dear Max, Thanks for your response.
There are 750 million 20-foot containers passing through various ports. They carry material things. This seems to have been forgotten. warmly jeebesh > On 17-Jun-2019, at 8:18 pm, Max Herman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi Jeebesh, > > I think maybe he means that early capitalism tends to focus on making things, > whereas later capitalism focuses more on buying and selling? This would > reflect the intense interest in financial services, derivatives, branding, > and so forth. I think he refers in many contexts to the abstraction of > capitalism so to speak, its becoming more subtle, conceptual, and > philosophical if you will. Perhaps he wants to suggest that later capitalism > is more about meaning-making and information processing, and the control > types proper to those, than about object-making? > > But I am far from an expert on Deleuze, much closer to the opposite. > > Thanks, > > Max > > From: [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Jeebesh Bagchi > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> > Sent: Monday, June 17, 2019 1:10 AM > To: Emaline Friedman > Cc: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>; Nil > Subject: Re: <nettime> Periodizing With Control > > In Postcript Deleuze writes: > > "As for markets, they are conquered sometimes by specialization, sometimes by > colonization, sometimes by lowering the costs of production. But, in the > present situation, capitalism is no longer involved in production, which it > often relegates to the Third World, even for the complex forms of textiles, > metallurgy, or oil production. It’s a capitalism of higher-order production. > It no longer buys raw materials and no longer sells the finished products: it > buys the finished products or assembles parts.What it wants to sell is > services and what it wants to buy is stocks. This is no longer a capitalism > for production but for the product, which is to say, for being sold or > marketed.” > > This is 1989. > He writes - “Capitalism is no longer involved in production”/ > “This is no longer a capitalism for production..”. > > 1989 - Global GDP 20 Trillion. > 2018 - Global GDP 80 Trillion. > > It is understood that the tendency to spatialise and own capitalism as a > specific Euro-American phenomenon is a deep malaise of thought. (The rest of > the world is an after-image). > But even there, in its own territory, it seems off target. > > Can anyone explain this meaning of Capitalism? > > >> On 17-Jun-2019, at 2:04 am, Emaline Friedman <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> Garnet, >> >> I laughed at your response ! Not at all interested in tearing you apart, but >> wanting to explore this sense of "who cares?", toward which I'm also >> inclined. >> >> What really makes me think "who cares" is the obvious careerism baked into >> the argument. I think one could put Seb's basic idea in a tweet and credit >> Kojin Karatani: "all the modes of control are imbricated. everything is >> happening all at once". Hence we have digital feudalism, social coercion via >> reciprocity, state surveillance, and the marketization of everything a la >> real subsumption simultaneously. Great. Now what? >> >> As a young person emerging from grad school, I often think that if we were >> actually adapting to the abundance of the net that no one would be reading >> Foucault and Deleuze anymore. They're already perfectly distilled and >> advanced upon by diligent secondary readers who have used them well. And >> yet...one must continue to read "the greats" even when there isn't much left >> to mine. A perfect example is this tone of "I'm going to show you something >> you've NEVER SEEN BEFORE in these mystical 6 pages of Deleuze's writings! >> Voila!": >> >> Could it be that the final sketch of control, the “Postscript on Control >> Societies,” encrypts the kind of multithreaded historical method that is >> necessary for engaging with the epistemic demands of the period it >> ostensibly defines? >> >> I am read in Deleuze, adore his thought, and I've never understood why >> people have this sort of "there's gold in them hills!" attitude about the >> Postscript in particular. It's of very minor academic interest at best that >> Deleuze makes an uncharacteristic judgment call (things are getting worse, >> not better). I'd actually love it if anyone on this list would like to >> convince me otherwise. >> >> But back to the point...maybe this text isn't unhinged from reality, but >> demonstrates the reality that academic grooming is primarily aimed to keep >> academia alive. So Seb and many of us here think thoughts just lofty enough >> to subordinate direct action to spending inordinate amounts of time reading >> and writing theses that basically say "history isn't neat, everything is in >> play". >> >> And yet! I like to read texts like these! They inspire me. I work in open >> source tech now and ideas like these both remind me that what I do is >> culturally important, and WAY more important than my ego needs, it's a real >> site of struggle. When I share these ideas with my collaborators, we think >> critically together about how our abstract plans will hit the "ground" as >> habitus for users. >> >> TLDR if you think a work of theory is too abstract, it's probably inspiring >> someone "on the ground", anyway. if you're uncomfortable with a division of >> labor whereby academics do this and other people do other stuff, take my and >> probably most other nettimers' lives as evidence that such a division is not >> fixed >> >> >> On Fri, Jun 14, 2019 at 12:25 PM Garnet Hertz <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> I'm likely going to get torn apart for saying this, but in regards to >> "Periodizing With Control"... who cares? What are the implications of this? >> >> Seb is super smart and this is nicely crafted and researched - but this >> lacks any sort of case study, place, context, time or any connection to the >> real world. It's a bit like Foucault theorising about a concept, Deleuze >> putting a layer on top of it, Jameson reinterpreting a layer on top of that, >> Galloway building on top of that, and Seb embellishing that. It's the >> standard incantation of names that resembles an item that has 5 layers of >> paint (or clay) on it but the base is lost in the process. >> >> While all this was going on, the base layer of world is literally melting >> down, politics and nationalism has gone to hell, academic institutions are >> in a tailspin and the writing has never taken notice - or at least this text >> doesn't notice. I'd argue (and would love to be proven wrong, but) this text >> is completely unhinged from reality. No? >> >> Garnet >> >> >> On Thu, 13 Jun 2019, 6:29 pm Nil, <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> Periodizing With Control >> >> by Seb Franklin >> >> This essay is guided by the following question: what kinds of critical >> possibilities become legible if one reads Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualization >> of control societies both as a work of periodization theory and as a theory >> of periodization? In other words, how might one read control in >> methodological terms? One of the motivations for this inquiry is Fredric >> Jameson’s observation that periodizing hypotheses “tend to obliterate >> difference and to project an idea of the historical period as massive >> homogeneity (bounded on either side by inexplicable chronological >> metamorphoses and punctuation marks” (1991, 3-4). Jameson’s solution to this >> problem is to conceive of the “cultural dominant” that replaces the concept >> of style within aesthetic analysis and that thus allows for “the presence >> and coexistence of a range of different, yet subordinate, features” (1991, >> 4). The features that Deleuze attributes to control suggest the possibility >> that this analytical rubric can be extended to the analysis of “dominant” >> features that occur not in spheres conventionally described in aesthetic (or >> stylistic) terms, such as architecture, literature, and visual art, but in >> material- discursive arrangements like governmentality, technology, and >> economics. A close reading of Deleuze’s theorization of control reveals >> those three threads to be knotted together in ways that both invite and are >> irreducible to historical breaks. Because of this, Deleuze’s writing on >> control societies points towards modes of historical analysis that can >> account for complex assemblages of epistemic abstractions and the concrete >> situations that undergird and (for worse and for better) exceed them. >> >> It is certainly the case that periodizing gestures appear to ground the >> essays “Having an Idea in Cinema” (1998; first delivered as a lecture at La >> Fémis in 1987) and “Postscript on Control Societies,” as well the >> conversation with Antonio Negri published as “Control and Becoming” (1995; >> first published in 1990). [1] Across these texts Deleuze names and sketches >> the contours of a sociopolitical and economic logic that diverges in >> important ways from the earlier regimes of sovereignty and discipline >> theorized by Michel Foucault. In the earliest of what one might call the >> control texts, ostensibly a commentary on the cinema of Jean-Marie Straub >> and Danièle Huillet, Deleuze itemizes the signature components of >> disciplinary societies—“the accumulation of structures of confinement” >> (prisons, hospitals, workshops, and schools)—in order to demarcate a period >> in which “we” were “entering into societies of control that are defined very >> differently” (1998, 17). These newer types of societies are signaled by a >> specific mode of social management: the age of control comes about when >> “those who look after our interests do not need or will no longer need >> structures of confinement,” with the result that the exemplary forms of >> social regulation begin to “spread out” (1998, 17-18). >> >> So, the dissolution of institutional spaces and the concomitant ‘spreading >> out’ of disciplinary power marks the first characteristic of control >> societies and, apparently, establishes their difference from arrangements >> centered on ‘classical’ sovereignty or disciplinary power. The exemplary >> diagram here is the highway system, in which “people can drive infinitely >> and ‘freely’ without being at all confined yet while still being perfectly >> controlled” (1998, 18). In “Control and Becoming” Deleuze once again speaks >> of the passage through sovereignty and discipline and the breakdown of the >> latter’s sites of confinement, but he adds a second valence in the form of a >> discussion of technology that is only hinted at in the earlier piece’s >> allusions to information and communication. In this conversation Deleuze >> again appears bound to the notion of the historical break: he suggests that >> sovereign societies correspond to “simple mechanical machines,” disciplinary >> societies to “thermodynamic machines,” and control societies to “cybernetic >> machines and computers” (1995a, 175). >> >> These two intertwined narratives—of distributed governmentality and >> technologies of computation—represent the two main vectors through which the >> concept of control has shaped subsequent critical writing. For example, one >> might read Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s concept of empire (2000) as >> emphasizing the former, and Alexander R. Galloway’s Protocol: How Control >> Exists After Decentralization (2004) as privileging the latter, although in >> truth each addresses both technology and power in some ratio. Equally, one >> can identify commonalities between the lineaments of control societies and a >> still-growing body of periodizing concepts, both celebratory and critical, >> that do not mention Deleuze’s concept but that define a similar set of >> historical movements in more universal terms: the information age; digital >> culture; the network society; post-industrial society; the age of big data; >> and so on, and so on, and so on. >> >> So many ways to dream a ‘pure’ economy of services and informatic exchanges. >> But what do such imaginaries occlude? Does ‘real subsumption’ really >> describe the full, evenly distributed inclusion and valorization of all >> social activity? Or does it describe the complex of material conditions, >> conceptual operations, and imaginaries that organize social life around >> abstract principles for the efficient extraction of relative surplus while >> remaining structurally premised on the regulatory function of surplus >> populations and, increasingly, the second-order extraction of residual value >> from these populations? Can one really disaggregate the general and >> generalizing notion of “free floating,” decentralized, and computer-enabled >> control societies from such imaginaries, even if Deleuze’s intent is >> ostensibly critical if not revolutionary? Based on the general tendency with >> which the Deleuzian concept of control has been deployed in critical >> writing, the answer must be no, as Wendy Hui Kyong Chun suggests when she >> writes that the notion of control risks sustaining the very discursive >> formation that it sets out to critique (2006, 9). Across the control texts, >> though, it is possible to identify a more complex system of periodization, >> one that is less concerned with linear (albeit staggered and layered) >> progression than with the multiplication of different, often competing >> systems of historical knowledge that make the absolute novelty and >> specificity of control societies impossible to sustain even as it is defined >> and deployed as an explanatory periodization theory. This movement, which >> starts to appear with a couple of passing remarks in “Control and Becoming” >> and that comes more fully into view across the six pages of the >> “Postscript,” suggests that Deleuze is concerned not only with extending >> Foucault’s periodizing project but also complicating the kind of historical >> thinking that produces the various totalizing concepts listed above. Could >> it be that the final sketch of control, the “Postscript on Control >> Societies,” encrypts the kind of multithreaded historical method that is >> necessary for engaging with the epistemic demands of the period it >> ostensibly defines? Might this, rather than the specific characteristics >> that Deleuze attributes to control, represent the real import of his >> intervention? The remainder of this essay examines the intersections of the >> three strands touched upon in this introductory discussion—power, >> technology, and economy—in order to foreground these >> historical-methodological possibilities. >> >> 1. Power >> >> As cleanly as the discipline-control sequence appears to function, it >> becomes clear across the control texts that the relationship between the two >> terms cannot be reduced to one of direct succession or linear extension. In >> “Having an idea in Cinema,” for example, Deleuze points out “there are all >> kinds of things left over from disciplinary societies, and this for years on >> end” (1998, 17). In the conversation with Negri he further complicates the >> relationship between the two periodizing concepts by stating that Foucault >> was “one of the first to say that we’re moving away from disciplinary >> societies, we’ve already left them behind” (1995a, 174). And in the >> “Postscript” he writes that “Control is the name proposed by Burroughs for >> this new monster, and Foucault sees it fast approaching” (1995b, 178). So >> control is: a discrete period full of leftovers from a previous one; an >> episteme that is at once being approached and that has already been fully >> entered; and a period that is yet to be entered but that will be soon. There >> is nothing like a consensus across these three temporal relations. Each, >> however, makes it clear that the relationship between the periodizing terms >> cannot be understood in terms of a break. This opens up a series of >> questions that have methodological, as well as historical implications. What >> is the temporal relationship between discipline and control? What role does >> sovereignty play in the two ‘later’ periods? What drives the Globally uneven >> movement between disciplinarity and control, and how can the latter function >> as a periodizing device if it cannot be detached from the former? The only >> possible answer is that the logic of control does not invent new relations, >> but mobilizes and reorients techniques and technologies whose origins >> predate it. Such techniques and technologies must thus be understood as >> recursive; they both originate in and belong to a specific regime and >> perform essential functions within subsequent regimes. Because of this, >> historically attentive analyses of control cannot remain in the twentieth >> century, but must set about gathering the threads that, in the appropriate >> combination and at the correct level of development, constitute apparatuses >> of power that are distinctive in character even as they retain objects and >> practices that first become legible in earlier moments. One way of doing >> this is by considering the specific phenomena Deleuze implicates when he >> suggests that Foucault already identified the roots of control in >> disciplinary societies. >> >> In the “Postscript” Deleuze identifies two particular tendencies in the >> systems of management unearthed by Foucault: the first centers on the >> production of the individual subject through techniques of discipline, and >> the second addresses the biopolitical formatting of a given society as a >> mass delineated by statistical models and confined by thresholds or filters. >> Where disciplines saw “no incompatibility at all” between masses and >> individuals, so that signatures could stand in for the latter while lists or >> registers accounted for the individual’s place in a mass, control >> reformulates masses as “samples, data, markets, or banks” and recasts >> individuals as “dividuals” (1995b, 180). The resonance with Foucault’s >> theorization of biopolitics and biopower is marked: what are samples and >> data if not computational technologies for the production of the “forecasts, >> statistical estimates, and overall measures” that Foucault positions as >> emblematic of biopower (Foucault 2003, 246)? What are markets and banks if >> not electronically augmented examples of the “subtle, rational mechanisms” >> of biopolitics that include “insurance, individual and collective savings, >> safety measures, and so on” (Foucault 2003, 246)? What is the dividual if >> not the subject mapped in terms of generalized, discrete predicates (race, >> class, gender, sexuality, ability, age), none of which can metonymically >> stand in for the ‘whole’ person? How, in other words, does control differ >> from biopower? >> >> The proximity between Deleuze’s theorization of the cybernetic movement from >> masses to data and Foucault’s conceptualization of mechanisms that seek >> “homeostasis” (249) is registered in the odd way in which Hardt and Negri >> introduce the two in Empire: they write that “Foucault’s work allows us to >> recognize a historical, epochal passage in social forms from disciplinary >> society to societies of control.” (2000, 22-23), Only in the footnote to >> this claim do they reveal that this epochal passage is “not articulated >> explicitly by Foucault but remains implicit in his work,” an observation >> that is only guided (rather than prefigured) by “the excellent commentaries >> of Gilles Deleuze” (2000, 419n1). Within Foucault’s oeuvre The Birth of >> Biopolitics (first delivered in lecture form in 1978 and 1979; English >> translation 2008) might be the book in which a genealogy of control is most >> explicitly articulated, although it is notable that this text focuses on the >> imaginaries of political economists rather than those of governments. >> “Society Must be Defended” (delivered in lecture form in 1975 and 1976; >> English translation 2003) and volume I of The History of Sexuality (1976; >> English translation 1978), both of which center on techniques of >> governmentality, disclose connections between discipline, biopower, and >> control that make theories of linear succession unworkable. >> >> So, the identification between biopower and control appears so overt that >> Hardt and Negri more or less conflate the two and are able to attribute the >> definition of the latter to latent content in Foucault’s writings. They then >> make the claim that “[i]n the passage from disciplinary society to the >> society of control, a new paradigm of power is realized which is defined by >> the technologies that recognize society as the realm of biopower” (Hardt and >> Negri 2000, 24). So control societies come about when the ratio of biopower >> to discipline shifts in favor of the latter. What, then, is revealed about >> the historical specificity of control societies when one recognizes that >> Foucault locates the emergence of the techniques of biopower, in concert >> with those of discipline, in the eighteenth century? For this is the claim >> that grounds Foucault’s introduction to the concept of biopower in “Society >> Must be Defended,” where he states that “the two sets of mechanisms—one >> disciplinary and one regulatory [biopolitical]” are “not mutually exclusive, >> and can be articulated with each other” (2003, 250). This is restated in >> volume I of The History of Sexuality, in which Foucault writes that power >> over life evolves in “two basic forms” from the seventeenth century onwards >> (1978, 139). These two forms again correspond to the regimes of discipline >> and biopower. While the second of these appears “somewhat later” than the >> first, it is clear that Foucault does not theorize the two as discrete, >> successive developments. Nor are they theorized as “antithetical” (Foucault >> 1978, 139). Rather, they form “two poles of development linked together by a >> whole intermediary cluster of relations” (1978, 139). This diagram—two poles >> linked by intermediary clusters—suggests that control emerges not from a >> waning of disciplinary power, but rather through a shift in the >> articulations of discipline and biopower that is much more complex than a >> simple passage through which a given society becomes increasingly >> intelligible as graspable through the terms of the latter. Equally, although >> the former might appear to be organized around inclusion and exclusion and >> the latter around integration, thinking the two as articulated logics >> emphasizes a more complex relationship: biopower is organized around >> thresholds that render and occlude populations, while disciplinary >> techniques both regulate the education, productivity, and health of ‘normal’ >> individuals (above the threshold) and manage the bodies that fall below the >> line separating the normal from the abnormal, or that which should be made >> to live from that which can be left to die. >> >> Once so-called disciplinary societies are understood to be organized around >> both the ‘pure’ individualizing function of disciplinary institutions and >> the massifying, averaging, and sorting functions of statistical modeling and >> management, the historical movement from the eighteenth, and nineteenth >> century articulations of discipline and biopower to the phenomena Deleuze >> associates with control must be understood in terms of shifts in scale and >> conceptual emphasis. Furthermore, these shifts can be connected to the >> function of particular technologies, which not only facilitate specific >> practices of capture, representation, and management but also generate and >> modify the dominant conceptual bases around which social formations are >> imagined and normalized. Consider the following proposition, which draws >> together the governmental and the technological valences of control: the >> mutation of a regime organized around the hinged, lockable thresholds of >> factories, plantations, and prisons into a regime organized around logic >> gates and supply chain diagrams can be understood as a movement between >> enclosures that are larger than and that enclose, include, and exclude >> bodies and microscopic enclosures that are premised on logics of selection >> and that position non-selected beings as nonexistent or structurally >> invisible rather than aberrant but existent. [2] Or, consider the ways in >> which the necropolitical regimes identified by Achille Mbembe (2003) and the >> genealogical link between panopticon and slave ship that Simone Browne >> traces so brilliantly in Dark Matters (2015, 31-62) persist and are reframed >> or modulated through the shifts in articulation sketched here. [3] These >> articulations, modulations, and intensifications are organized around (but >> not determined by) technological regimes. The relationship between the >> individual and the dividual, for example, is intelligible as the difference >> between the world rendered mechanically or thermodynamically and the world >> rendered digitally—a shift that reframes Deleuze’s comments about the >> signature technologies of sovereignty, discipline, and control in epistemic >> terms. >> >> 2. Technology >> >> Considered in isolation, “machines don’t explain anything” (Deleuze 1995a, >> 175); rather, they “express the social forms capable of producing them and >> making use of them” (Deleuze 1995b, 180). At the same time, the “language” >> of discipline can be specified as “analogical,” while control operates >> through languages that are “digital (although not necessarily binary)” >> (1995b, 178). So analogue and digital, while associated with certain classes >> of machine, must be understood to exceed the technical registers that shape >> them and to function as conceptual operators within discursive-material >> fields (which might include systems of production, management, and >> regulation). With this in mind, how might one derive a non-deterministic >> theory of the relationship between technology, power, and economy from the >> control texts? This question lurks in the background of the “Postscript on >> Control Societies,” and it constitutes one of the most telling ways in which >> that text can be read as an encrypted theory of historical method as well as >> a diagram of a specific period. >> >> As is suggested at the end of the preceding section, the shift in scale from >> the door of the enclosure to the gate of the logic circuit circles around a >> technological development, but is also comes to undergird epistemological >> claims about fundamental categories such as thinking, the human, and >> sociality. And, as the discussion of discipline and biopolitics at the end >> of the preceding section suggests, the historical, concept-generating >> function of technology that Deleuze sketches with his claim about >> “collective apparatuses” impedes linear periodization by implementing a >> recursive temporality: specific technologies give concrete form to >> collective social forces that precede them, and in so doing intensify and >> reorient these forces, coming to function as what Hans-Jörg Rheinberger >> (1997) calls “epistemic things.” In other words, a specific technology might >> come to concretize and exemplify the abstractions undergirding a given >> political-economic regime, but it does so by securing or amplifying certain >> conceptual structures or operations that logically and historically precede >> it, as well as by reorienting concepts and facilitating new practices and >> relations that point (again, for better and worse) towards different >> sociopolitical arrangements. For example, as Bernhard Siegert (2012, 2015) >> shows, the door permits a body to pass through when it is open, thus both >> expressing and securing the inside/outside distinction (and, by extension, >> the logic of disciplinary power), whereas the logic gate permits a signal to >> pass through only when it is closed, thus securing a conceptual system that >> permits conceptual mixtures of inside and outside, and human and nonhuman, >> that exemplify distinctive regimes of accumulation and management. >> >> This recursive theorization of technology as product, expression, and >> shifter of social forces is one of the moments at which continuities between >> the control texts and Deleuze’s earlier collaborations with Guattari become >> most overt. Consider the similarities between the “collective apparatuses” >> of which machines form one element and the “social machine” that Deleuze and >> Guattari identify in their book on Kafka: >> >> a machine is never simply technical. Quite the contrary, it is technical >> only as a social machine, taking men and women into its gears, or, rather, >> having men and women as part of its gears along with things, structures, >> metals, materials. Even more, Kafka doesn’t think only about the conditions >> of alienated, mechanized labor—he knows all about that in great, intimate >> detail—but his genius is that he considers men and women to be part of the >> machine not only in their work but even more so in their adjacent >> activities, in their leisure, in their loves, in their protestations, in >> their indignations, and so on (1986, 81). >> >> This claim, which is redolent of the “social factory” thesis advanced by >> Mario Tronti and taken up by many subsequent writers, makes it clear that >> “collective apparatuses” centered on technology include concepts, systems of >> management, and normative ways of living as well as procedures of >> extraction, definition, and occlusion. The mechanical factory of “gears,” >> “structures,” “metals,” and “materials” is one such apparatus, and it is >> imbricated with specific orientations of “leisure,” “loves,” >> ”protestations,” and so on. What kinds of orientation center on computation? >> >> In Control: Digitality as Cultural Logic (Franklin 2015) I tracked some of >> the ways in which the electronic digital computer functions both as a >> specific device and as a source of ideas and metaphors within the shifting >> social and economic imaginaries of capitalism. The genealogy I posit moves >> through the imbrications of computation and socioeconomic imagination in >> Charles Babbage’s interrelated work on computing engines, theology, and >> political economy in the 1830s, Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machines of >> the 1890s, and the diffusion of computer metaphors following the emergence >> of the multi-discipline formation of cybernetics from the 1940s onwards. >> Following this, I trace some of the ways in which these imaginaries become >> visible in economic theories, systems of accumulation, production, and >> circulation, management styles, psychology (including mid-twentieth century >> developments in psychoanalysis and later practices such as NLP), literature, >> and film. Across these analyses I focus on the ways in which the >> articulations of human and (computing) machine, sociality and (computer) >> network, produce normative visions that cleave ever closer to the insistent >> but impossible ideal of capital as a logic that promises to integrate the >> entirety of the social without remainder. As I attempted to show in that >> book, there are a number of places in which one can look for images of the >> collective apparatuses fantasized under celebratory and critical accounts of >> control. The prehistory of computing machines and their projected >> applications to workplace organization, value extraction, and population >> management is one. The Macy Conferences of 1946-1953 are another. The TCP/IP >> suite and Google’s PageRank and AdSense technologies are others (Pasquinelli >> 2009). And production and recruitment manifestos from the Toyota Production >> System to the Netflix “culture code” are yet others. But one can also look >> to an earlier project associated more than any other with the practice of >> disciplinary power. >> >> Jeremy Bentham’s 1787 essay “Panopticon, or, The Inspection House” begins >> with a grand announcement: “Morals reformed—health preserved—industry >> invigorated—public burdens lighted—Economy seated, as it were, upon a >> rock—the gordian knot of the poor laws not cut, but untied—all by a simple >> idea in architecture!” Resisting the oft-repeated distinction between >> discipline and biopower, Bernhard Siegert takes the universality of this >> claim as an opportunity to locate an unexamined genealogy of digital-social >> technologies that, perhaps surprisingly, includes the disciplinary >> technologies of panopticon and penny post as well as the nascent computing >> machines theorized and developed by Babbage and Ada Lovelace. “The >> Panopticon was applicable to every kind of bio-politics,” Siegert writes of >> Bentham’s pronouncement, because on it, like on the penny post and the >> analytical engine, “contents and applications were programs that ran (or >> would run)” only because “such machines were blind to them” (Siegert 1999, >> 126-127). This leads him to a theorization of power that is compelling for >> thinking through the historical logic of technology that the control texts >> insist upon: >> >> That the machine or power became abstract, Deleuze has said, merely meant >> that it became programmable. But power itself became machinelike in the >> process. The rationality of power—functionality or universality—requires the >> prior standardization of the data it processes—via postage stamps or punch >> cards, it makes no difference…Disciplinary machine, postal machine, adding >> machine: after their interconnection was established, bodies, discourses, >> and numbers were one and the same with regard to the technology of power: >> data, and as such, contingent (Siegert 1999, 127). >> >> The central figure here is not enumeration but abstraction. In Siegert’s >> account one finds a description of the disciplinary technology par >> excellence in which the latter appears not as a thermodynamic machine (in >> line with Deleuze’s periodization) but as a digital information processor >> which functions through abstraction, remains structurally indifferent to the >> specifics of the purpose to which it is turned, and thus formats its human >> subjects as unmarked inputs and/or outputs. His theorization emphasizes the >> necessity for analyses of technology and culture to take into account the >> conceptual operations that both undergird and extend out of particular >> machines, connecting them, in often surprising ways, to past devices and >> practices as well as to current and future formations. >> >> Siegert does not speak of the value form in his theorization of panopticon, >> penny post, and computing machine as abstract machines of power, but the >> resonance between his account and that most central of Marxian concepts is >> pronounced. With this provocation in mind, the theorization of technology >> Deleuze sets out in the “Postscript” is suggestive of some compelling >> direction for the integration of media theory and history within studies of >> economy and governmentality. Siegert’s work on cultural techniques (2015) >> will prove useful here, as might the writing of Friedrich Kittler, Cornelia >> Vismann, Sybille Krämer, Wolfgang Ernst, Markus Krajewski, and others. >> Equally, Galloway’s work on François Laruelle (2014) points towards ways in >> which historically and geographically specific modes of thought constitute a >> relationship between modernity and digitality long before and far away from >> the electronic digital computer. Amplified through these later >> media-theoretical interventions, the mode of historical analysis diagrammed >> in the “Postscript” invites one to consider the ways in which investigations >> into cultural techniques, the materiality of signifying systems, the >> conceptual character of digitality, and the concept-generating function of >> technologies might intersect with analyses of capitalism in ways that can >> illuminate the complexities of the post-1970s period in which Marxian >> analysis appears both especially vital and incessantly troubled by >> transformations in regimes of labor, value extraction, and accumulation. >> >> 3. Economy >> >> Deleuze underscores the discursive effects of “information technologies and >> computers” by insisting that such devices are “deeply rooted in a mutation >> of capitalism” (1995b, 180). This mutation, he notes, “has been widely >> summarized” (1995b, 180); its effects can be seen in the movement towards >> the service-based, reticular ideals of production and distribution touched >> upon in the opening passages of this essay. As Deleuze puts it, the >> distinguishing features of movement results in a dispersed mode of value >> extraction under which the most visible Global North businesses seek to sell >> “services” and buy “activities,” directing their activities towards “sales >> or markets” rather than the production of goods (1995b, 181). These shifts >> constitute another vector along which one might set out a periodization >> theory—the movement from production to “metaproduction” (1995b, 181), or, >> from Fordism to post-Fordism. This shift is directly correlated to the >> emergence of what is often termed a neoliberal logic of competition that is >> theorized by scholars such as Wendy Brown as “extending and disseminating >> market values to all institutions and social action, even as the market >> itself remains a distinctive player” (Brown 2003, n.p.). As Deleuze notes, >> one of the outcomes of the economic shifts with which control is associated >> is the injection of “an inexorable rivalry presented as healthy competition, >> a wonderful motivation that sets individuals against each other and sets >> itself up in each of them, dividing each within himself” (1995b, 179). >> Across the pages of the “Postscript” the economic practices associated with >> control are said to: emerge in relation to computer technologies; function >> within (a mutated) capitalism; limn the contours of the dominant economic >> models of the day (many of which are often theorized by orthodox Marxian >> scholars as subsidiary or even antithetical to the production-centered >> tenets of capitalism); and intersect with a mode of governmentality and >> sense-training. That Deleuze presents these practices as part of the same >> historical regime shows that the economic logic that he associates with of >> control societies cannot be thought through without also addressing a number >> of other historical frames, several of which function across quite different >> durations and contexts. As stated at the outset, it may be that the >> imposition of this multi-threaded, incommensurable historical method is the >> real endowment passed on by Deleuze via the control texts. >> >> “Today,” Deleuze stated in a 1995 interview in Le Nouvel Observateur, “I can >> say I feel completely Marxist. The article I have published on the ‘society >> of control,’ for example, is completely Marxist, yet I write about things >> that Marx did not know” (1995c). If the “Postscript” is “completely Marxist” >> then it is remarkable for the challenges it poses to classical Marxist >> categories of historical analysis. Perhaps this is most overt in the >> theorization of spatio-temporal dispersion, the movement from the “body” of >> the factory to businesses that are a “soul” or “gas” (1995b, 179), the >> account of the movement of art away from “closed sites” and into “the open >> circuits of banking,” (1995b, 181), and the baleful description of “speech >> and communication” becoming “thoroughly permeated” by “money” (1995a, 175). >> Each of these phenomena resonates with recent theorizations that rest on and >> extend Marx’s concept of real subsumption (Marx 1994, 93-116). In Hardt and >> Negri’s exemplary version of such an extension, real subsumption describes >> nothing less than the total enclosure of society by capital. For example, >> they write that: >> >> [w]ith the real subsumption of society under capital…capital has become a >> world. Use value and all the other references to values and processes of >> valorization that were conceived to be outside the capitalist mode of >> production have progressively vanished. Subjectivity is entirely immersed in >> exchange and language, but that does not mean it is now pacific. >> Technological development based on the generalization of the communicative >> relationships of production is a motor of crisis, and productive general >> intellect is a nest of antagonisms (2000, 386). >> >> This notion of real subsumption far exceeds that found in Marx’s writing, >> where it describes the processes through which commodity production is >> restructured in order to maximize efficiency, for example by increasing the >> proportion of production that is automated by machinery (a process described >> as an increase in the organic composition of capital). [4] An outcome of >> this procedure is a general decrease in the surplus labor congealed in a >> given commodity (a process Marx describes in terms of a decrease in absolute >> surplus value extraction) and rising unemployment, all of which, lead to a >> decline in profit derived from commodity production and make it necessary >> for new sources of value to be sought in the sphere of reproduction. The >> practices and theories glossed by the term ‘neoliberalism’ might all be >> understood as responses to this process. The phenomena that Guy Debord >> theorizes in The Society of the Spectacle furnish other examples, as does >> the exponential growth of the tertiary (service) sector. None of these >> regimes of extraction are evenly distributed; participation is subject to >> processes of gendering and racialization, related constructions of physical >> and cognitive capacity, and other procedures for selecting whose attention, >> rationality, and affective capacities should be defined as valorizable, and >> in which ways. As such, the notion that real subsumption progressively >> integrates that which exists outside the capitalist mode of production is >> impossible; indeed, the clean distinction between inside and outside that >> would make such a movement possible is shown to be antithetical to the logic >> of capital. >> >> As Rosa Luxemburg writes, capitalism “depends in all respects on >> non-capitalist strata and social organizations existing side by side with >> it” (2003, 345). The essential role played by so-called ‘non-productive’ >> domestic labor (childbirth and child rearing, cooking cleaning) in the >> reproduction of labor power is perhaps the most obvious example of this. >> With this in mind, for real subsumption to be functional in concert with any >> periodization theory the notion of a process through which capital in all >> senses encircles “the world” must be replaced with specific, materialist >> examinations of the dynamics of inside and outside, representation and >> occlusion, and integration and suspension that are imbricated with the >> transformations collected under the ideas of post-industrial or post-Fordist >> production. In the “fully Marxist” pages of the “Postscript” Deleuze insists >> that one account for both sides of this dialectic: on the one hand, he >> tracks the shifts in labor relations and accumulation detailed above (e.g. >> in the shift from the factory to the business, from goods to services, and >> so on); on the other hand, he makes it clear that the forms of dispersal and >> modulation that characterize these shifts are secured against the “three >> quarters of humanity in extreme poverty, too poor to have debts and too >> numerous to be confined” (1995b, 181). Extending this relation beyond >> Deleuze’s sketch, today one might observe that racialized and gendered >> surplus populations serve as proxy, object, or raw material within some of >> the newer modes of accumulation, from the “commodified life” of inmates in >> private prisons and detention centers (Tadiar 2012) to the forms of service, >> surrogacy, and outsourced labor that are understood not to generate value >> directly but to facilitate the valorization and reproduction of other, more >> directly valorizable lives (Vora 2015). >> >> In the end, it is this dialectical, materialist impulse that grounds the >> movement between ‘clean’ periodization and the coexistence of unmatched and >> even conflicting areas of inquiry within the “Postscript.” Tracking the >> techniques and technologies of dispersed sovereignty, mapping the >> affordances and discursive implications of computing machines, and itemizing >> the emerging dynamics of an economy without commodities are all necessary >> endeavors. But the analysis of sociopolitical distribution must take into >> account the persistence of violent corralling, much of which now operates >> through for-profit providers and the legal and discursive framing of >> prisoners and detainees as nonhuman. The analysis of computer media must >> remain attentive to the historicity and materiality of devices, their users, >> and the people that labor, often precariously and in deleterious conditions, >> to produce them; it must also address the ways in which all of these are >> abstracted, in the same way but with quite different implications, by the >> cultural and technical operations of the media in question. And, for now at >> least, the analysis of ‘immaterial’ economic formations must think these >> relations in relation to the persistence of older modes and against newer >> but less widely discussed methods for the violent extraction of value from >> human life, many of which are also presented as services. The radical >> promise of periodization lies in its capacity to provisionally impose a set >> of historical markers against which one can 1) capture and measure >> interactions between abstractions and concrete sociality while also 2) >> registering the ways in which those interactions produce a surplus that >> exceeds or is too faint to register within those markers. Since abstraction, >> capture, and measuring are themselves expressions of the social relations >> whose changing articulations are registered in the passage designated as >> that from discipline to control, the impossibility of absolutely clean >> periodization is as important as—and registers the critical value of—the >> diagnostic utility that periodization affords. >> >> ------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Seb Franklin is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at King’s College >> London, where he co-convenes the MA in Contemporary Literature, Culture, and >> Theory. He is the author of Control: Digitality as Cultural Logic (MIT >> Press, 2015). >> >> Notes >> >> [1] It is possible to identify a larger archive of texts that, while not >> naming control as such, certainly examine the same historical tendencies; >> see the chapter “7000 B.C.: Apparatus of Capture” (Deleuze and Guattari >> 1987, 424-473) and the appendix to (Deleuze 1999, 102-110). >> >> [2] This argument can be extended to other discursive formations that >> operate in the present. For example, one can follow Jord/ana Rosenberg and >> take the molecule rather than the logic gate as the exemplary epistemic >> object in order to examine a different valence of the contemporary moment >> (Rosenberg 2014). >> >> [3] On the systemic practice and occlusion of slavery in supply chains >> seehttp://eureka.sbs.ox.ac.uk/5847/1/REVISED_MSSCaproofed1format.pdf >> <http://eureka.sbs.ox.ac.uk/5847/1/REVISED_MSSCaproofed1format.pdf> >> >> [4] For a rigorous account of real subsumption as it pertains to >> periodization see (Endnotes 2010). >> >> References >> >> Brown, Wendy. 2003. “Neo-Liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy.” >> Theory and Event 7:1. >> >> Browne, Simone. 2015. Dark Matters: on the Surveillance of Blackness. >> Durham, NC: Duke University Press. >> >> Bentham, Jeremy. 1843. “Panopticon, or, the Inspection-House,” in The Works >> of Jeremy Bentham, Vol. 4. Edinburgh: William Tait. >> >> Deleuze, Gilles. 1995a. “Control and Becoming,” in Negotiations, trans. >> Martin Joughin. New York: Columbia University Press. >> >> Deleuze, Gilles. 1995b. “Postscript on Control Societies,” in Negotiations, >> trans. Martin Joughin. New York: Columbia University Press. >> >> Deleuze, Gilles. 1995c. “Le ‘Je me souviens’ de Gilles Deleuze,” Le Nouvel >> Observateur, 16-22 November. >> >> Deleuze, Gilles. 1998. “Having an Idea in Cinema,” trans. Eleanor Kaufman, >> in Deleuze and Guattari: New Mappings in Politics, Philosophy, and Culture, >> ed. Eleanor Kaufman and Kevin Jon Heller. Minneapolis: University of >> Minnesota Press. >> >> Deleuze, Gilles. 1995. Foucualt, trans. Seán Hand. London: Continuum. >> >> Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1986. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, >> trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. >> >> Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian >> Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. >> >> Endnotes. 2010. “The History of Subsumption,” Endnotes 2. >> >> Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Volume I, trans. Robert >> Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books. >> >> Foucault, Michel. 2003. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège >> de France 1975-1976, trans. David Macey. London: Allen Lane. >> >> Foucault, Michel. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de >> France 1978-1979, trans. Graham Burchell. London: Palgrave Macmillan. >> >> Franklin, Seb. 2015. Control: Digitality as Cultural Logic. Cambridge, MA: >> MIT Press. >> >> Galloway, Alexander R. 2004. Protocol: How Control Exists After >> Decentralization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. >> >> Galloway, Alexander R. 2014. Laruelle: Against the Digital. Minneapolis: >> University of Minnesota Press. >> >> Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard >> University Press. >> >> Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late >> Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. >> >> Luxemburg, Rosa. 2003. The Accumulation of Capital, trans. Agnes >> Schwarzschild. London, New York: Routledge. >> >> Marx, Karl. 1996. Capital, Vol. 1, trans. Richard Dixon, in Karl Marx >> Frederick Engels Collected Works, Vol. 35. London; Lawrence and Wishart. >> >> Marx, Karl. 1994. Economic Manuscript of 1861-63, trans, Ben Fowkes, in Karl >> Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works, Vol. 34. London; Lawrence and Wishart. >> >> Mbembe, Achille. 2003. “Necropolitics,” trans. Libby Meintjes, Public >> Culture 15:1. >> >> Pasquinelli, Matteo. 2009. “Google’s PageRank Algorithm: A Diagram of >> Cognitive Capitalism and the Rentier of the Common Intellect,” in Deep >> Search, ed. Konrad Becker, Felix Stalder. London: Transaction Publishers. >> >> Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg. 1997. Towards a History of Epistemic Things: >> Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube. Stanford, CA: Stanford University >> Press. >> >> Rosenberg, Jordana. 2014. “The Molecularization of Sexuality,” Theory and >> Event 17:2. >> >> Siegert, Bernhard. 1999. Relays: Literature as an Epoch of the Postal >> System, trans. Kevin Repp. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. >> >> Siegert, Bernhard. 2012. “Doors: On the Materiality of the Symbolic,” trans. >> John Durham Peters, Grey Room 47. >> >> Siegert, Bernhard. 2015. Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and >> Other Articulations of the Real, trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young. New York: >> Fordham University Press. >> >> Tadiar, Neferti X.M. 2012. “Life-Times in Fate Playing,” South Atlantic >> Quarterly 111:4. >> >> Vora, Kalindi. 2015. Life Support: Biocapital and the New History of >> Outsourced Labor. 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