. rhe notion of a negative
tax

as a mutualitc:d support for the development of

positive externalities, and through the developmenr of

a new form of social property, finds in rhe granring
of unemploymenr bendiu to imermim:m workers in
[he performing artS a model which is panicularly well
adapred to [he change which is currendy underway:
[his is made dear by reading the works of Comni and
Lanararo. But it cannot be a matter of limiting such
proposals merdy to the spheres of art, culture and "crea
tive workers": it is rhe social and economic industrial
model as a totality that must be rethought.
56

To work
DesolidariZltl ion and negative externalities
The reconstruction of posiri\'e atcrnalities and Ihe
suppOrt of work practices stemming from

olho" hhat

is. from noedc interminence) is the n:cssary condidon

for Ihe reconstitution of long drcuiu of transindi
viduation. which arc themselves thc only possibility
of struggling againsl the spread of negalivc eXlcrnali
lies. The cXlent of the sprcad of ncgative cxternalities
is now being discovcred by ,he world. as consumer
ism falls ap:m and as environmental disequilibrium
becomes a planetary obsession. Among Ihe forms of
,his disequlibrium must be c(Jumed the desrruclive
effeCis that the dicrarorship of shon-tc:rmism-cxeru:d
upon every society by marketing-brings to bear on
'the public sphere (on political space and time)
as

as

well

on the private sphere. leading to the pure and simple

liquidAtion ofsodal rlnti01lS.

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

sort-drcuits in transindividuation have destroyed Ihe

.. individuation of rcference' permitting

twO

linguistic

psychosocial individuation processes ro refer to ,he same

process of political and territorial individuation. so as
to coalesce within onc nation. lllcse ruinous effccts of
57

fOR A

NEW CRITIQUE

dissociation and o f such shon-circuiu. which are the

inverse of wh:1t occurs in :;associ:;ated mjlieus. can be
sec:n in the politico-linguistic opposition bet\'.ec:n the
Flemish and the Walloons.
Innc.1d of the individu:lIion of reference, the global
culture

industries

have substituted

the behavioral

prescriptions of marketing. which liqllMnu solidnritin:

firstly. in the territorial space of comemporaneity: the

Flemish withdraw their solidarity from the Belgian
Walloons. Icading to the destruction of their political
space;

secondly. in the genenuional rime of contempo

raneity: harnessing (cnptlltiollj the atremion of a
generation cuu it off from other generations, engen
dering shof(..Qrcuits in the transindividuation of
gener.uions - primary identification. for example,
fails to t2ke place within the juvenile psychic appa
ratus. or adult consumers, unable to afford rhe costs
of eduQting their children, somehow manage, never
theless. to buy expensive cars.

It is this very process of desolidariution thal lies behind

the decline of market value occurring today. marker cap
itali7.ation having becn ruined by the collapse to which
a capitalism which has become drive-based
58

Iplllsj(}lInr

To work

and speculative inevitably leads. One of the most violent

effects of this process is [he pauperiz.:uion of YOlllh.
unleashing the threat of an economic confrolllation
between the generations at the very moment when the
illlcrgeneradonal symbolic bond capablc of containing
such a threat has been shon-citcuited in the process of
transindividuation.
All this results in generalized irresponsibility, such
that the spread of dissociated milieus becomes necessar
ily correlated with rhe spread of negarivc externalities.
Dissociated milieus. as facrors disconnecting the psychic
individual from rheir relation to collective individua
tion and, correlatively, as FJcrors desrroying investment
in all its forms (for which financial speculation and
drive-based obsessions are substitUl'ed) engender roxic
behavior in every sphere of society, dominated by a
srrucruraJ shon-rermism to the precise extelll that drives
and spttularion arejntrinsicaliy shorr-term.
The shorr-term tendency. induced by the liquidation
of responsibility. desublimation and extreme disen
chantment, is the mOSt immediate consequence of the
rendemial fall of the rate of profit, combined as it is with
the tc:ndential fall of libidinal energy and the spread
of what Rene !}asset calls passages to the limit, that is.
processes through which the functioning of systems
leads to the destruction of the very condhions of Ihi.

59

FOR

It.

N EW C R I T I Q U E

funcponing. processa which arc ineluctably translated

into a runaway increase in negadve externalides

77u bourgtoisit SWtpt away by tht mafia

The:: historical f":l.ilure of communism was due to the
fact that it could no! think association, that is. it
renounced the struggle against prolerarianil.:uion as loss
of knowledge. and against the shon-circuits in trans in
dividuarion that are clearly characteristics of Stalinist
bureaucnnic totali taria nism, JUSt as they are of rhe tot:lli

zatiun that is conduced by marketing: it is unly in terms

of ways of dissociating that capitalism and communism
have distinguished themselves from one: another. Even

[hose MarxiSlS who we:re situ:ned outside: of Stalinism.

and who wen againSt Stalin, were never able to manage
a critique of dissociation. because from the begi nning

they confused proletarianization and pauperization.

In the communist world. this dissociation led, intrin
sically and structurally to the totalitarian negation of
.

structures of e:xisre:nce:, which for a long time was nOf

[he: case for capitalism, especially when it combined
Forclism with Keynesianism.10 Capitalism. unlike com
munism, for

long time fuvored the constitution of

motivational systems based on rhese structures of existGO

To /VorN

cnce. structures that it nevertheless harnesst.-d. exploilt.'tI

and finally destroyed, but by means which were indeed
effective. and that even consrirured a new libidinal
economy and new perspectives of sublimalion, cOlllrary
to communist dissociation.!1 Yet it remains the case that
capirnlism would in rhe end become a process of dis
sociation leading ineluctably to demotivation:1l it was
condemned to encounter its limit in the tendential full
in libidinal energy which it had itsdf provoked.
At this point it is necesary

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.

depsychologil.ed, short-circuiting tf:ansindividuarion.
and therefore disindividuated. disindividuating. and
destructive of all motives.
The capitalist economy strictly speaking
works. because it wants the psychic individual

tOllgl'r

110
to

be self

61

F O il A

NEW CRITIQUE

direct. to become the "entrepreneur o f irsdf."u

withom collective individuation. but rather through a
collective disindividuarion orchesmued by marketing.
which exploitS the possibilities of conrrol emanaring
from the provoking of shorl-circuits. and, since the
"conservative

revolution"

and

ncoliberalism

(and

the project of "refounding" Medef which al1101lnt's

to the French translation of ncoliberalism), through a
government of inequalities which ruins the social-all
of which destroys the economic milieu itself, which
thereby becomc a "dis-economy." leading finally to the
Ii<juid:uion of intermt.-diation. which is the rransi:Hion
of rr;msindividuation into the economic sphere and
in its commercial form (all rht more true given that
"compc=tition" leads in

reality

[0

the growth

of

monopolies).
Oesublimation-which thus leads and in the same
movement to rhe spread of negative externalities. to
the li<juidation of commerce by the market and to thl!'
destruction of social connecredness-can be nanslatoo
by the fuCI (hat the bourgeoisie is swept away by the
mafia, which is the fate befalling the former communist
countries. but also of all drivl!'-based capitalism.
The mafia rends to replace the bourgeoiSie and capi
talism rakes on an essenli:l.lly mafia-like character from
the moment that the disenchantmenr of the world is
62

To work

completed. lhis disenchantment becomes. then. no

longer r/lUjvt but nbsolllu: there can

nn} rtblfj,, rt-m(hnlltmm-as

was.

110

longr b

for example. rhe

advent of modern arr (rejecting rhe "industrial art" of

which Flauben sks 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 Sate lie. drive-based politics.
and an addictive consumerism induced by industrial
populism. If fascism is a di of bourgeois capiralism.
the occurrence of which is a warning sign foreshadow
ing absolute disenchantment. rhen the becoming mafia
of apiralism is not an 2ccident which would be more
or less epiphenomenal: ramer. it is [he normal and eve
ryday functioning of such a capitalism. In (his respect,
Sarkozyism is nm, unfortunately, if one can put it like
this, a refurn of Petainism: it is something far morc
seriolls, more complex and more difficuh

(0

think than

the rerurn of rhe same old song.

The middle classes will soon disappear. because
63

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

they have been proletarianized b y the developmenr

of consumerism. This is nor

ro

say that they have

been pauperized: the former is not the consequence

of the Janer. It is

[Q

say that the middle classes are no

longer any kind of "perry bourgeoisie-nor because

they have been pauperized, bur through a

misery [mistre lymbolifJlle:

symbolic

symbolic impoverishmem or

immiseration\ and through an

ntlmic 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 emm
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 psychopowcr.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 wageeanurs 0/tile ideal

[les IIl/llries de l'idia. as Jean-Claude Milner calls uni

versiry professors.28 they roo are unable ro escape this
fare.
Now, the libidinal and political economies of con
[ribution that are reconstiruted in associated milieus
tend toward the reopening of rhis dimension, which is
that of consistencies and of what 1 have c:tlled an orhon

oftbe people.2,} Only

orizOll can

reconstitute credit, thar

is, an economy: there is no economy other than when

65

fOR A NEW CRITIQUE

it is projected illlo an inve5(mem. This reopens for

the comemporary n=tcnlional system the question of
protmrioll-'because an economy. whether libidinal or
political. is always an economy of protention.

Economy ofproltl1tiom. pfmJOnmt rroo/ution,

and contribution
Economic systems in general. and the capitalist system
in particular. always constiulte systems of production of
prmcntions. This protention production system clearly
achieves greater efficiency wilh the appearance of a very
particular case of grammadzation: money, the word for
which in Ladn evokes MllimoSll";)O In spire of that,
the question of protention cannm be reduced

(0

me

question of fiduciary credit: it is rooled in a retemionai

ensemble. and this ensemble is constituted as much by
machines and by the souls of producers and consumers
as it is by money-money which. like all forms of reten
tion, convens time into space. but which dearly does so
in a very spl.'Cific sense.
If capitalism is a prorcmion production system which
in terms of it'S perform:uiviry is very remarkable-thus
when one says that the stockmarket has lost so many
billions of dollars in the course of such and such a
66

To work

crisis. (his mans mat a powr of active prorentions. a

powcr of the nction of prmenlions (of anticipations).
has been lost by the errd;1 ryJlr1llJ I -then the economy
of contribution is .. new economic arrangement (Iibidi
nOli and political) benvccn grammarized retentions and
prmentions ofinvesrmem.
lhe capitalist sysrem for crearing protcnrions is a
system of credit which brings about :l change in the
system of belief-by mrning belief into something
calculable. and by therefore engendering something
better than belief (at least in rhe eye. of 1I0IiIl1ll) :
trust [cOlifinnul. Credit in general, in all its forms
whether banking. religious, scienrific, literary. arristic.
political, or social-is rhe organization of prmenrions.
Credit is the concrete social expression of proten
tions which ",z/iu tlmmr/uN, which p(lfoml. as onc
could say. adapting Austin's theory of performativity
to the question of credit performance such as i[ has led
to the transformation of matter, social relations and
behavior-mat is, of wi/h. and from which proceeds me
exrraordinary permanent revolution in which capimlism
since the industrial revolution has consisted.J2
What rook place during the COUfS(' of rhe nine
uion
[ecmh and rwcmieth centuries \V"dS the organi1..
of the capitaliSt "protemion-aliz:ltion" of the world.
which consisted firstly in the disel1chanrmcnr of the
67

fOR " NEW CRITIQUE

legirimating powers and the secularization of beliefs:

not in their dotruction, bur in their transformarion into
calculable beliefs. induding-through the harnessing of
scientific beliefs by the production apparatus in order to
devise ways of transforming matter. nature. technique.
human beings. and behavior. This transformation of
belief was able to 3ccomplish enormous gains in produc
tivity throughour the nineteenth cemury. enabling new
forms of membership and social cohesion within rhe
sodal project, carried Ollt by the bourgeoisie through
the development of schools. duough rhe engagement it
made pos.iblc with national history, erc.
In the rwentieth century, rhc mobilization oflibidinal
energies took place through rhe capturing and hamess
ing of prorentions via rhe channeling of attention. I t
was thus a maner of

prolnlliolt:

/aborari"g Ito!'1ldn]

an

indttttrial

of causing the tensions accumulated in the

protentions of consumers

(0

reach out

(fnld"]

toward

industrial products, products which are the "realiza

tion" of Ihe prolenrions of producers, with (he goal of
causing the prot'entions of consumers and producers

10

converge. and thus of overcoming the contradiction in

which consistS the tendenrial WI in the rare of profit.
In the course of lIu: recem crisis, this protention31
system collapsed. after having run Ollt of conuol

as

il

was driven toward an evermore 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 relCntion in which (he comrol of :mcnrion
consists, a prolemrianiz.'uion amounting

tu a

loss ()f

knowledge, and a loss affecdng consumption as much

as produclion.
"Ihe intermittent workers of the performing am,
and all lho$C whom Jean-Claude Milner calls the wage
earners of the ideal, continue
TO

(0

culrivate a relationship

the pbamwKoll. in order that they may still pass into

the noetic act, from which they draw a diStiner pleasure

that annat be considered to be mere enjoyment, given
(hat it consists in a feeling of i"ji"i/ diJflrnltc.
The new work practices being developed on the net
works of the associated sociotechnical milieu. however.
themselves also [end {award the passage

10

the noelic

act. a goal which. essentially. is their motiVe, Such a

motive amounts to a prolention. And such a State of
Fact awaits only one thing: for its constilUtion as a stale
of law in order that retentional systems may be placed
69

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

inco the service o f this protentional activity. And it is to

this question of a law such

as

this that a new critique of

political economy must be consecr:ucd.-and this is so

to the extent that these practices. which are becoming
very widespread, reconStitute the economic field in its
totality. well beyond the "cultural sector" or the "social
sector. ..
Such are the questions which arise for a cridque of
political economy restarred on the basis of an analysis
of the place of tcni:try rctemion in the economy: these
arc questions ofpharmacology. for which an economy of
contribution

onstitutes

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

ForJan.Micbt'1 Snlllll:Jlds

To the nJtll/ory ofJI'IIII-Frallfois Ly()((//'d

The suprt.mc dfon of the writer

as

ceeds in paniall)' raising for

the veil of ugliness and

us

of lhl! artist only suc

insignific.mcc that lcavts us unCl.ring

world. ,'hen, he says to

[inruritllx) before the

us:

Look, look
Fragr:
l lu wilh clover and ancmesia
Holding tight their quick. narrow streams
The lands of the Aisnc and the Oisc.

Morerl l'nmSl

On January

25,

2007,

while

participating

in

colloquium devoted to the work of Jcan-Franois

Lyotard. I

proposed a reading of Tht

PosN1lOdml

COlldition which characterized those traits of capitalism

dscrihcd by Lyorard as typifYing:! new form of libidinal
conomy: that form invented by consumerist capital
ism in North America at the bcginning of th rwenricrh
CCtlnlry.
According to [his reading, posrmoderniry resulted
from a consumerist organizadon of the libido leading
evenrually [0 me liquidation of the libido itself, to its
"diseconomy," that is. to the liquidation of that libidi
nal economy which modernity hitheno constitured-a
process of liquidadon the consequences of which began
ro

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

post

modtmt being published at the moment Margaret

Thatcher gained power in Great Britain. constitUling
thc beginning of the "conservative revolurion").
In the course of my reading, I tried to show why
the concepn enabling the thinking of this

rOllfl/lIItri!f
73

FOR A NEW C R I T I Q U E

libidinal diset'ollolJlY [hal i s posrmoderniry were less

those of Lyotard's eponymous work! than of Freud,
whom. therefore. it was a mancr of rereading and
reinterpreting. [ intended to show thaI Lyorard had in

Tbr Postmodem Condilion opened the possibility of a

nc:w thinking of capitalism-and of the extension of
proletarianization which everywhere accompanies it
and thaI this thinking remains to be daborarcd, bur also
that doing so presupposes a critique of rhe Lyomrdian
account ofMlibidinal economy.n
J n the course of the discussion that followed rhis

inrervenrion, JeanMichei Salanskis, who wirh Corine

J!naudeal! organized the colloquium, told me that he no
longer wlderstood what it means to speak of mpita/iJm,
nor did he understand discourse which continues to
convoke this word: he then declared that he could not
understand my own discourse.
-!he present work, like Fol' (1 New Crilique ofPolifiml
EconomJ, tries ro respond to this remark, made to me by
my friend shortly before the crisis of capitalism revealed
rhe extent of its disaster in rhe month ofOctobcr 2008.
The theses advanced here. first presented before the
administrative council of Ars Industrialis.! thcn in a
public session of [his associarion g:uhered on December
5, 2009.J continue the analysis bcgun in For a Nrlll
Critiqlu ofPoNtical EconomJ.
74

Phnrll/tIl'ology ofCapital

This work examines t\vo questions:

How should one understand profi t in the phrase,

"

"

"tendential fall in rhe rate of profit ?

"

More generally. whac is in play in the concept

expressed with rhis phrase?

77'Jere is no tendency without a counter-tendency

What the fhird volume of Cnpiml tries

to

think wi th

the phrase "tendelllial fall in the rate of profir"-the

stakes of which dearly cannot he measun.::cl hy refer
ring

to

the formula p

'"

sf(c+v)-is a uegatiue dyunmic

that, Marx posits, would in principle be inherent ro

a capitalist system formed and held within contradic
tory tendencies: capitalism would thus be a dynamic
system threatened by a lim it that would be reached if

the bearish tendency to which the very fW1C[ioning of

the profit rate gives rise were to achieve completion

[s 'nrcompliJSllitJ .
This is certainly nor how Marxism bas interpreted this
theory: on the comrary. what Marxism has pronounced
in this regard is the iTu/uctable :Iccomplishrnem of this
tendency. And Marx himself probably read it this way.
But if dlcre is a tendency for the rate of pro fit to fnll.
75

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

then there must also be a counlertendency,

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
countertendency (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 rtum on

invstmmt
Tuming to how the word "profit" should be under
stood, the question is: if "profit" can be defined as the
return on investment. that is. as a function of a system

76

Phannacology ofCnpital

e::nabling re::m une::r:nion for invested capital. and he::nce::

for risks that are taken, rhe::n should this definition of
profit include:: or exclude speculation-which tends to
dalroy the SYSfem of invcstment. given that,

IJu, tIJ

smite is tim. :md, more precisely, thal which affects the

playing out of the:: short tt:rm and the long term, both

witIJ one another and flgftimt one another?

The profit deriving from the financiali1.ed economy
clearly doc=s not correspond with what Marx calls the
r:ue of profit (pl, where p ". s/(c.v). P depends on
the sYSlem of production

as

constant capital and vari

able capital. The profits deriving from financia1 izarion

tend. on the conrrary.

(Q

dec()uple from p in rclation

ttl 5/(c+V), and to become essenrially speculative profits.

They therefore raise the question of what Marx calls
"fictitious capital."

Profit, durability, and toxicity

An objection raised against me theory of the:: tenden
rial fall in the rate of profit s
i mat we have seen capital
accumulate enormous gains ove,r the last few decades.
But the crisis of 2008 (like those th:H prece::ded it, but
more:: than any of the c=arlier crist:S) makes it nttcss:try
to examine bO(h the:: nawre:: and the solidity of this
77

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

profirabiliry-a profi{;lbility which during this crisis has

come to appear JlmCfllrnl1y toxic.
The question of profit is first of all. and jointly:

that of its exogenous sustainabiliry. that is. for the

rest of society (profits cannot be durable if they
destroy society);

that of its endogenous durability. rim is. for capital

i('self (it must conserve its value over time);

that of the temporality which it configures. [hat is, as

concerns fictitious capital, the question of [he qualiry
of the anricipations in which it consists, given rhat
fictitious capiml. insofar as it is a system of n4l1tive/y

CI1KlIltlted protellrlfms,4 is a necessary function of the

system, irreducible in this regard to mere specula4
tion, while entrepreneurial invcsrmem constitutes yet
anmher type of anticipation.
It is only within such systems of anticipation, which
must be qualified and consolidated by rules, that profit
can be produced.
Could the gains achieved by Bernard Madoff, esti
mated at 50 billion doll:trs, and those of the speculators
taken in by him, ever have been realized <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.

Veu

d'icritllm,

an

accountinggamt'

dummy entries], and the anriciparion

systems made possible by this phalUasia of capital pre

suppose the existence of a free capital which structurally
rends to djsinvest when it sees its profits dedine.6
lhese disinvestmenrs are short-circuits, in just the
same way as :ut.ificial and hypomnesic memory-tholr is,
the phanJlflkoll of writing-can shorr-circuit living and
anamnesic memory'?

79

F O R A NEW CRITIQUE

Let us propose (hat (his tendency leads

[illcttritl:

(Q

cn"lm1lm

one calls a speculator (and. in times of war. a

profitecr") someone who scoffs at (he economic as well

:u:

social consequences of profirable" decisions. Such a

person bc=longs to the CHegOey of those whom one oth

erwisc calls the indifferent. the uncaring. or the rart'lm

[incllrittLt']:1I those "who are not bothered" ["qui m"rn

0111 curt" ]. that is. who "don't have anything to do" wilh
anything-dlOse who S'.y. "I dOIl 't ra"." lhose who
mock the world.
It is because there is such a

and becallse it is

tmdmcy to cnrtUSSIIt1I,

i"tduciblt, being

inscribed within this

pharmacology. that regulatory systems are imposed.

which aim [()

limit the

desttuctive effects of mis spccu

larive tendency of free capical-and ro keep a

rufficimr

andsundy hold on thingJ, thl1l n. on intJt!tmmt, given the

instabiljty ofcapital circulation.
In the capitalist economic syslem. the circuladon of
free capital is supposed to measure the

C7tdil

that the

financial sub--sysum accords to such and such an

eco-

nomic actor within the production subsystem-and.

through this system of measuremenr, establish [he belief

thaI "society" invests in this activity. The circularion
of free capital is a spt.'Cific protentional organizal'ion
resting on a complex. fullible and corruptible system of

phnrmakn.
80

in which one finds money. actions and obli

Pbllnllncolog;j ofCnpitnl
b>:l.tions, various financial insrruments, raTings agencies,
erc,
'Ihis capital. however, rends to become purely specu
Iative when it no longer measures a capital of confidence
in the fUllIre of rhe assets of (he production appar.Hus
in relation to which it constitutes, as a system of
anticipations, capacidcs for invcslmcnt-but instead
relies on operations which are eithcr purely selfrefercn
tial (such thar rhe anricip;nions created by the lin:l ncial
subsyslern :lIlricip:lte nothing bur itselF :Uld come at the
expense of the production system), or else ;lrc oriented
toward the producrion apparatus, but arc srrllcrurally
shorr-term (that is, based on disinvestment, that is, on
me pil/ng of me production apparatus),

Innovation, short-termism. and spemlation

Let us now return to productive capital.

A common

objection

ro

{he thesis of the tendenrial

full i n the profit rate is that the technical innovation

lying at the heart of [he production apparatus enables
the system ro ceaselessly stimulate its differentiation.
with conStant capital [hereby conferring a competitive
advantage upon rhe innovative entrepreneur.
The quesrion of innovation, however, is nor only
81

POR

A NEW CRITIQUE

a manr o r concption and production as entrepre

neurs tranJr technological invenrions and scientific
discoveries OntO their businesses: innovation is also
and before anything else the

locinlizntioll of innova

tion-thai is, the transrormation of sodcry. Now, in the

twmicth century this tr:\nsformarion operated through
the organization of consumption, that is, through the
implementation of appar:\ruses for sociery's adaptation
to rcchnoindustrial change, bur not as the ndoption of
innovation by sodcry.
l r would be

:1

rnatrcr of adoprion if techner-indus

trial change was coproduced 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 thir 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 drivebascd
82

PIJannao/0t:1 olu/pita/
Mfrustration,"

forming

system

with

what.

in

rwcmieth-cenrury consumerist socicl)', conditions the

social absorption of innovation describc:-d by Schumptter
as Meconomic evolmioll," leading to the installation of a
systcm (e'nding ro produce' ("'ranir Ilnd sirurfllrn/ obw/n

unct, a system for which the lIomllll rdation to objeclS

becomes disposabi/iry.'J And if financialiZ3tion consti
nne'S

an aspect of that system, then both businesses

(as constant capital) and workers (as variable capit;dl

become as structurally disposable as any other obi(.'Ct of
consumption.
Consumption becomes, therefure, both an expedient
and an outler-aplJllmltl,(ooll-aggrav:ning frustration by
displacing it on a very shorNerm basis toward the newest
object of consumption produced by this "permanent
i nnovation." Novdry is thus systematically valorized at

od
ttach
the expense of durabilil)'. and this Orglll/;Ulioll f
mtm, Ihm s,
i of unfoilhfolnN or illfidtlirylO (equally
called Rexibiliry),11 conuibures to rhe decomposition
of the libidinal economy, to the spread of drive-based
behaviors and to the liquidation of social systems.
At the' foundation of this systemic organization of
infidtNry-which is concretely cxprC'Ssed as much by
the liquidation of primary identific3rion12 and the
modification of infantile synaptogcncsislJ as by (hose
shorl-circuits induced in sociery Ihat I have described
83

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

"dissoci:Hion"'1-the SYSI/!ms o f amicipation o f free

as

capita l and 1111: hyperlabile behavior of consumers act

in ha rmony and are " potcn !ized" [polnltialismt), in the
nse that

mbi n ing drugs can pOUlltiu

co

IpormtiabJ"1

!he ir curative bUI also their roxic effects (as when, for
insmnce. alcohol is combined wilh psych otropes or
an Ii-in Aamma rories).
Amicipations of fflOC capi l';!l and consumer behav
ior

therefore

become correlatively

and

J)sumira/Iy

siJort-unllist, sprCIIlalille alld d,i"r-bmrd.

Economy ofprottntio1lS
Fictitious capiral is a system of annclpacions and

gambles wiJi(iJ (an Dilly makr jtldgmmts

about illmiolJs,

(har is, speculat ions and calculations abour nnure pos

sibilities wiJkiJ may /lrver br rraliud. It is this system
of projection of prolemions which, as the organization

of risk-raking (more or less limited). gives the capitalist

system irs dyna mic: capiralism presupposes the existence
of free Clpittl on 10 speculation understood in this

sense.
The "advance" on real iry mar produces these antici
pations, however, such that Ihey arc structurally exposed
(0

speculation, mUSI proceed before a nythin g else from

84

Pharmacology ofCapillI!

motillmiofl,

itself inscribed within an onomy ofmoti

tJnliolU. which is also an economy of fantasy: such an

economy is what produces protean libidinal energy or,
10

express it in more precisely psychoanalytical terms,

polymorphous libidinal energy.

111is polymorphism must be unified by whar Max
Weber called a spirit: it presupposes an investment in
a libidinal economy which in some way confers lIpon
it irs symbolic calibr:nioll. and irs conStitution wilhin
a synem of exchange forming a polymorphous social
commerce.
Such are the questions pervading 'flJt NllI Spirit of

Ctlpilll!iJm, in which Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello

refcr to both Max Weber and Alben Hirschman in
order ro show that:
sYSfemic constraints [which

arc'

exercised on all the actors

wilhin the capitalist system) are insufficiem on [heir

10

dicil thcir e.ngagcmcnl. Duress

kOIl"ai1llt)

own

must be

internaliu:d and justified.15

In other words, it presupposes that a libidinal economy

keeps in re:scrve an rxchangMblt Iibidil1al tl1l'rgy, which
bestows consiStency on rhe "advance:" that the syslem
makes upon itself, and

as

irs dynamic, throughoUl the:

various forms of motivation rhat it dicits.

85

FOR

It.

NEW CRITIQUE

In fh libidinal economy, ,he ":ldvanc"-th pro

fentional structure of this economyl6-is constitlL[ed
by desir, and such desire is structurally inflnite. thai
is, incalculabl. to th extent rha! it tends (0 Kinflnilizc"
its objectS: [h libidinal economy is the economy of this
inflniri2.ation and as such constitutes a system of intrin
sically long-term care.
Conversely. the destruction of this advance founded
on desire. thai is. on symbolic capilal-a destruction
induced by the "liniIi7..:1tion" of its objects. and as the
organization of their ilHrinsic disposabiliry. including
workers and businesses--demoys motivation itself in

"II irs forms.

It thus becomes an advance based on the drives.
But given rhal [he drives are by nature shofHermin.
chis leads to disinvestment, thaI is, to the destruction
of prolitability understood as

bmtfir.

it leads

fO

the

demuclion of profllability understood as th consolida

lion of the dynamism and durability of the system, as
thac which don the sysrem good fer qlli rail du bien ItII

.lJlthmJ.

86

PlmmulCology O/Cllpitll/
Consumrrist ctlpital andfunny monry {monnaie
de singe}: th mathmatizntion ofcartkssntSI
The tendemial fall in the rate of profit which haunted
the producrivisl system characteristic of the nineteenth
cemury and of European indusrriali7.ation (and which
provoked severnI crises) was absorbed at the begin.
ning of the rwentieth cemury. in North America. by
a counter-tendency obtained through the consurnerist
organization of rhe libidinal economy: by the estab
lishment of a system of pron:mions dircr.:red by capiml
from the side of consumptiun in functional ,lI1d direct
relation to free cltpital invested and "prorcmionalizc:J"
in this sense. The implememation of the consumerist
society was [he principal response [hat rhe American
economy found

(0

this systemic tendency-and this

form of capitalism therefore cannot be (hought with

Marxist conceptS alone.
Ir was wirhin this emerging context. as the praduc
tivist industrial model became consumerisr. that in
1913 Schumpcler wrote his evolutionary rheory of the
capitalist economy. Ford then constilUl'('S the perfect
example of this ideal-type that Schumpctcr calls the
elHrepreneur (Weber having himself supplied a first
version of this idcaltype through rhe figure of the enrre
preneur of Pennsylvania).17 Blit Fordist entrepreneurial
87

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

innovation.

b.UI on

Taylorism.

pmupposcs the

organization of mass consumption-the harnessing and

aploir:nion of libidinal enerro' in the service of constant
behavioral control. II is for this reason that this form
of capitalism requires the mobilization of Freudian
concepts.
This consumerist coulHeNendency-invenred as a
way of struggling against the rendemial Fall in the ratc
of profit. and implemented via a function of the system
of which Marx was unaware, rhat is. marketing, and
which led to the reorganiz..1tion of ficririous capital
and to the F.lCI that the m:lOner of controlling produc
tion shifts from entrepreneurial control to shareholder
management-this counter-tendency in turn becomes
bearish toward the end of the lWemieth cemury,
and does so at the very moment that buying power
diminishes. everywhere sening up a massive process of
pauperizarion. reconstituting the characteristic traits of
the nineteenth cemury.
Having destroyed the libidinal economy upon which
it was founded. the consumerist coumer-tendency then
systemically aggravates the roxicity of financial phar
macology. that is. rhe tendency. itself drive-based and
shorr-rermist, of fictitiolls capilal, accentuating pau
peritation in all layers of the population as well as
undermining the apparatus of production, which is

88

PhamllU'ology olCnpiral
pillaged via

leveraged buyouts and other speculative

t<:chniquc:s directed specificlly against businesses.

The Struggle against the tendendal fall in the rate or
profit thus induces a tendential fall in libidinal energy.
which reinrorca the speculative tendency of capital.
that is. its disinvestmCIlI, thereby undermining profil.
The enormous accumulation of capital tends there
fore to be transformed into funny money

[moll1l1lie dr

sillgel-and rhe pension fund system appears for what

it is: one pole or a system, called fictitious capital, sllch

having mtltiJm/(uiud its pham/(tcologiCIII tt'lldruf]

10 cnrelrsS1Im, its other pole is constituu.:d by deceptions
(ll"urml dtlibtmttdy organizing the d ilmion of respon
that,

sibility, deceptions with names such as "subprime,"

"sccuriti1.adon," "Bernard Madoff," erc.

7h Ihort-trmilt mllCTo-tmdmcy
If me way in which Marx calculated the nne of profit
failed to rake rhe specu1ative tendency in which ficti
tious capital essentially consistS fully imo aCCQum. this
only serves to show, precisely that the capitalist invesr
menr system is subject, as a dynamic synem. tithtr to a
bearish tendency,

or (0

a speculative funcrioning which

necessarily becomes destructive and false.

89

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

Schumpcter COlllradicu thiS perspcctive by showing

how

innovation

fimcHonnl/y arHmbms

prodllcriv

Clpiral and fictitious capital-as risk capiul oriented

to\vard "rl..-chnological values," But Schum peter does
not integr.u th quesdon of consumption

as

me har

nessing of libidinal energy, nor th bearish effecu that

this hamming induces over rhis nergy form essential
to consumerist capitalism, nor the reinforcement of the
t'endeney toward shorHcrmist carelessness ,hat rhese
effects inevitably provoke in fictidolls capital.
In order to describe, then, the functioning of the
apparntus of production-such

as

it is mmored by a

permanent innovation requiring an organization of

consumption by me appararus of psychopower that
marketing consdtutes. even if one retains from Man
Ih separation of fictitiow from productive capital in
his formulation of the calculation of p--we wowd need
to:
1 . add to his formula an innovation function and
a consumption function. in order

[0

descri

an

appar:ltliS of producrion which, today. is no longer

merely productivisl but consumerist;
,

2. inregratc a rendential faU in libidinal energy. that is,

a tendeney for the libido to decompose into its com
ponent drives.

90

Phannacology ofCapital
If, in addition, one admits:

that fictidous capital is essential to the syucm as it is

the organization of calculable anticipacions;

that it is constituted by a structurally shorttermist

tendency. that is. by a tendency to carelessness
which. in the consumerist industrial modd. forms a
system with an increasing obsolescence of products
and services. produced by a constant acceleration
of the processes of innovation and technologi
cal transfer. and by a correlative aggressiveness of
marketing;

then it appears evident mat the consumerist modd

has reached its limits because it accommodates a short
tnmist marro-tm4mty. which in future

can

only lead

to dosing the system off from any future. that is. to

a blockage of me processes of anridpation. whether
enuepreneurial or financial, and to a generalized degra
dation of social and psychk motivations. but equally of
onomie motivations.
Given the existence of such a macro-tendency, the
question becomes to know what the

mttcro-cOlutur

tendtncy might be.

91

fOR A NEW CRITIQUE

Shartholdtr capitalism as systemic carelessness

To quadons of durability and sust:tinability, and of
safeguarding the dynamic system that capiralism is as
a system of motivations. must added the problem
of negative externalities: the crisis of 2008 coincides
with the fulfillment of the predictions of the Meadows
report and of Rene Passet. namely. that the consumer
ist industrial model is condemned to overshoot its own
limits by destroying geological resources and geographi.
cal and meteorological systems, all while provoking a
demographic explosion.
lhis destruction of physical systems is combined with
the destruction of psychic and social systems, which are
the conditions of production of all libidinal energy
that of producers as well as designers, investors and
consumers. The profit

rl1U

then tends very cenainly to

fall, while the "profit" is only mainrained at high levels

because it has become inninsically speculative: and care
less.-i---e ther through ruinous instruments of financial
pharmacology, or by frankly Mafiaesque operations.
indeed ones that arc manifestly criminal and strictly

;)1'1\"1.
In this case. what is augmented is a profit that no
longer ars any rclation to the profit rare calculated by
p, since c.1phal, in (he face of the eventual obsolescence
92

Phnm/(lCology ofCnpitnl

of innovation iuelf, and taking into account the essen

tially drive-based character of consumption. tends

[0

become structurally fictitious. that is. to be ded neither

10

c nor

ro

v in the definition which supportS the cal

culation s/(c+v): it is this tendency which is concretely

expressed

in

management

becoming

shareholder

based-of which the Forgean/EADS insider trading

scandal revealed calamitous effects-and which installs a
genuinely systemic carelessness.

Economy ofexcessivmess [demesureJ lind infinite

mponsibility
However speculative this fictitious capital might be, it
measures anticipations, making them relatively calcula
ble. Prorenrions of psychosocial temporality. however.
are not absolutely calculable, and always exceed rdative
anticipations: they emerge from
that in6niciz.cs ir.sclf, [hat
ntu

s
i ,

libidinal economy

an 01lomy of acmiue

that produces a psychosocial will. otherwise called

motivation. that is. thai produces motivn for tx;uillg.

otherwise called meaning. and which presupposes what
Simondon names the transindividual-foundC'd on

process of transindividuation in which prQ[cnrions are

elaborated into the formarion of long circuits. I II

93

F O R A NEW CRITIQUE

In other words, the prorenrion mat constitutes psy

chosocial temporality presupposes mat me
of an illfi"iu mpo,uibility will come

co

ption

assum

"back up" this

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

reduced to trust
but presupposes

[ctuifianul
3

understood as calculadon.'9

desire invested in an infinitizable

object.
At the origin of capitalism. it was the God of
reformed monotheism who assumed the symbolic func
tion of this infinite responsibllil)'. as we arc informed by
Weber. But what could take on the symbolic function
of this infinite responsibilil)' when capitalism turns into
a process of disenchantment. nihilism and the death of
God? In what then will this relation co infinity consist,
a relation which speculation tends to dilute. and to liq
uidate (through which, however, it

s
i

the system itself

which becomes diluted-me mutualization of losses

only allowing social and psychic systems to absorb this
dilution by destroying them a little more. that is, by
diluting themselves in order to preserve me financial
subsystem 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:: dire:: 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

por, will for a long time:: contain

its finitizing effects

through a public power theorized by Keynes and mate

rialized by Rooscvdr. This public power, called the

we/fort state, will:

95

fOR A N E W CRITIQUE

on the one hand. maintain. beneath psychopower.

social and sublim:nory systems for the production of
libidinal energy. in particular as educational systems:

on the other hand. limil the specularive: tendencies

of fic[jdous capilal thar Ihis psychopower reinforces.
through the roles of regulation and adjustment
assumed by the public power when faced with the
effects ofdis.1djustmems engendered by the incess.1m
muradons of the industrial technical system, which
destabilizes olher social systems.

To say this another way, the welfare state is not merely

an

avatar ofbiopower: added

(0

it is rhe question of psy

chopower. This is me characler of the stare in the e::poch

of what Adorno and Horkheimer wiU caJl the culmre
industry-and in the epoch when these indusuies,
vectors of the American way of life::. lxgin to fight over
the:: katknhip of social change.

7h "comtrVativ rtvo/ution" IlS subordination of

th uchnical sysum to tht lCOnomic systroz
Three: crucial points must here be e::mphasizc::d :

1. Before marketing and ficritious capital took coorrol

of indusrrial becoming and before the mass media
96

Phnnnncology o/Capital
became thoroughly drive-based. that is. at rhe begin
ning of the 1970s, the profit rate of businesses
bonomed out-an economic faCt which meant that
at (har rime it

was

difficult to argue that the ten

dential fall i n the me of profit was an absurd

proposition.
2. It was in order to reverse this situation. installed
throughout the Western world by Keynesi:mism,
that the "conservative revolution" was implemented
by Margaret Thatcher in England from 1979 and by
Ronald Reagan in North America fwm 1 9BO-thc
system based

all

the Btetton Woods agreement

having been abandoned in 1 97 1 , the American appa

ratus of production having drastically regressed JUSt
as had occurred to the former British empire. and
the "conservative revolurion" aiming to "financial
ize" and ro globalize Western capitalism. in order
[0

ensure that it cominued to direct the course of

globalization (a strategy which

was

a lamentable

failure).

3.

This calling into question of the stare-which (Oak

the form of denouncing rhe welfare state on the
grounds it destroys individual responsihiliry. and
hence that government had become "the problem
and not the solution" (to paraphrase Reagan)-had
the goal of making it possible for capital TO complcc1y
97

F O R A N E W CRITIQUE

direct (via the intermediary of psychopower imple

mented through marketing) the course of what
Bertrand Gille called {he disadjustmem berween the
technical system and the Q[her human systems, a role
which from the beginning of the industrial revolu
tion right up until that moment had belonged to
government.
In other words. after the "conservative revolution,"
the becoming of the technical system in the course
of globali7.ation (leading to a process of economic
globalization which after 1989 no longer faced any
obstacles)-constitu[cd

by

the

infrastructure

of

production the organization of consumption (via psy

.

chotechnologies), and the objects and services of this

consumption itself (all of which are themselves n
i dus

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

In addilion, the economic system is hencefonh

almost complelely directed by the financial sub-system,
itself globalized, and this financial sub-system, in (urn,
is itself structurally de-correlated from the production
sub-system.

98

Phllrmacology olGllpiclli
Technical system, social systems, and marketing
From the Napoleonic state until various forms of
Keynesianism, and passing through Gaullism, one func
tion of the state has been

[0

ensure the direction and

regulation of the disadjustment provoked by evermore

rapid evolutions of the technical system, and to imple
ment processes ofreadjustment as they become necessary.
Bertrand Gille wrote in 1 978-one year before Thatcher
came to power-that, failing such regulation, which
constitutes a policy of industrial development, social
systems could only find themselves annihilated by a
chaotic becoming of this development.21
The technical system is a dynamic system in which
there takes place what Simondon describes

as

a process

of individuation. Gille shows that in the course of this

individuation, the technical system enters regularly into
conRict with the "other social systems"-which are
themselves processes of collective individuation, and
which presuppose processes of psychic individuation.
and what Freud called psychic apparatuses.
This means that it is possible for the individuation
of the technical system to proceed in a way that is con
trary to the individuation of social systems and psychic
apparatuses. This contrariness, however,

IlUO constitutes

the dynamic of the technical. social and psychic

99

F O R A I"'EW C R I T I Q U E

individuation processes. (hat is, the: pharmacological

condidoll of their individuation: Simondon shows that

individuation, qua process. presupposes the phase differ
ences

[dlpbmagrs) which precisely induce these different

dynamics oindividuation, 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
resprive individuadons-and do so i n a way (hat is
transductivdy interlinked.
Gille: argues that the st3[e muSt assume rhe regulation
of (inevitable and necessary) conflicts in order [Q avoid

the. destruction of these systems: the state regulates by

determining the parameters of (he technical system and
[he corrdative evolution of the social systems through

negotiation, forecasting, and planning, that is, through

the long.term organization of technological and indus
trial becoming; it must equally ensure {he possibility
of research independent of private invesrmenr, which
is Short-u."rmist when compared with intergenerational
social time.
Such policies arc therapcmics which define regimes

100

Phannacology ofCapital

of individuation based on long circuits of rransindi

viduadon. and which prescribe conditions in which
technological and industrial pharmacology produces
individuation more than it docs disindividuation.
Now, an essential aspect of the ideological war
led by the neoliberals of the conservative revollUion
w;\s the condemnation of governmenml industrial
;\nd long-term policy and the corresponding accusa
tion that governments inevitably promote inefficielll
models of economic adminisnmion-even

though

the United St:w:s military continues to determine the

direction of rhe industrial policies of the American
stare. "Ibis eventually evolved n
i to the accusation
that a/l social Structures rh.lt produce long circuits
of rransindividuation are guilty of curbing the mod
ernizarion made possible by the development of the
technical system.
When Thatcher and Reagan initiated deregulation,
dismantling and eventually liquidating all srate appara
ruses, their gamble was thar these adjustment processes
could be entrusted
alone. thar is,

[0

lO

the operation of the market

marketing. which then exploits wirholll

limit the psychotechnologies constituting rhe mcdi:l

infrastructure-and does so at rhe service of a bchav.

loral control which is ;'narcotic." that is. which is
anaesthetizing and which produces addiction.
101

fOR

N E W CRITIQUE

Confounding the technical and economic systems

as a principalfoetor ofcarelessness
This unlimiud exploitation leads to the slow but inex
orable liquidation of [he apparatus of prOdJlctioll of
libidinal magy. an apparanuform(d by conjoiningpsychic
apparafusN and socal
i syst(1f1S so as to produC( Sflb/i"IIuion
sysums (and which concretize individuation insofar as i t
is always a t once psychic and collective). In the aurumn
of 2008. this unlimited exploitation will turn OUt to
have installed a genuinely planunry car(/mnm.
The confol/nding of th( t(cJmica/ and economic sysums
is a catastrophe which inevitably leads these twO systems.
which arc thoroughly pharmacological. to potentize
and exacerbate their toxic. emropic and self-destructive
tendencies-for four reasons:
I . The subordination of the technical to the economic
system, itself dominated by the highly speculative
and short-termist financial sub-system. reinforces
me destructive effects of innovation and of the accd
eration of innovation for the other social systems:

the technical system incessamly disadjusrs from the

social syS(ems. And it tends to bury. suppress, and
delay the effects of [his disadjustmem by substituting
for these social systems technical processes amouoc102

Pharmacology ofCapita!
ing (Q services which shorrcircuir 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, 14voirvivrr

(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 shorccircuiring of the transin
dividuation process-which amounts fO a principle
of !)lumic carrlrsmru.
3. lne shorHl!'rmist pressure exerted by fictitious capital
and shareholder managl!'ment over the development
of a technical system entirely subordinated to chI!'
economy and therefore to the market, and for which
103

FOR " N E W CRITIQUE

the only developmental possibilities that come to be

selected are those enabling the IItry mpid comtitll
lioll ofsolvmcis-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 its1f.

4 . 1he geogrnphical, biological, demographic and psy

chic systems find themselves disadjusred, leading to
their disequilibrium, rather than

TO

beneficial disrup

tions (that is, to disruptions that would be effectively

ncgenrropic. disruptions capable of leading to rhe
production of lltW mttasmbililia, such as would occur
if the phnnnnkoll were implemented therapeutically).

Th. collap" ofthe sysum ofmotivations

Human becoming is lhe resuh of a threefold process
of individuation for which

the

technical system.

social systems and psychic apparatuses are the meta

stable configurations engendering proCesSC5 of technical.
collective and psychic individuation. These three individ
uation processC5 arc inseparable: they form rransducrivc
relations.22
104

Phllnnllcolog)' o/Capillll

These transductive relations tie rogether three orga

nological levels which must be distinguished. and which
have their own logic and their own tendencies. bur
which cannor be considered in isolation from one
another:

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

The technical system connects artificial organs which

som:ltic organs;
become the

phrtrlllllka

of the psychosomatic body.

connecting it to Q(her bodies at the heart of social

systems;

Social systems are [he organi7..3tions through which

the rransindividual merastabilil,cs and unifies the
therapeutic regimes which constitute social blend
ing [foirt-c01;t'.J] through me collective individuation
process.

That the technical system is in transductive relation

with the social systems means that it cannOt be devel
oped without a human milieu in relation to which it is
exogenous. a milieu formed OUt of psychic and collective
individuals

cultivating thtir sil1glllnritit'.J by cullillllling

cOl1sistt'11ct'.J. thllt is, ohjtcl.J which do not t'Xist, btl! which

art

infilliland which.

as

such. permit the unification

at infinity (infinitely to come) ofsystems and individuals.

105

fOR A NEW CRITIQUE

That the psychic apparatus is i n transductive rdation

with the technical systl:m means mat psychic appa
ratuses cannot socialiu: without passing through the
phllnnlllril constitutive of thc technical system-which
is also a syncm of tertiary retentions,lJ and which thus
supports individual and collective protentions (and [he
formation of credit), These pbnrmillra permit the forma
rion of both long and short transindividuation circuits.
Reciprocally, social synems, as proccsses of collective
individuation, thar is, as evolving systems. cannot per

petuate themselves whhout adopting pIJarma/ra through

the psychic individuals who transindividuare themsdves
at the hearr of these social systems, pllllrmnkn which as

such disrupt the organiutions

n
i

which these systems

consin: each organological level being individuated in

transductive rdation to thc individuadon of the other
systems.
In the rwentierh cenrury, howevcr. the economic
system having taken a step beyond all the othcr systc=ms,
and being charged with the rask of unifying them by

finitizing thml,

that is. submitting them to a prOCdS

of generalized "monetization"-and the financial sub

system having taken a step beyond [he production

sub-system at {he heart of the economic systcm itself-it

is

infinitivt (omutmu

(thc law of desire), constituting

the condition of any genuine co-individuation of the

lOG

Pbannacology o/Capital
thref! organological levels, which finds itself destroyed.
Now. there

can

be no suJlaillabk (that is, care-ful

[mriL"UStU prottntion without infinitive consistency.

This resuJrs in both the squeezing of all anticipations
imo an ultra-shorHerm horiron of speculaion, and (he
collapse of the system of motivations. Speculation, very
far from producing a new dynamic. on the comrary
fossilizes dme: it freezes it into a waU of time where
past and future cancel each other OUt, and where all
forms of invcstmenr disintegrate. The ulna-short-term
tendency of completely deregulated fictitious capital,
which systemically shorr-circuits the process of rransin
dividuation, thereby causes fictitious capital to become
totalized and extremist. This tendency is, then. intrinsi
cally self-destructive and as such annihilates rime-time,
of which the law is deJire,

huofor as it pmnitJ fht reali

zaHon (through Jublimation) of motilm of imagination

(poHibilitit'J).
Sucb a situation of carelessness-which

can

only

lead to the entropic disintegration of the three orga

nological levels. while at the same time destroying the
txrrt1-organological systems {geographical, climatologi
cal, geological. and biological systems)-is induced by
a consumerist model which, having reached its limits
through (he spread of dissociated milieus,24 that is, pro
letarianil.ed milieus, becomes self-destructive, insofar as
107

FOR A N E W CRITIQUE

what it destroys is not merely the desire o f consumers

but also [heir health.
The reinvemion of the industrial economy presup
poses the reconstitution of a libidinal economy withom
which there can be no investmem, and this means that
lltW appartlfllJt!l

ofproduction of/ib;dilla/ mw mllJt b

cOllui/Jd and imtitltud-beC3USC JUcb appardttlJts I1rt

tltcflJari/y i1lJtil'llti01lJ: hcncc the ecclesiastical institution
and irs care-ful [cllri/l.\j inhabiram, the curCi hence rhe
school and its master, thc [cacher [hlItihlullrj.

To rcol1omiu at/tw, that is. to Jtrugg' agaimt tht car

ms tmdmcy inherent to that piJarmakol1 thar is capiral.
and dUff to fltk etrr of th world, can clearly no longer
pass by way of "scimulating consumption." But neither
can it pass by way of a "decrease in growth" ["dicr

oissllnul Rather, a pathway to gmuint growth must be

refound, a growth running counter to the mis-growth

[microhsl111Ct] rhat consumerism has become,25 and a

growth which would consist in a renaissance of desire.
Such a rebinh would be achieved by implementing an
economy of contribution, an economy for which "to

uOl1omiu" means '"to mkt rnrr,"26 and an economy

within which carc culrivates associated milicus.!7

108

Pblll'1nttcology ofCllpitlll

Pharmacology oftechnical tendencies

In the course ofhis ethnographic research, and by com
paring ethnic groups, Andre Leroi-Gourhan created
the concept of what he called "(eelmical telldtllcits."
Technical tendencies emerge from char "interior milieu"
which the "echnic group" constitures. Technical tenden
cies emerging from the ethnic group are projected in
the form of technical objects, the torality of which con
stitute a "memhmne" (or a "film" ) through which rhe
erhnic group takes hold of its exterior milieu, which it
rhus assimilates via irs technical objects.
Leroi-Gourhan's analysis is greatly inspired both by
Henri Bergson , as Leroi-Gourhan expliddy acknowl
edges with his references to che theory of "life force,"
and by Claude Bernard, who makes use of the concepts
of interior milieu, exterior milieu,

as

well as of mem

brane and cell. in order to describe the "metabolic"

functions of sodo-ethnic groups,
Now. the interior milieu in which technical tendencies
aTe formed is at the same time the sear of counter
tendencies

limiting their concrete expression.

The inte

rior milieu "secretes" these tendencies, bur it a/Jo secretes

something simi
l ar to an (auto-)immune system in order to
struggle against the toxic effects that these tendencies may
ar rimes provoke within the interior milieu.

109

P O R A N E W CRITIQUE

This is in effect constituted through a technical milieu

which suppons it, which is its condition. and which is
its double (in the double sense of the word. if I may put
it like this): the technical milieu (equivalent to what
Bertrand Gille called the technical system), harbored
by the interior milieu, and supponing it. also does not
cease to exceed it and to threaten it with destruction.
as though it were a parasite that also happens to be the
condition of possibility (and of impossibility) of that
upon which it is parasitical. In brief. it is a matter of a
pharmacological milieu. bearing tendencies which are
curative as well as poisonous.
This is why. within the interior milieu, a technical
tendency. though it has its provenance in this milieu,
is never completely expressed wirhin that milieu: a
technical tendency is omy realized through technical
facts which are a compromise between technical char
acterisrics, emerging from the tendency. and ethnic
characteristics that LeroiGrouhan describes as degrees
of technical fact18 limiting this tendency--degrees of
which the tim is the pure rendency. but which is
therefore covered over by other degrees which mask it,
limiting its expression, indeed returning the technidty
of the tendency against its own expression. In certain
regards. there is a manifest comem (which is the tech
nical fact) and a latent content (which is the technical

110

P"nnllncolo ofCapital

tendency)-the manifest comenr expressing fie larenr

content only by dissimulating it,
and

tkftrritlg (diJfirnntJ

it,

diJfmltiating [diJfirtnciiltltl itself from it.

Such is the case because the interiot milieu (which

constitutes the ethnic group) harbors within the tech
nical milieu

3.

social sub-group (the technical group),

bearer of the tendency, which is distinguished from

other social groups, themselves bearers of coumer
tendencies emerging from other social systems. A social
coumer-tendency consists in causing the technical ten
dency to "diffract," to deflect, and even to reverse irs
direction. in order

to

ensure that the technical ten

dency docs nor destroy those systems constituting (he

interior milieu, which would be inevitable were it

fa

be expressed without any limitation whatsoever. The

tendency which bears the technical group is therefore
concretely expressed

as

a technical fact in the encoun

rer with other social groups which rake hold of this

tendency in causing it to bifurcate.
This deflection. this diffraction, and the bifurcations
which are produced by it, and which arc specific forms
of what Derrida described as

diJfiranr

(which is also

an economy)29 constitutes the reality of the process of

co-individuation of the technical sysrem with the social
sysrems-and. through them, the individuation of the
psychic systems mar anticipate them and realize them
111

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

jusr as much as {hey are submirted ro rhem and find

themselves conditioned by rhem.
In contrast with these conserv;nive reactions of the
interior milieu. however. the technical group, which
tends ro facilit:ue the expression of the technical ten
dency. is a step ahead when compared to the ethnic
group. insof.1T as it is extremely aware of dements of the
exterior milieu
th:1I we must

I.

. .

J understand first

of all

as

a natur.l]

milieu, which is inert. composed ofsmnes. wind, trees. and

animals. but also as rhe bearer of the objecrs and the ideas
of diRerenl human grou ps.30
The technical group is. then, what causes the passing

into action (or the transgression [pt1JSl" iz I;"cun of

the technical rendency (which is nothing other than
a poremial), via the intermediary of objects and ideas
coming from the exterior milku, that technicians assim
ilate, and through which they take a step ahead of the
interior milieu. The interior group is. however. led
to itself assimilate rhis technical milieu in order to be
able to assimilate that which. in irs exterior milieu, has
changed, something Leroi-Gourhan demonsrr:l.les with
his example of the snowshoe. adopted by the A:lskan
Inuit because their climate was becoming frozen: every

112

Pbarmacology a/CapitaL

thing here is a maner of arrangements between dynamic

systems.

The economy ofcontribution as the overturning

{renversemenr} ofthe bearish macro-tendency
The technical tendencies proper to human groupsJ l
define the human as such, and threaten [he human as
such: they threaten the cohesive factors unifYing the
group. Technical tendencies originate from the ethnic
group itself. Leroi-Gourhan's "technical milieu" may be
a step ahead when compared with the interior milieu,
yet it is so, if one can put it like this, from our of this
interior and,

i some way, by hollowing alit this interior.

n

In Gille's account, on the other hand, the technical

system and its dynamic seem to become exteriorized,
to

detach from the interior milieu, and to dc-correlate

from the social systems: this is what Gille describes

as

disadjustment.
The societies of which Gille speaks arc no longer
ethnic and tribal groups: they are much larger social
groups (empires, politically and economically organ
ized and hierarchi7.ed cities, churches, nations, etc.), the
social srructures of which are profoundly distant from
those of ethnic groups,

as

well as being divided and

113

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

differentiated into sulrgroups. social classes, economic

sectors, etc.
In these hierarchical societies, social groups are in a
reladon to other social groups with which they form a
uniey (imperial, political, religious. national, etc.). as if
these "ethnic cells" have integrated to form a superior
body constituting a new interior milieu. Furthermore,
such hierarchical societies maintain commercial and mil
itary relations with one another, leading to an exterior
milieu that is more and more strongly "anthropited."
that is, technlcizcd: a milieu of exchanges and of"exter
nal commerce," through which inrernationaJ law

can

form, which is $Ometimes an economic site, and at other

times a site of war.
Disadjustment is manifested in the spatial differ
entiation which urbanization induces. But it has only
become a perceptible and constant factor of the social
dynamic since the time of the industrial revolution. The
technical system then tends to blanket and absorb the
social systems, first of all by inscribing stllloir.jairt inro
machines (by grammarizing knowledge), rhen by shott
circuiting Stlooir-v;vu via the apparatus supporting the
service industries (in the consumerist epoch), contem
porary reticulated society grammacizing social relations
themselves via sodtll mginttring.
There have always been, in all preceding periods of
1 14

Pbamlac% D OfCapitaL

human sociery, procses 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 procs,
and which are provoked by "leaps" in the individuation
of the technical systcm-always constituted exceptional
episodes.
Disadjustmenr becomes chronic from the time of the
industrial revolution. And this becomes even more the
case

at the beginning of the rwentierh cemury, when

industry, struggling against the te.ndrntial decline in the

rate of profit, systematically organizes a form of perma
nent innovation which prC$upposes the development
of a consumerist sociery. and which depends upon the
systematic and continual transformation of ways of life.
From that poim not only does rhe technical system
,

no longer seem to be: secreted by the ethnic group--a

situation which began from the moment the ethnic
"ceU" became integrated with other, similar "ceUs
in order to form a more complex social body-but it
seems as though the technical system, in fact, escapes to
a new interior milieu within this complex body. Such
is the process of dissociat;n, a process through which
115

FOR

NEW CRITIQUE

social systems cease

[0

appropriate the technical ten

dency by deflecting it and individuating it. but rather in

which the social systems themselves are shorr-circuited
and literally dis-integrated via the technicizarion of rhe
social.
Within this process. rhe economic system toO is de
correlated from the other social systems. both through
financialization and by taking control of the technical
system, which rhus becomes the vcctor of dererritoriali
z..;trion. 'fhe technical tendencies no longer proceed from
out of rhe interior milieu, and arc no longer secreted by
it, to the extent that

thrr 110 101Jgr is Ill' illfrior milim:

the technical milieu. pa.sing into the control of a techni

cal system itself largely deterriroriallzed and globalized.
leads to tbe pure and simple dilution of the inrerior
milieu, as if ir had been parasitized-and poisoned.
This amounrs, then. ro the attaining of a Iimir
because the dilution of interior milieus is also the
disintegration of psychic apparatuses. as well

as

rhe

total exhaustion of libidinal energy and of capacities

for investment, antiCipation. and will. According to
the principles of general organology, a technical milieu
stripped of the interior milieu is a process of technical
individuation Stripped of the process of psychosocial
individuation, and is hence a process which inevitably
becomes entropic, given rh:1.I it has destroyed its energy

1 16

Pharmacology ofCnpira!
base-libidinal energy, which is a necessary condition
for every kind of protent ion

and given that technical

tendencies are actualized in technical fucts which are the

material expression of these tendencies

Having reached this stage. the tendential decline in

the rate of profit and its consumerist and speculative
.

counter-tendency, together engender a bearish macro

tendency which eventually becomes unsustainable: such
is our lot. In order to overtllrn tbis tendenC]. it is essential

[cnpitn to reconstitute

process of individuation of

the technical milieu through the individuation of a new

type of interior milieu (constituted by "multitudes" of

"cells") via investment in the relational technologies

characteristic of reticulated societics.
The therapeutic program of this pharmacology, which
rests o n the formation of new associated milieus. is the
economy of contribution.32

Organology oftendencies and oftheir

tramdttctive arrangements
There are tendencies and counter-tendencies proper to
each of the three organological levels, but these arrange
and tie together the transduccive relarions between the
three levels:

1 17

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

At the psychosomatic level, drive-based and sublima

tory tendencies and coumer-tendencies play out, the
compromise between which constitutes a libidinal
economy--expressed concretely in the course of time
through psychic configurations which are each time
specific-by arranging pharmacological possibilities
and through being projected across phnnnakl1 on
the social plane, where psychic individuation equally
becomes collective individuation and the formation
of a circuit of cransindividuarion;

At the: technical and pharmacological level, techni

cal tendencies play our, which are only expressed
concretely as technical facts encountering counrer
tendencies elicited by orner social systems, which thus
cross, animate. structure and individuate the techni
cal system itself-an encounter which always takes
place through psychic individuals inscribing their
psychic individuation within collccrive individuation;

At the social level, which is that of organizations

and institudons of collective individuation, tenden
cies merasrabilizing roward synchronization (where
synchronization is the condition of uniey of the
social level in its totality) play both with and against
diachronizing tendencies, which incessandy jostle
against these Structures which are metastabilized
through collecrive individuation-under the impetus

118

Phllmlacology ofCilpitill
of psychic individuals themselves individuated and
diachronically singularized through their relation

pbllrmllkll

[0

(and to technical tendencies), wherever

therapeutic spaces deriving from the social level make

rhis possible.
It s
i through these arrangements of multilayered ten
dencies that transindividuarion processes are woven.
Each of (he social systems is itself constituted by specific
tendencies which instantiate the dynamics of synchro
nization and diachronizacion, and which form irs own
circuits of rransinclividuarion.
Nevertheless, with each new stage of grammari
zarion, new synchronization processes, that is, new
regimes of mera5cabilizacion, are enabled. Bur begin
ning with that grammatization process which enabled
the discretization of corporeal Rows, in turn enabling
their calculation via machine tools and the appara
tus of production, management and conception, and
eventually via the psychorechnologies orchestrating con
sumption (making it possible to calculate the flux of
consciousness-"available brain-time"), the economic
system rakes a step beyond all the other social systems
by taking control of the technical system itself-that
is. by controlling which possibilities are selected from
amongst all those constituting the protenrional fields
1 19

fOR

It.

NEW CRITIQUE

opened up by technical tendencies, and by imposing

favorable technical fucts on fictitious capital, which is
itself imposed on productive capital.
Grammatization-that is. pharmacology-is never
theless what also enables new proccsses of diachroniz.1tion-thar is, of individuation. Faced with the bearish
macro-tendency described in the preceding paragraphs.
a macro-tendency amounting to a negative arrangement
of tendencies issuing from the three organological levds,
we must reacrivate an inherem ltlldmry IOlUllrd tkVII
tion in human societies, and which was translated, at a
cenain stage of grammati7.ation, and via the hypomnesic
phflrmllkon, into the culture of consistences of the skllok
and otium.

Th( tendency to ekvation-"there ar( a lot of

alternatives ..
For every stage of grammatization, societies institute
therapeutic systems, sySlems of care, techniques of self
and others. which constitute spirirualities and diverse
noetic forms. from shamanistic modds to anistic
models. passing through churches. medical therapies,
schools. sports. philosophies. and every system of sub
limarion.
120

PbnmlflCO/ogy ofCnpitnl

These systems, which are concrete exp ressions of the

tendency to cultivate consistence::s . ne::ve::nheJess presup

pose the apparatus of production of subsistences with
which they compose, and through which is formed a
negotium which, as commerce, is also a calculation about

what does exist and what will exist. What composes

together, then, is the otiltm of consistences, the l1rgoti/lm
of subsistences and that which constitutes existences
worthy of this name-through which a $(t/Joir-vivre is
formed that one can caU exisull(t.
1he economy of contribution is the stimulation of
desire through the reconstitution of systems of care
founded on contemporary phanllfllm and constituting
a new commerce of subsistences in the service of a new
e::xistence.

In the course of history, human societies arrange,

combine,

and

economIze

vanous

tendencies

and

counter-tendencies which weave and metastabilize the

dynamic systems that are formed on the:: three orga
nological levels. These arrangemems are formed by
porentizing

[potelltia/isflmj the tendencies and counter

tendencies occurring at these three levels. The dynamic

historical processes resulting from these arrangements
are generated from Ollt of the limits of those which
precede them, and they are subsequently transformed
through the encounter with their own limits. We live at

121

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

such a moment-to a very grave degree: to the degree

that the very survival of humankind is

31

stake.

Toward the end of [he twentieth century. the

tendential fall in the r.ue of profit, counteracted by
coumer-tendencies harnessing libidinal energy. in the
end produced

fI

conjunction of rht drivt-bastd undmcy

of I},t psychir !Jsltm find Iht sptmlnlhlt Imdmcy of

tht tconomic IJsum. Bur in the new pharmacological
contexi created by digital ne(Works.

fI

controT) 1l"llllgt

mmt clearly homes 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 ons various possibilities. and that is why

[0

{he TINA ideology,

"therr is

110

a/urflalivt." one

must oppose the TALOA argument. "thtu nrt lot! of

nJurnativts...

Tendencies are potenrials lying within the imerior

and rtom which possibilities can be selected: they open
fields or protemional possibilities. Possibilities which are
selected are then expressed concretdy as technical FJctS.
but these are always oriented through social syStems.
Social systems. on the other hand. are themselves cur
rendy involved in a slruggle ror comro1 or collective
individuation. Our epoch is characterized by the f.tCt
that it is thc economic system dominated by fictitious
capital that imposes a tcchnical system the evolutions
of which it presents as ineluctable-an ineluctability
supposedly extending to the liquidation not only of
the state, but or all long circujts of transinruviduation,
which was the very thing advocated by Thatcher and
Reagan in the 19805. and still advocated by Sarkozy and
Berlusconi in ,he 2000s. But in reality such arrange
menu are hisrorical. and perfectly contingenr-what is
more, they are profoundly roxic.

123

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

From drivt-based nnptintss to the ovtrturning of

the tendency
The ultraliberal parameters of the rechnicaJ system
which led to what proved to be the catastrophe of 2008
were directed solely by the short term. rhat is, by techni
cal facts organized and produced through marketing-a
marketing which denies that long-Icrm tendencies exist:
nothing other than the marker can direcl becoming. we
are informed by this "managerial dogmatism.")) and it
is just too bad if this becoming
longer have any future

[dl'!lmirj turns out to no

[n!lmiTj.

'mose arguing for and explicidy demanding this denial

of long-term existence, and finally of time itself (that is.
of the indivicluafion of singularities, of existence), claim
that it is not possible to predict the technical future, nor
is it possible to build any kind of political will or bring
it into reality. But this devaluing of anticipation, which
i n its own terms is comradictory to

all forms of invest

mem, rests on a confusion operating betwn technical

faCt and technical tendency.
Leroi-Gourhan in effect shows that it is entirely pos
sible to anticipate technical becoming. on the condition
that we understand that becoming, oriented, encour
aged and moved by technical tendencies, is diffracted"
and deAecred into technical Sets which, in the short
1 24

Pharmacology oJCnpifl11

term, can seem perfectly dearly ro rorally contradict this

tendency (jUSt as the current of a river, observed at a
very reduced scale, can give the feeling of Rowing from
east

ro west whereas it is in fact Rowing from west ro

east. because the observed pOTtion, being a whirlpool,

engenders contrary currents). indeed to durably block
it (an available tech nique can be utilized in order ro
counteract the new technique of which the tendency is
a bearer).
Such apparent contradictions are possible because
technical faCtS are compromises between technical
tendencies and social systems, which arc themselves
organizations resulting from tendencies and counter
tendencies constituting Utem as metastable sysums.J4
The question then becomes

ro

know how a public

power can, without reducing all social systems ro the

economic system (because this would be ro dissolve
desire into pure calculability), create adjustments ena
bling the Tet:onsrruction of the long term, anticipation.
investment, etc.
The careless tendency substituting the marker for
commerce is currently dominant, a tendency resulting
from a toxic combination oftmdencirs andcotmur-ulltun
cis at the mree organological levels. This roxic economy
of regressive tendencies, implemented by consumerism
exercising the psychopower of irs cultural hegemony
1 25

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

through [he intermediary of psychotechnologies, in this

way connols the becoming of individual and collective
behavior, as well as the dynamic processes of the (echni
cal system. From the resulting destruction of circuits
of rransindividuation also resulu the dilution of those
interior milieus constituting human groups.
"I nternalizing"

,"imirioriJrr")

capitalism and its

functioning. jf one still wishes to speak the language of

Bohanski and Chiapello, presupposes that the interior
milieu has not been completely dillllcd-failing which,
there is no longer any internalization, bur only pure exte
riorization leading

(0

a drivebased 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

unpredemed-w conduct a grand ovenurning of (cn

dencies in the face of generaJiud drive-based emptiness.

Tht tconomy ofcontribution as a ntw r/ation

btlWttlJ tht uchnical rysttm and social rysttms
Under the influence of thnical tendencies. the bttom
ing of the (<<hnical system-in particular after the
advenr of industrialization. and through those very
specific thnical 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 bom
ing in particular in relation to heat engines: his first
example is rhe passage from external combustion (the
furnace), which moves the piston of [he steam engine,
to the combustion produced in the interior of the cyl
inder, where the piscon slides open due

co

the force of

the explosion of a gas. a passage which occurs when the

Lenoir engine replaces the steam engine in the series of
heat engines.J6
Another case of functional integration appears with
127

FOR A NEW CRITIQUE

what Simondon calls the techno-geographic milieu asso

ciated with [he Functioning of a technical system.
Simondon developed this theory in relation to the
Guimbal turbine. for which he showed thai Ihe marine
element is functionally intcgr:Hed inro the engine and
thus becomes an associated techno-geographical milieu.
Other forms of techno-geographical milieu exist. nor
strictly associated wirh the technical system, hur adapted
via a technique which forms an intermediary between it
and the geographical milieu. and which as such forms
a rechno-geographical milieu. Consider, for example.
the comours of a stretch of land. worked upon and
tcchnicized so that it can incorporate a rail network. and
enabling a locomotive to be adapted to these COntours of
land: in this situation, the network constirures an inter
face berween the geographical system and the technical
system.
In 1990 Philippe Aigrin and myself put forward the
idea that the software industry and irs digital nerworks
will eventually cause associated techno-geographical
milieus of a new kind to appear. enabling human geog
raphy to interface with the technical system , to make
it function and, especially, make it evolve, thanks

to

this interfacing:;!7 collaborative technologies and free

license software rest precisely on the valorization of
such associated human milieus, which also constitute

128

Phal71l1tc% gy oJCapitflL
techno-geographical spaces for the formarion of positive
externalities.
This process is an inter-systemic macro-tendency
formed at the interface of the technical system and
social systems, and operating a functional integration
between them-hur where this integration is, however,
not necessarily beneficial: it is highly ph:!rmacological,
and hence, for example, social nelworks are clearly also
connected to processes of auromated traceability, set
into motion by actions and requests rhar network acrors
mostly produce without even knowing ir, bur which
confer ro those who obtain rhis informarion a new rype
of power.
Here, me interface between the technical system and
social systems docs not operate via the economic system,
but precisely through those social systems which are
bearers of the knowledge (savoirs] which society holds.
Such forms of knowledge and their valorization are the
only possibilities we have for struggling against the pro
duction of information

without knowledge. Developing

such forms of knowledge and valuing them economi

cally will calise a new economic system to emerge
from the hean of the social systems, and respecting
these soci:!1 systems mcans constituting an economy of
contribution, contrll the economy of carelessness.

129

NOTES

For II. New Critique of Political Economy

Imrodllrtio"

", I Th COnctpfli are dcvclo in La

TImiqut 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: Galilc, 2004}, pp. 74ff.
2 LA 7hniqllt tt It Tt",ps 3.
Phannacology ofll proltlarial
1 A podWt is available on the: An Inawtrialis websire: http://
www.arsindwrrialis.org
2 http://www.ecic-<:e.risy.asso.frlaClivire:marchanae08.hunl

3 Christian Faurl!, Alain Giffard, Bernard Sric:gle.r, Pour mfinir

IlI1rC'

III ",kroiJSllllrt. Que/quft propositiolls d'An buiustriaus

(Paris: Flammarion, 2009).

" In panicular Andr Gon...

5 And ,his would be: contn.ry [0 the F.amasy. inspired by incau

tious radings of Hannah Arendt, ,hal sc:c:lu 10 puriff "the:
politiar of anything onomie.

(j S Je:remy Rifkin, 7/ EndofWo"": tbt Dtt/hlt oftilt Global

l.4bor Foret (lIId fIN DnllJ/f of t/ Pou-Mar/ttl Era (New
York: Putnam Books, 1995). And Michel Roard "Prc:faee,
to Rifkin, La Fin dll travail, frans. P. Rouve (Paris: La
.

D.:couvc:nc:, 20(6).

130

Notu to pngs 20-22

7 Dominique Meda, Lt Tmvnil.
,ioll (Paris: Aubier, 1995).

VIII' /lil/tur I'll

voit dt dispnrj

8 Andn; Gon, Mitalnorp/}osrs dll tra/l(/il. Critiqllt dt III misoll

kOllo",iqut (Paris: Callimard. 2004). In English Criliqlt/,
.

of &ollomir RtiUon.

trans. C.

Tumr :and C. H:andysidt

(London: Ve. 1989).

9 Anronella Corsani and Mauririo La:u..ar:no. Inrtr",irrnllJ "

pmairtJ (Paris Ams[erdam. 2008).
:

Wark. A HtU:k" Mallifrsro (Cambridge.

Massachusttt'i: Harvard Univtrsity 11reS$, 2004).
Pekka Himanen. 77J1' H,uJur ftllir: A &IdirnlAPPNJflch t/J Ihl'

1 0 McKenzie
II

Philosoph] ofBI/Jinru (New York: Random House. 2002).

1 2 The new ques[inn of work is a1su thaI of a new attitude.

which is chnracmistic of [he nspiralions of youngtr gen
trmions.

! argued in L4 TtllrMtit rOlltrt III dtll/orrmit (Paris:

Flammuion. 2006) that the demonStrations of French

dents against The CPE (Conua[ Premier
contrao) were Ixfore anythi ng else

ULt

Emploi: a first job

a prott against [he

conn1.don between work and job: Not :Ill employment

i5 work:

not all jobs

are

conducive

to

the acquisition and

dcvelopmem of knowledge and therewith.

tion. that is. the process whereby you
youf5Clf in society as

am

ro individua
a placc for

make

a producer. mill not Oil" ItS a COlmlmtr

whostjob!lIrnMm ,hI' emploJ It Mlltry which in

tllm

(,(J/Ifm

blt]ing po/. Individuation is on ,he conlr-uy wiJat t4Jm

work btyo"d ml'rt rmploymtlll. jf one understands that 'work'

(OllJurs in 1t(l;OIl

;n tht worM in ordtr to tr411sform it 01/ lIlt

basis oftilt kllow/tdgt 0111' IIilS ofit. Now work, to the extent
[hi!! it has been affected by grammariution. in the sondary

as well as in the tertiaty sccrors. insofar as it has become: more:

and more a matter of 'wages: is today most often reduced
t he time spent in employment: th is

[0

is what results from the

131

N O T E S TO P A G E S 2 2- 3 3

sprt.'3d of dissociated milicus, :1 spread which is itself thc first

consequence of the grammaril.:ltion of gcSt1.ITC:s and modes
of production in which the industrial revolurion comisrs
( Tllkrafit (OlUrt la dtmocrntit. pp. 243-4). I will rerum to
th queslionJ in more derail fun:h..:r on.
ClI1CC" th31 Immanuel Wallerstein has perhaps

13 It Is this 3t

overlooked in his refercnce 10 Ihe Ihear}' of cydes.

10 describe the negalive dynamic of rhis exhaustion in

1 4 r try

POllr tiljillir /1/1 la mkroiSSllIlt't.

i to say, thc increasc in the fixed Clpiral component

(the mrans uf production) and the curresponding decrease

1 5 That

of \'':lriable Clpital (wage labor) .....hich Man: shows 10 be Ihe

resul! of a dI.'Crcasc in the profitabiliry ofinvcstmem.
1 6 Bernard Stiegler. Eronomit dt n1Jprrmntlritl n ,III psychOPbll

fIOir. Elltrrt;tIIs

(IIIfC

Pbilippr PniJ n Vil/et/It BOllltlu (r3ri:

MiJlc er une nuit., 2008).

17 POllr tnjinir tlV la mkrosstlllt't.
i
1 8 Jeremy Rifkin,

71,t

Agt of Aruss: 711t Ntw elllfllrt of

Hypartlpitalism Wlltrt All of Lift Is a Paid-for Exptritl/u

(New York: Putnam, 2000), p. 9.

J9

Kar] Marx, ContriblltiOIl

to fl

Critiqllt ofPoliticlt! Economy.

trans. S. W. Ryanzanskaya. (Moscow: Progress Publishers,

20

1970). pp. 195-6.

Ibid., p. 197.

21 Guy Debord. 71)t Sodtty of tbt Sptctllck. lrans. Dooald

Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books. 1995), p. J 59.

Dcnida. OiSStmi"fll;OIl. lrans. Barbara Johnson

{Chicago: Chicago University Press. J 98' l. pp. 6 1 - 1 7 1 .

22 Jacques

2 3 Gilles DeleulC and Filix Guanari, A"ti-Ot"diplfI. lroms. Roben

Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis:

Universiry or Minnesota Press. 1 983). pp. 144-5.
24

[AJ memory of words (pamirs) and no longer a memory of

132

Notes to pllges 34-4J

things. a memory of signs and no longer of cffects. Allti

OrdiprtJ, p. 144.
25 Scott Lash and Celia LuI)', Global Culmrr InduSfry (London:

Polity. 2007).
26 The reader may consult the repon of rhe International
Tek-com m unicalion

Union:

hnp:llwww.ilU.inr/itunt'Ws/

managerldisplay.asp?lang=cn&ycar=2005&issue=09&ipagc
=thing.,&cxt=html
27 Gr:lmm:nil:uion is the condition of possibiliry of what Guy
Dl.'bord calls matcrialized ideology. Sec TIJI! S(lrirry of thr
Spmlle/t. pp. 212-13. But Debord docs not think grllm
matization itsdf. nor its phatma(()]ogic:ll charaCTer, and Ihis
consritlJll.'S a block.1ge in his thought.
28 Micr,allrt tf disrridit 3. L rsprit prrdll dll CRpitn/islllr (Paris:
Galilee, 2006).
29 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engd,

Thr COt/lIIlIlI/ist MrmijtSfo.

trans. Samuel Moore (London: Penguin Uooks. 1 %7), p. 88.

30 fbid.
31 Jacques

R:mciere. tbr Nights of Labor: 71lr \\Vorkt7J' DrMm

ill l!Jth Crllrrtry Frnllu. trans. John Drury (Philadelphia:

Temple University Press. 1 989).
32 Hypolllllrllltltn are mnemo-rechniques, which is also

10

say

hypomnesic p/;tlrllltlkn, shown by Michel Foucault to plaY :1

decisive role in the formation of otirrlll and mOTe widely in rhe
processes of sublimation thar he describes

as

techojques of

the elf." On thcse <jucstions. set' Mkritlllct I'l dimidil I.

1-11
dtflldmrr dn d,mom/tin indllstrit"rs (Paris: Galilee, 2004),
p. 107 forthcoming in English !Tanslarion from Poli ty, a nd
Sli egler and An Industrialis, R,mchnllttr It IIIII/ltlr: Ln ,'a/tllr
rsprit (olltrr It populismt illf
/mm'rl (P:lris: Flammarion, 2006)
p. 3 1 forthcoming in English translation from Continuum.
33 Paul-Laurent Assou n , Lt Fhichisme (rTis; PUr. 2006).

133

NOTES TO PAGES

4 1 -4 6

34 Bakhtin's dialogical Ihcory is clOSC' 10 the Simondonian

conupdon of linguislic individuation: no psycholinguistic
individuation

can

take place. wilhoul aI.so consisting in

:a

socia-linguistic individuation.

35 MiaUna tt tlismdit /, p. 76 and p. 88,

36 One sJ'Ife:&ks of"disonomy in orde.r to qualify the datruc

riVfe dynamic broughr :about by native. 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 Olhr dimensions to these digilal
"relational Ihnologks." '{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 ofI 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 450

t'SSCnliaUy consius. and il docs so :H the' Vtry momt'nl wht'n

idrology abounds which would havc us be:lievr Ihat
Ihc very cognitiv(" capitalism responsiblc for prolt'l:l.rian
i'l.ing Ihc Mknowt'f5 [MJddHtllnMJ. as Jean-Franis Lyotud

:m

caUt'd Ihe:m. could in F.ia be: m:l.de:

10

pass for

:II

knowl

t"<igt' society.- 5t't' I..aztz.atll o. IJ Goul,""nrlnlr d ifflKnlith.

Criri'lur d f'imirurirl "ioliblra/ (Paris: Amncrdam. 2008).

Mkrllmcr n diKrMit I. p. 120.
j Maurizio Laz1..ar:nn. P,,;sulllrr dc liffIlOt'l1tioll. Ln PlJChDIq..
tir ktmomiqllr d Gabrirl Tlml collm J'mJllomir polilill'tr
(Ilaris: Lcs Empechcurs dt lOurncr e:n rondo 2002) and u
I: in 2002,
COIIIJtmmrllf dn illigalitb. In Iht' analyst's propo.'Id
LlI7.7.araco. who n..fe:f5 10 G abrid dt Tardt, i ngularly lltgk'CIS
2

tht question of hypomnesis without which such coopern

lion would be im possible:, and, a10llg with hypomntsis ht'
.

OVl.'rlook. (he: rt'tl.'l1tional sysums Ihal enabl Ihe contrul

of this coopention.

as

well

as

the prolet".Irianizadon (If the

activity of brains thrmsdves, both on the sKic of production

and on rnat ofconsumption. On Ihc orne:r hand. in 2008. he:
desc::rioo the dfccts of Ihis prolt'larian ution and the SY5lem
i

of!ht' management of inequalities wilh :I. view, not to coop

crouion bc:twccn brains. but to compctirion bctwttn nervous

systems for :l.cem, not to work. but merdy to cmploymcnt.

4 Yano Moulier-Bout:l.ng, himself citing unar:lIo, sers Oil(
hi, thcses in u Cnpitalilm COfllitif LA 1/ouwlb f'alld

tntllsfomliltioff (Paris: Anmcrdam. 2007).

5 Himant'n. 71K Harlter Ethir.
6 Wark. A Harkr Mallifmo.
7 Moulle-r-Boutang, u Cnpitnliimr rog"itiJ pp. 199ft".
8 On this question sec Faurr. Giff..rd and Slic-gJer. PrJ/lr til
jillir n' In mlrroiJJlmcr.
9 This diaJogism is less Ihal of dialccties \hlul the dialogism
.

1 35

N O T E S TO I' A G E S $ 0 - 6 0

Sa- Ln Tllimui,
8ft"'''""tt, Ir mOlld,.

of Bakhtin.

romrr

III

dlmocrali,

and

10 -&OllomiJ" lipp' p""d" i,, ,Economi%ing mt:ln5

ming cal"t1 is the title of a scminar

I gave in the spring of

2008 at the CoIJ;g, IlIImlfllioliald, phillJloplJi, as a pm of [he

theoretical acdvities ofAn; Induwialis. An audIo recording is
available at www.an;indwtrialis.org
1 1 Corsani and u7.lar:uo, Immll;nmls tIprkaim. p. 1 2 1 .
1 2 Ibid. p. 1 2 1 .

1 3 Rlfkio. 7/), Elld o/ll1o,k. "Illiroduction.

1-4 Jean-Marie Andre. L otiulI/

rIa/u fA vi, moralr " inttl/mH

al/, roma;II' ti" oriKiliN n l'Ipoqu, augullft",,, (Paris: ]IUF.

1%5). p. m.
I S In Mkrillllrt rt diuridif I I argue that the noetic soul passes

into the nocfic act only ilifermirtelllly. and therefore lives a.

bri"K-D'Il]-in;/Itrmlitttllrt.
16 Corsani and Lauar.no. IlIIrrmittrllS
l tt p,aim, p. 122.
17 Lazzar.uo. Lr Goullmt,mrllt d,s illrgalirts. p. 43.

18 Michd Roc:ud. -Prefacc" fO Rifkin. LA Fin tiu trnlltlil.

1 9 On these concepts. sec LA

Tilim1fi, om," In dlmomuit.

20 These [WO ecollomic and historical rca.lities a very diR'erelif.

even though I...au.aratO often conA:m:s them (see especially, pp.
42-7). as many do ((xfay. Fordism has nothing 10 do with reg
ulation or redistribution. and il proposed no social ptopeny:
it functiomdly intcgr.ul:S produclion and consummation and
thereby inveills consumerism. Ke}'nesinism, on the other
hand. represents a compromi bctwecn capital and labor.
Thai these twO na05formalions of the rbfion 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 pltgJ 61-67

21 The denial of Ihe epim:mologial scope: of psychoanalysis by
Sovici pychology and. morc broadly. by Sralinit Marxists
throughout the: world. is intrinsically tied to this question.
This is Ihe: contC!XI in which a

rc::lder

of i.A NouwJk Crit;q",

in Apri
l 1968. asks the edilors: Would il be: possible for LH
Nou,:rtJr C,;tiqllr 10 stage a debate beTWeen Marxists and
ps)'choanaIYS[5

I. . . 1 Young communisl psychi:l.trim an nm

undCTStand the: posifions of ,heir Sovi('( comrades who 101:llIy

conde:mn Ihis intpormOi aJX'C1 ofp),chlany. A MarxiSi analy

sis of this situ:uiun i5 lackingK (Ut NOlI/lI'lIr Cririqur, no. 13).

22 [ have: an:lIy...oo this demotivalion in Comlitu" J'Eliropr 1. U

ffloti/mropit" (Paris: Galilee. 2(05). pp. 29fT.
23 lhc: analysis of Lazur:uo i5 here: singularly clear. 5CC in
panicular pp. 30-1 ofLr COIfIH!nlrmmt tin inrgalith.
24 GUSiave: Flaubcn, I. '[tlllrari/lll srllli",m"".
2S Roland Banhc:s. KMwia Practica,w in JlllaK'. Mllsk. Trxi
(London: Fontana, 19n), p. 149.
26 Sec: Ik Lt midrt symboliqut 1. Ln (((faltropht dlf lIsiblr
(Paris: Galilee. 2005). p. 26.
27 Sc:c: Tafting Cart o/Youth and t) GnlfflltifJnS.
28 J(an-Claude: Milner. Lr SaLtirt dr tWill LH thiD,;t tin rLtlm
tt til' '" C'/Iltrlrt nI' XXiimt sitru (Paris: Lt: Seuil, 1997).
29 Mkrio"ct tl tliJ<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:nlU

ally replaced by John Law's paper mon()" and n

i rurn by the:
Fre:nch Re:volution's assig1lnrs. This is onc of the: impom.rn

stakes ofJean Michel Rey's Lt Ttmps dll rridit (Paris: Ocscl&

de Brouwer, 2002).

31 On this question. s J(an-Fran\{lis Lyolard. 1M 1,,)Jllmlln:

1 37

NOTES TO .. ... CES

67-8 J

R1kcr;fms tI" Tintr. tl'llns. GroffTt1, Bennington :and R.:.chd

Bowlby (Cambridge: Polity, 1991).

32 Hcre a nw rC:lding of Lymard's nJ( POltmodtm COllditio"

would be usd'ul: trans. Grofflknnington and Brian Mmuml

(Manchestcr. Manchestcr Univcrsil)' Press:. 1 992).

Pharmacology of Capital and Economy of

Contribution
Jean-Fram;oil Lymard. LibidillflJ rollolllJ (Bloomingmn and
Indianapolis: Indiana Unin:niry Pres.s, 1993).
2 Ars Induslrialis. an imcrn:uional usoci:arion for an indUSlri:a1
polltia of I.hnologic of spiril: hnp:llwww.af.lindusrrialls.

"'&
:3 This confcrcnce is ueee.uible

:u:

hnp:llwww.:usindumi:alis.

orglpour-une-cunom ic-dc-la-u)nrribul ion-]

4 S pp. 66 and 84.

5 In the sen.sc in which I take this term, 5 p. 29ff.
6 The tc:ndency officlilious capital is always 10 reduce the rules
to a minimum, if not 10 diminatc them :llmgcther. in order,
as

frequently :u possible,

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 Englih lransl:ation from Poli()'
Press. ProUSt ::Itso made ue of this word in his work, Slir 1(/
ltutr (P:aris: Acte Sud, 1988), p. 34. I mU51 thank Alain

GiRard for Ihi5 rcrercnce.

9 lllis W3.!l t'Xprc:S51 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
Plplc:

rmU[

be: Irain(od

10

desire:.

10

dnire culmrc:. I. . ./

10 WlIlH

new Ihings. even

bc:forc: the old have been entirely consumed.

10 Thllt is, of rupture: with wh:u AI Go dC'5Cribed

as

alraen

menl in referring 10 tile Iheory ofJohn Bowlby. AI Gore.

71lt AlsRu/t till RrllJ(JlI.

1 1 Bolt:lnski and Chiapdlo an:d)7:e: Ihe con5Cquences this Rex

ibililY hu for conlugl 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. SIIphen 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'Viion and DVDI

Video Viewing in Children Younger 'Jhan 2 Years," Archil/d

tlfPrJlntria alld AdO/Mum Mrtliri1lr 161 (2007), pp. 473-9:

and Dimitri A. Christakis. frederick

J.

Zimmerman CI

aI E:uly Television Exposure and Subsequent A[[enriona/

Problems in Children, Pnlrinlria 1 13 (2004), pp. 708-13.
14 Sec pp. 37. 48/1'. and 59.
1 5 Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello. 711t Nrw Spirit tlf
.

Cnpitdlism. tnms. Gregory E1lioll (New York and London:

Verso. 2005). p. 10. [ have tried to show in Mritlllrt tl

JiKrif/it 3. L 'hpritpmlu du ettpitlllil1nt (Paris: Galil. 2006)

why Bolranski and Chiapello Iilil co grasp desire a5 such an
economy. and why Ihe:y at the same lime f.Li1

(0

describe the

consumerisl libidinal economy and Ihe imJmSCS

10

which it

[cads. In particular, they fail to analyr.c Ihe: effecu or the Hq.

uidation of the: appar:lIus of production of libidinal energy,
and nlore gCIlC:r:llly of tile psychic appar.uus in its links 10 Ihc:
social and symbolic appar:lIUS, hence their description of thl:"
Rcxibiliry or affcctive rdalions lacks consequence.

139

N O T E S TO P A G E S

16

8 6 - 1 08

h is because the IIbidin:tI economy is prolcntional and

becau capilal is an organiution of the production of pro

lemions thai capitalisnl is :an cpoch of libidinal economy.

1 7 Max Weber. 71J Protnrllnt llJir al/(II/ Spirit a/Capila/illll
(London: Unwin, 1930). p. 7 1 .
18 This is wh:u Philippe Bir.lud and Fr.lnck Cormcr.lis II)' to
think undcr thc mmlC. 10rirt(// /Ifl/I/C: IVlIleur socitlalc"l, 10
which Cormct3is joint Ihe queslion oflorina/ imlomtioll.

lll rt diJ(ridit I. pp.

1 9 lhis poim is dc\'c!0IX'tI furthcr in MlrrilU
95-107and 120-4.
20 The wave of suicidc commilted by cmpto)'t'O of Fromcc
HJ&Um is thc tt3gie reality of the joim destruction of the
appanllus of innovation and production. as well as of psychic
individuals. without whom thcre is nothing.
2 1 BcrtnUid Gille. Hino;" tin urlm;tJlln (Paris: Gallimard.
1978). p. 77: "II is no lunger a matter of undergoing

unccmin lechnological progrcs5 in irs realiulions, (. . .1

of

accepting willy-nilly what occurs in the u"chnial domain

and of effecting after a fashion tbe necessary adap[lIrions. In

all domains, In Ihe: economic as well as Ibe military domain,

me nnurr must be organized.
H

22 The tr.lnsductive rdation is a cancep! dabonucd by Gilbert

Simondon. In a tt3nsductivc rebrion, the terms of the: rela
tion are ronstitU[ed through the relation. :and do not prt'Ccd
the rdation.
23 5 p. 140.
24 Sec p. 37.
25 On MmkrtJissalfCf,"

sec

Brnard Stiegler, POllr

Christian Fault, Alain Giffard and

til

fillir

nUff

1t, mkrtJislllllu (Puis:

Flammarion. 2(09), pp. 20-1.

26 On Ihis subjt.

dt

1I0lWtl/rs
140

sec

the Al'5 I ndumialis seminar, " TrolllJf'r

hllp;lIwww.arsindwtrialis.orgl

,mllrs:

Nom to paga

108-117

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

27 Sec p. 37 and Bernard Stiegler and Ars InduSlfi:IIi.

RimdHlmt, II' /1/01111:1' In mltll' npn', (/Jlllrt II' populilllll'
il/d,mritl (Paris: Flammarion. 2(06), pp. 49-55 forthcom
ing in English translation from Continuum.

28 5 Andti l.cmi-Gourhan. Militll rt udmiqun (Paris: Albin

Michel, 145).
29 Sec Jacquo: Derrida. Diffcranc(. MII'Silll of 1'/}i/olOpb,

(Chicagu: Universiry ufChicago. 11)72).

30 l..croi-Gouman. Militll l't tuhl/iqun. p. 334.

31 These icndencieJ :ue Ihc rauh of IhC' play of twO forcC's:

physical fotcC$ and biological foretS. On Ihis subjca.

itt

Slicglcr. TrclJllirr III/d Tilllr. J: 111t FIIIII, ofEpimrthrlll. trans.

Gcorge Cullins and Richard BC".Ird,wurth (Slanforo: Sianfi,rd

I 99tl). lhtse lendencies arc exprcss('d

Univcrsity Press.

across all human groups and in Ihis sense Ih('}, atC univcB;lI.
All groups harbor them. but ach group concrclius them in
(hdr own way. specifically. that is. by individu.ating rhem
in a specific way. and by individuating thcmselvC'S through
Ih('m.

32 This economy must introducai bcau, befurc an)' other

reason, the model of centralized networks--of telecom
municuion Ihrough the ulephonic eemer. of distribution
of energy through the da:tricity cemer, of produClion and
disrribution rhrough buying cemrc::s according

10

the modd

of con5ump!ion-has been reconfigured and has given way

to comributive networks. in very many domains. :lnJ for
rt'aSlms of pure rationality. As far as the econolllY of energ),
is COnCefl1l-d. for ex:tmple. ecntralist models have b...'("ome
unsUSfainable: encrgy cconomics :Ire no..... becoming bidi
rcctiollal ne"vorks. jusl as Jeremy RifKin pr(:dicll:d. as the

141

N O T E S TO I' A G E S

1 2 4- 1 2 8

contributive: production of encrgy begins [0 be inrroduccd.,

making possible new infl'1lStructul'd-logical
rcrlcularcd-infr.utruc[uTCli Ihal

(;riM.

art'

as

well

:IS

somelimes call Jmlm

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

cndrc. in l)ominium Muntli, L mpirt till Itllflm

lllgmlr

(Paris: Millc CI unc nuiu, 2007).

34 A mC{::Ismblc '}'Stcm is a dynmic system at thc limit

of tGullibrium ::Ind disequilibrium. and GUben Simondon
shows th::lt

:II

process of lndh'iduation constitutes a dynamic

system rcgulatl through such a metastability. See Gilbcn

Shnondnn. L 111t1itlitllltuiDII prydJiql1r if cD//tilli (paris:

Aubier, 2007), forthcoming in English tran51ation from
University of MinnOOf;! PreM"o

35 Set' p. 45.
36 Sec Gilbcrt Simoudnn.

011 motif ,/rxiUrII(t tin objru

t/)

niqlltf (P:l.ris: Aubler, 1989). pp. 20-3, (o"heoming in

English tr.lllSl;!!ion from Uni\'Crsiry of Minncsot;! Prm.

37 We worked then with Alain GifF.ard and for thC' devdopmeOl

a.ssocialion of Ihe Bibliolheque NationalC' de Francc, with a
vicw to dC'\'doping Mpom for rt'ading misted by computer.W

142

I N DEX

abstraction 2 1 . 48, 50
iMLptalion

or adoption 82, 100, 103

emrop!c 46-7, 1 1 6-17

Adorno, ThtiKior %

AS&ri, Franck 1 6

Aigrln, PhilipIX' 128

Ailtgol\, Jean-J:acqua 20

Sakhtin. Mikhail 4 1
Ibnhcs. Rol.tnd
erilintl EmtJl l 5
"Musica rr:lctlC'' 64
Bmlll. GeorgC5 5. 95
bc<:oming
control by IIt)"Chopowcr 125-6
llS runcrional

irmFlion 127-9

ahunmiva; 120-3, 123

as indivldualion 104-8

"",mll/tljl 29, 4 1 , <13

Indum}' and hs ImcrirtlUI1 In

Andre, Jt2n-Maric 53

anticition Sptcms 78-81,

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

124

13,31
Icchnic.tl 82--4. 124-5
Belgium 57-8
beliefs, change in 67-8

AriSlolle 6

be:ndiu: 20-1. 22, 52. 56, 86

ArllOYld, AmbroiK Marie 1 5

Benjamin. Waltu 33

anisfic profl'$.'lions 51-6, 69

auoclattd milieus <18-50, 51,
65-6, 69-70, 108, 1 17,
1 27-9
anemion, chnnding of68-9,
82-'
Aubrry, M3nine 20
audiol'i'ual pc-rceplion,
gnmmaliulion of I I
Au!tin.J.L67
aUlomaln! language pl1)Caling 33
automation 10, 20, 24, 34. 45

Berpon, Henri 1 09

BerlUKOni. Sill;o 123

Bernard. Claude 10')
Bernays. Edward 28
BerN, Gido 1 5
biou:dtnoJogks 31
bodies.

nOf

..ou4 10. 33. 105

Boltanliki, Luc, 71w NtUI Spirit !if

Glpil"lum 85. 126

bourgeoi!ie

dillappear:ance of the 13. 62-6

JOeial project 68

143

I N DEX

m3themaliul;on 0(87-9. 90

BrWDn \'('oocis 3"rttmnI

97

in pha(mcolog)' of cpit:l.l

C'Jlculbilhy 46. 5 I . 54. 67-8. 82.

79-8 1 . 125-6
ymmic 92-3. 102-'1. 107_11

93, 125

u.slel. Raben 55

cells. clhni.' 1 1 4-17

('::IpitOiI
liclilious n. 78. 79-81 . 84-6,
87-9.90-1. ')3, 96. 10j-4.
107. 120. llJ

frC(' 7'.), 80. 84

Chiar.dlo. Eve, 1IN Nrw Spirit I}/

Crtpimlism 85. 126

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

phmucology or71-129
C'Jpitlllisrn
Am('rican 28. 117-9. 9S-G
rchic $rngc or39
bmlrning-malia or 13. 60--6.
92-3

"cognilll'l.- and cullUrJIW 33.

<"-7
communim "(rSm 60-1
crub or3-7. 61--6. 69. 74

drivc-based 58-9. 62-6. 97

indwni.tl 2J--8

internalizing 126
Marx .1Ind Engds on 24-5

muralion nfglobal and thc

n
i dumial )"'tcm 7

nqplive dynamic in 75--6.

84--6. 89-9 1

as prOlenl;O" produclion
splcrn 66--70

I'C:licul.1ltnl47-50

1 1 1- 1 2
comnH:nsurnbilitil'S 43

C011lm1'C('

cornp.1lw with nlarkcl J-i-16,

43. 61-{). 125-6
dialogiol 41-2

and cmrn.1llirl..-s 13, 54--6

new 15-16. 19.45-50. 1 2 1

comrnodificution 38-9
cummunbnl GO

CI}/lmllmist MllllifmD (Marx alld

Engels) I I
competition 62

w,OIU('I'\':II;\,e re>-ohl1;on" 24-5.

62,73. %-8, 101

consistences 10>-8. J 20. 12]

consumer

prolctarlanized 25. 27-8. 35,

,.....

prntcllliOrls of the 68-9. 84-6

cOll'itJlllcrism 16, 23-8. 6J--6. 7 1 .

sharehulder 88---9. 92-3_ 103-4

87-9, 9 1-3. 107-8. 1 1 5.

om

ofthr sdCS4
$)'5lenl or44, 50. 70, 86. 108.
120. 1 1 1 . 1 26

('::Il1,'icsn
s cu

economy of 1 25-6, 129

144

125--6
end or4-7, 22-3. 5}--6. 69,
10'
conSlLlllption
;IS

Ih(' dt:Sltucdon ofI<II'tJir

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

lude.\

gr.lmnmiz:uion or 1 1

and iLl rdation

10

desire 12.

41-4.65. 82-4, 1 2 1 . 125

deregulation 1 0 1 . 103. 107

Derrida.Jacquo
dijpTiltlrt 1 I 1

mass 88

O/Grnmnsalo!1J1J 29

:u

Plato'S

a pJlllnltnkQl/ 83--4

relations wiJh produclion 4.

23-8. 50. 90-1

sti mul us policy 3-5

contempor:meiry

gcner:lIional tirne or 58
rl"rri!Orj1 spact" 58

y or 2 J ,

cont ribu tion . t'Conom

48-50. 65-6. (,9-70.

71-129. lOS. 1 1 3-17. 1 2 1 .

127-9

con/rot (>ciClic 30-1. 34, 46. 62.

6ij-9, 82-4. 88-9, 1 0 1
Cur'Sani, Amondla 2 1 . 22, 51-2,

crrolt 67. 80. 94. 106

critique 8. 1 1

dcomsffiJcrion as 1 5
K2nli:lJ1 1 9

economy 40-4

nd metaphysics 1 5
n or palirla! economy

1 4--1 5, 16--19. 36. 40--4.70

cul ture indumioo; 4. 3 1 . 53-6,

58-60 . 96
Curlis.

Adam.

7111' C""wry of

Stlf28
cynicism 63

Debord. Guy 27

deconSTnlcrlon IS, 29. 36

DcJcUlC, GUles. /imiOrdiplil

32-3

inliniriuuion or43. 82-4. 86.

93-6. 106-8
rdmion

10 consum ption

12,

11-4, 65, 82-4. 1 2 1 . 125

dCS(llidriutiol1. and negativc

cxternallties 57-60
d('sublimation 40. 42. 59.
62-3
diachroniurion 1 1 11. 1 1 9-20
dblogistl'l (Ihkhtin) 4 1
dijJhnllrt 1 1 1

digital networks 24
mncsic powt"r of3U. 1 22,

54.56
rcalivilY 46--7, 51-6

orlibidinal

Pharrnacyw 29. 36

desire

128-9
digital !('tieulalion 47-50. 1 14.

117
digitali7,;ition 20. 21
dis.;adll.l$!mcill 1 1 3-15
disc!('tiution JI)-II. 31-2

diseconomr 62, 73--4

discnehantm('nt 59-60. 62-3.

67-S. 94-6

disequil ibriu m 104

disindividuation 31, 37-S. 41-4.

62
disinvtstmnt 4-6. 79-B 1 . 116.

89
dispmabilil}' 30. H3. 86
dissociation 37-8, 49-50. 58-60.
84. 107. 1 1 5-16
communist 60-1
Donin. Nico la! 65

145

I NDEX

drivC':$ 40. 59-GO. 86. 121

eonsumpliou ud material

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

aledor milieu 112, 1 1 4

124-7

ClIterM:iri7.<1lion 9, 27, 126

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

"

elCcessivellcss 93-6
existence 1 2 1 . 124

74. n-9. 92-3. 102. 124

eouornic tv()lulion
(Schump<:tN) 83. 87

a:onomic S)'Stc:m
3nd p-\ychic S)'!1c:m 122
3ud social syttems 81--4.

of memory and knowledSI' as

10$' 29-31 , 33-5
ClIltmalitie;
nq;ative 49, 57-60, 62. 92-3
po,]dvc pharma(ulugic:l.l
49-50 . 5 1-6. 129
and Ir"I1sindi\'idution 13.
49-50

\06-8, 1 1 6-17. 1 2'"

3nd ta:hnical syitl:rn H2-4,
96-8, 102-4. 1 1 9-22
l'COnomics. aud philosophy
16-20
econllmiun 17-18
l"collomy or contrihutlon Itt

1':I.\"'rtau. Olivier 1 6
finnci1i1.:nion 83. 97. 106-8.
1 16
finitiution "'2. H6. 95-6. 106-8
Fbu\xrt, Gu.mlye 63
flexibility 8}-4

ronuibulM:ill. economy of

Fordism 23-4. GO. to-a

prolenliOlu, economy of

Fren(h government

economy of prolc:mions,"
rouc:nional system 96

c:lev:ltion 120-3
employmcut, and time qUC':$tion
51-"
Enauda.u. Corine 74

c:nergy, libidinal IN libidin31

energy

Engels Fririeh 24-5. 28

.

umllll"';s, Mllllifrs,o 1 1 . 38

cntreprent'ur 87

Founult. Mkhd 29, 54

emplo)'mem policy 20-1

'!.fld inlrrmirunrs all ,ptttdd

51-"
invcstment policy 4-5
Freud. Sigmund 28, 4 1 , 74, 76.
88.94.99
Fritdmn. Milton 22
functional imegnuion 127-8
rUlUrt possibilili(':f 6-7, 84-6.
107. 124

tnltllpic ad3pt3tion "'6-7,

1 16-17
environment31 de;tructlon 49-50,
57. 92-3. 102
c:thnic group, intc:rior milic:u of
109- 1 1 . 1 1 3 - 1 4

146

Gaullism 99
generatIons. tr.ltlSindividution
or58-9
gcslUrc:
di5('rt'til.:uion or 10, 33. 35

Imux
Gillr. Brnrand 98. 99. 100. 1 10.
1 13-15
glob31i7.:uion 97-8. J 16

HUSKri. F..umunU 8

God. [he dth of94

Gon:. Andre, MiuIII'''rphosn au

II"ItlNlil 20
gO\'rnmentaJ power.

m:w

'l/1bris 1 1 5
Hum/mili. L ' 1 4

form of

5 1 , 97-8. 101
gr;lm"'tiz:lIion 10-1 1 . 33-'1.
36. 1 14
as coopera[Ion bc\wun b/""Jiru

hypcrindllSlrial em 30-1. 33-5.

1 14-15

hypl'rmau:rial 24
iJYPO"W(IIIIUIl 29. 3-1-5. 41-4.
45.54
hypomnesic mllkus 30-1

"ypo"lIIniJ 29, 35. .J6

"

ident!fiutlon. primary 58-9.

13. 30-5

ideulogy S. 19-20. 123

induslrl.11iution :ll a proctsS of

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

8}-4
imgil1nry. [he 12
indIviduation -17. 9'.1-100.

1 19-20
as

phum:t<:ologiOlI 42-4. 70,

12.

:uwcialed milit:u. of 48-50.

1 17

1 1 9-20
tnn5form, fetishism 4 1
which short-circuits

psychic and colk'Ctivc 44.

48-50, 54--6. 59-60. 61.

tnnsindividudon 3S-9

99-100. 102. 1 ()4...,..8

grnmlllt1 (retl'ntional gl"lliru) 1 0

GIl':lt Britain 73. 97. 99. 1 0 1 .
123
Clffnspan, Abn 47
Crogman. i!veiyne 3, 16
Guamri. Felix. Ami.OtdipUJ
32-3

1 1 1-12. 1 1 5 . 1 1 8. 123
of rc:ference 57-8
!hnial44. 1 16-17

individuaI;on (cOni.)
Jrr

Ills" co-individuation;

disindividuallon;

Innsinaividualion
inausuial economy

Mhacker e[hies" 22. 48

and human bcroming 1 3 . 3 1

H:l.tchud, Armand lG

noopolilical of memory 3 1

hirr.ltchicll societi I I3-15

Himanen. Pclli 22. 48
Hirschman. Alben 85
hominiution 8-9
Mhomo economicw- 1 7
Horkheimff. Mu 96

rc:in"ention 108
indumial modd
collapS!: of obsolett 4. 22-3.
49. 5 5 . 87
consurnerul JrrCOnslImeriSni
indumbl polili(".5, ntw 7, 1 0 1

147

I N DEX

n
i dusuial mlolulion 10, Ij,

Iho:rary hypomn()K 30

infanillc 'rnploscnCli) 44, 83

prolcr:lli:mil.alion as loss of

lic H
...
6

32-3, 67, 98, 1 14, l i S, 127

infinitiulion ofd(:)irr 43, 82-4,

86.93-6, 106-8
innovallon
prm1:1ntnl l i S
JOdaIiulion 0(82

and ,p.\IItion 8 1-4, 90,

92-3. 102

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

60,69
and tc1cntion;tl time 69

Iho:ork:aI 30. 46

IN

TrrlJlliqlll' rtk rnnp1

LA

(Stiegler) II

in.idcr I!'ltding 93
irulitUliuns 108
hUcthca 128-9

Ibof

dcf;nidon of and thc question

ufpruduclion 1 2

inltrlurillilicu 109- 1 1 , 1 13-15.

1 1 6-17, J26
intcriorirndon 18-1\1, 126
InlcrrncJlarinn 62
ill1o:rmil1o:ncc S 1-6, 57, 69
inurnalional law 1 14
o
i \'Otmo:nl
:IS

anddp:uion 78-81

desrNCtion ofS-7, 59, 69. n.

107, 116, 124

new t}PC oftcQnomic 6-7, 66,

mUiation of I'), 18

oycrdetcrmined hy the

sod:al ilfld polhk:al 6-7

stimulus politICS 3--6

ml (If

gralllmululion 1 2

al> vari:ablc

-:tpital 45

lbor po....cr
.
38-9. 40

without knowted 43, 46

la"
:lnamnesic knowledge 000
aUfODUfo:cl proca.sing 33
discrctization of Row of 1 0-11.

1 1 7, 122

profil as rClum on 76-7

1l1s61111'Girfo;rr. S/1/I0iNIfI!Tt'

31-3
and j)'Chosocial indi\'idWition
17-8

Ush. Scon 34
bw

Jospin. Uond 20

and prolt'llIioru 69-70

on "..,.k
. ing Wttk 10. 22. 51

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

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

Ko:ynaianism 60, 95, 97, 99

Lcroi-Gourlun. Andri 9, 109,

RtIlS#II 8

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

5 1 -2. 54, 55.56

1 1 0. 1 12, 1 13. 124-5

libidinal o:conolll)' 2S. 27, S 1-6.

6 1 , 83--9. 93--6, 108. 1 1 8

infornmifll\ wilhoUi 129

148

critiquc of 40--4. 73--4

Indo<

libidinal enel'S), 25. 40. 46. 59.

61. 68-9. 82-4. 85-6.
88--9. 90. 92. 102. 1 16-17
nc:w ppr.mHes for production

tendcnq of talC of prufil

10

flll

23-8.75. 76-7.89

hn:ism 17. 40. 60. 75

maM mia 96-7. 101

life force. Ihc:ory of 109

Meadows tepa" 92
Mkmm(f l'1 dimMil (Stiegler) 53

limit. p:w:ages to the 59-60.

Mnb. Dominique 20

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

logle 10.76

Mef62

of%. 108. 122

of the tf:l 19
ItIgOf 10. 32. 46
tury. Cdil 34
Lymaru. Jen-F"'lnois. 7hr
l'IIT1/lIod,m Omilit;,w 7 1 .
73-4

mcmlmulc 109
memo'}'
C'X\crioriution of as loIS of
29-3 1 . 3J-5
hypomneslc nd anan1rleJic
len5ion j ] , 79
inlcrgcner.lliol'lul )Uppor, nf
9-11

machine-tools 34. .17. 1 1 9

mthlnn: 19. 30.33.35.37. 66.
1 1 4 . 127

Maduff. l1emard 47. 78-9

mafi. npitaliH 60-6. '12-3

Marc:usc:. Hcrtxn 40

market economy 5ff capitalism

marke! offools 43. 47
matkcring 60-1. 62. 82-4. 88-9.
90-1. 95-6. 98. 1 0 1 . 103.
124
!echnini SYStcntS ;md social
sptenu 99-101

living nppu to dead Z'J-JO.

36

:IS

matriaJ culmr!. 9-1 1

memory (tont.)

noopolidcaJ indumill
cconomy of31
lec:hnin i j l , 35

S IIIsII mllmuurr:/",in
mc:t:l.physics
and ultique 1 5
dOIutruaion of29
nlC1Utabi1i;r;t;o ion 1 1 8-20. 121
middle d 63-4

Man:. Karl 12. 28. 33. 35-6. 88

Cnp"'1I1 26. 39. 75

S RIAl bourgeoisie:: petty

Qmlll/l1l/isr Mlmifol(J I I . 38.

Milner. Jcan.CIude 65. 69

"

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

IIj'Poliriral &1/I111I11J 14. 23.
26-7.39
Grrnlllll UMIIIKJ 30-1
Grlllld,inr 39

bourgc:oiic:
mind

rffect$ of nlchineJ on J4
and hypomnesic lind
anamnt'llic lension 3 1 . 79
prolelrjaniutiol'l uf the life of
Ihe 2 1

149

I N D EX

1TUlm101hnia 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"80ulng, Ynn 2 1 , 47,
49-S0

PoUKI. ReM S. 9l
upcriulion 88

confuKd wilh

proktvi;rniz:uion 60-1

ofyoulh S9
pcrcq>lion. grammliulion o(
)).42
pcrformalivi ry. Auslin'l theory
0(67
pcrmallC.'llI rt'YOlmion 66-70

pwy bourgeoisic 64-5

plurmxology

mmu..JiUlioll mh:ll1i,mJ S I ,
56

o(OlpitaI 71-129

C'lIIeriuri1..:11illn ttthniques 27.

29.70

UJnmt'chnologieil j I

pr"lelariniudon nd <10...1

ncg-.olium 53. 5<1. 121

ofIhe prolclariat 14-44

neg:lliYe In 22, S6

llq;emropy46. to<l
nrolibenlil.m lS, 62, 1 0 1

nervous J)'$tcm. prolcurimiz:llion

oflhc45-S0

Nictuche. Friedrid! 32, 76. 9.c

o( u:chnical lcndcncies 109-13

pil/lrlllaim

(If ab511"aCiion 49-50

consumption u

digital 48

8}-.4

diHconomr of4<1, 79-81

llihilli;m 9

economy of u Ihcrapculic

noopolhia 3 I, 50

auhe mish 41, 65

nOCticity 53-6. 64. 69-70, 120

N(}lIvdb Criti'1ur. U 14

43--4, 104
o( fiaitious Clpilal 77, 78.
79-81. 84-6, 87-9, 90-1.

Obam, &ratk 4, 7
obsolnce 30, 83. 9 1 , 92-3
orpnolog )1, 34-5. 36, 44.
105-8. 1 16-17
oftcndcndn 1 17-20. 121,
12>-6

93,96, 10}-4, 107. 108

hypomnesic 21. 29, 34-5.
41--4. S4. 120

in ft'ticubtcd Clpiplism
<17-50

and lechnital sysu:m 105-8

orthographit coruciousnw 3O

phililf 6

OIium6H. 120, 121

philosophy

and poJilivc extcrnalhle11 53-6,

57,64.6S

1 50

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

IlIdrx
politia.1 struggle 36

and profit nlc 92. 97

vs.

lendentlal fall in the I':Ite of

tuk of no:\\' critique 8. I I

sophistry 29. 36. 42

Pbto
on .""lnlll'JiJ 29. 4 1 . <13
11h1ttirw 29-30, 35, 36
and the proletarit 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.lJIsindiliduation 6 1
p()lIda.I .I'm 58

1)OIl!lcl will 6-7. 124

on investment 76-7

23--8. 59-60, 68. 75--129

profitability 4. 86
proletarianization
cognitive and alf'l;\'(, 30-1
ofthe consumcr 25. 27-8, J5.
,"-"
ClIICnsioll of7<1. 103-4
;lI

10M ofknuwlnlge 33. J7-9.

60,69

of middlc duscs by
consumerism 63-5
of the nervous system 45-50
prol('trianj1.lltiOJ'

(rolll.)

ncw form of 1:3. 27-8

nd phrmoo]ogy 0-4

politics
driveb3sal63
andthc !aw 18-J9
poSfnrucrnr.llism 14-15
potmodemil)' 73-4

P()ur mfinir IIV fA m/rroWlll

i ct

(SlitglerJ

;lI return

17,24

powerlmnm- 29

Pro:S$CS, :lnd rolc of bbor 4>-6

production

of the psyche 43
tcrtiary retcmion as the
condition of 1 1 . 2 1

pro]ct:;lriat

definition 40
as disindividualnl workers

37-8
the imponance today 13. 28.
3S

and Ihe definition ofbbor 1 2

pharmcology of the 14-44

exclusion o fworkC"r from

I'bto and Ihc 28-36. 35

conditions 008
and the financial sub-splcm
"
gr.lmmatization of I I , 1 2
relations with coruumprion 4,
23--8, 50. 90-1
profe.rs 65. 69
profit

durdhlliry and toxicity 77-9

m:ruitnl fWIll all dass<'S 39

propmy 2 1

new objects of publit: 5 1

SOci3J 55-6

pmftllllons 8. 66. 93-6. 106.

107. 123
<.'Conmnyof66-70. 78. 80-1.
84-6,87-9
ProuSt. Mrcd 71

151

INDEX

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

"""',

prolC1rinil'lIion or the 43
rdation 10 infinity 9S

pS)'Chil; :lppar:lluC$ 99-100,

104--8, 1 1 G-17
nd onomk system 122

42. 103, 1 14. 1 2 1

$thumpcter. jOKph 83. 87. 90

""lor. .social 56
scdcl1tariz:l.lion 9-10. 12. 1 1 5
If

psychology 76

produttion by sdrJO-- I

psydlopowcr 46, 50,65,90-1.

Ihniqua or the (FouClull)

95-6.98, I 2S-G
Randere, jal;que'l, 71J, Ni:/Ill of

LAbor 40

r:nio 46, 50

Rca];n. RUllald 97, 1 0 1 , 12.3

rrgulalory s)'Slems 80, 96, 9'),

100

I"CSCarch, intlcpendenl of priwle

inveSlmcnt 100

responsihility 59-60. 89. 97

infinite 9U!
relallion
primary 8-9
ondry 9
tertial)' 8-1 1 . 2 1 . 70. lOG
retemion1 Konomy 8-1 1 . 66-70
reticulation, digit:;ll -47-50, 1 1-4.
1 17
rcvoludon 7, 49-50
permanent 66-70

Rifkin, jeremy 20. 2 1 . 24. 52,

56

RoclrI:!. Mkhtl 20, S6

Roodl. F.O. 95
!rnnski. Jen.Mkhd 7 \ , 74
Sarkoty. Nicol 63. 12J

$Ilwi"'/nirt 16. 27,30. 3.3.40. 42.

43. 1 1 4

152

54, 10}. 1 20
sensibility, mechanical lurn in
65

servke .-conomil'f. hypcrindutrial

}}-5. 1 14-15

shareholder manJ;emcnt 88-9,

92-3, 103-4

shoft-lermism 5-6, 57-60, 6S-\l.

81-4. 86, 88-9, 89-9 1 .
95-6. 102-3. 107, 124
Simondon. GUlle,t 37. 42. 46.

54-5. 93, -IOO, 127-11

Smith, Adam 34

social c 13, 39. 40, 60--6

wdaJ engineering 1 1 4

sodal n
i justke, economic crisis
-and 6

social netWOrking 44
social relations

functionaHution or 19, 67

liquidation or 57-60
SOI;i:d SYSlems

bccomin g of82-4. 105-6. 123

nd lechniClI system 109-16.

12), 1 24, 127-9

thnicd i)'5!ent nd markeling

<)<)-101. 102-4
socimhel';lpy )6, 70
Wrt power 95

IJldx

Spaggiari. Albert 79
speculation 6. 59--.60, 77. 78-81 .
84-6. 89. 92-6, 102. J07.
1 1 7, 1 2 2
and innovation 81-4
spirit (Weber185
Stalinism 60-- 1
state 97-8, 99-100, 123
Napoleonic 99
JU II/sQ wdfare stte

tcndcncic
and countrtcndcnci<!$ 43--'1,
75-6. 87-9. 9 1 . 109. 1 1].
122
orgallolog)' of 1 1 7_20
overfUrning of 124-7
as

potentials 123

to cardeness 79-8 1
tertiary rctcllIion 8--1 1 . 2 1 . 70.
106

timuhlS piatls 7

as

sublimtion 40--4. 6 1 . 65. 102.

prol<'t:tri3niztion 1 1
l'Yulution 0(9-1 1

1 07. 120, 122

ynchronilatlon 1 18. I 19

the condition of

Thatcher, Margaret 73. 97. 99.

l O t . 123

systemic Sfupidity 5. 47-50. 126

thmpeutiCS 36, 43-4. 50, 100-1,

Tarlnrism 88
technical ensembles"
(Simnmlnn) 46
technical sysrem 1 1 0

and economic synem 82-4.

96-8. 102--4, 1 19-22
aod phnrmnlm 1 05-8
and social S)'5tems 109-16.
12,3, 125. 127-9

social systems and marketing

99- 1 0 1 . 102-4
cechnic:J tcndenda
nd economy ofconuibution
1 13-17, 1 18
pharmacology of 1 09-13
t'ChniC5 8. 36
t!'dlnnlogy

mechnnkal 19. 30. 33

of the spirit 2 1
tcmporJliry
new social 55-6. 93-6
Jrr lliso

timr

103--'1, 1 17, 1 19. 120. 126

"thingificatinn" 34. 38-9
dme
and ctnpJoymem 51-6
(rtc 55-6
human 5ubordin:llN to
commodity.time 27
imcrgencr:nion:l.! social 100
light. 24

of nClCtic in{ermillence 53-6

mcmional and protentional
69
short term versus Inng term
77. 124

spatialiution of conscioll.5
8-10,66
sp('cllblion rouilizcs 107
s studious leisure 1fr otium
usc or 52--6
1ft al!

cotllempol'llneil),;

temporalit),
tntlimrianism. St;llinist 60-1

153

INDEX

loxidf)'
pharmacologial 5. 49-50. 59.
84. 88-9. IO'J. 123. 125-6
ofprofil IT-9

I( 21)

tr.uuJucli\ rcbtiolUhip }4-5.

100--1. 104-8. 1 17-20
lInsindh'iduation 1J. 27. 41.
48-50. 93. 105-6. 1 18-19.
126
ofgen(r.tt!!lI\ 58-9

longdrcuhs of 50. 51. 57.

9}-6. 101. 123
hon-cltcuheJ .5. 38-'). 44.
57-60. 60. 6 1 , 103. 107

tr.l!lsllional object 4 1 , 44
trun 67

truth uf an idel (i'1101 43

mllh orbeing,
th 29

rrnembrnl1c( uf

new colICC'JHion ofeconomic

S1
lhnological90
Vauanson, JacquC'$ d( 10
\'Ioralisu 48, 49-50
\'ision 6-7
1O'lIgt'-carncn ofthe Idcal 65.
6.

Wark. Md(nm 2 1 , 22, 48

Weber, Mall 85, 87. 9<1

wdfu( Slal( 95, 97-8

wilt.. Ir.tnsformalion of 67. 9J..("
1 16
work 2G-3. 45-70
definition of2!, 22-3. 55-6
the enJw of2
neg';lIin Iall

for fcmUncr:llion

of nunwaded 22
new pr.tctitef 22

a '}'IT'bolk milicu 37-8

TyDddlis. Dlnid 3

as

unconscious. Ih( 8. 12,28

linu: outs.idc of mlplormcnl

22. 54--6

UnMIt2G-1
uncmp)'m<'m 2G-1. 52. 55-6

Unil Statts 20. 28. 73. 87-9,

97. 101
unit.alion 1 14-15

writing
as

di5cmiz:uion ofI f{o... of

sfXUh 31-2

:IS illusion

for manipulation of

minds 29

the plMnmI" of79

youlh. paupcriulion of 59

154