Framed by brilliant readings of Gilles Deleuze and FÉlix Guattari, Gabriel Tarde, and Mikhail Bakhtin, Maurizio Lazzarato’s Revolutions of Capitalism charts a new theory of contemporary capitalism and the politics against it. Originally published in French in 2004, this newly translated work sees capitalism as driven, not only by labor or value, but by the capture of cooperation and by the taming of possibles. Lazzarato theorizes how contemporary capitalism depends on noo-politics, or the “action of brains at a distance on other brains,” which seeks to control memory and attention and to trap the proliferation of possibles. Against this, Lazzarato reveals how current social movements attack established institutions and their vision of a single possible world to liberate the creation and actualization of a multiplicity of possible worlds.
Acknowledgments vii Introduction / Brian Whitener 1 1. The Event and Politics 5 2. The Concepts of Life and the Living of Societies of Control 33 3. The Corporation and Neomonadology 53 4. Expression Versus Communication 85 5. Resistance and Creation in Postsocialist Movements 111 Notes 147 Bibliography 155 Index 159
Maurizio Lazzarato is an Italian sociologist and philosopher, residing in Paris, France.
Brian Whitener is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University at Buffalo.
Geo Maher is an abolitionist educator, organizer, and writer based in Philadelphia.
“Drawing creatively on heterodox traditions of Italian Marxism, the schizoanalysis of Deleuze-Guattari, the literary theory of Mikhail Bakhtin and the sociology of Gabriel Tarde, this book is an important and original contribution to the social and philosophical critique of contemporary capitalism and the delineation of post- and anti-capitalist futures.”—Alberto Toscano, author of, Communism in Philosophy: Essays on Alain Badiou and Toni Negri
“Unfailingly original and provocative, Lazzarato provides in this book an insightful analysis of contemporary capitalist society and its modes of control that is engaged deeply with both philosophical problematics and activist agendas.”—Michael Hardt, author of, The Subversive Seventies
