Wars and Capital (Semiotext

Explosante

by Éric Alliez, Maurizio Lazzarato, Ames Hodges (Translator)

A critique of capital through the lens of war, and a critique of war through the lens of the revolution of 1968.

“We are at war,” declared the President of the French Republic on the evening of November 13, 2015. But what is this war, exactly?

In Wars and Capital, Éric Alliez and Maurizio Lazzarato propose a counter-history of capitalism to recover the reality of the wars that are inflicted on us and denied to us. We experience not the ideal war of philosophers, but wars of class, race, sex, and gender; wars of civilization and the environment; wars of subjectivity that are raging within populations and that constitute the secret motor of liberal governmentality. By naming the enemy (refugees, migrants, Muslims), the new fascisms establish their hegemony on the processes of political subjectivation by reducing them to racist, sexist, and xenophobic slogans, fanning the flames of war among the poor and maintaining the total war philosophy of neoliberalism.

Because war and fascism are the repressed elements of post-'68 thought, Alliez and Lazzarato not only read the history of capital through war but also read war itself through the strange revolution of '68, which made possible the passage from war in the singular to a plurality of wars—and from wars to the construction of new war machines against contemporary financialization. It is a question of pushing “'68 thought” beyond its own limits and redirecting it towards a new pragmatics of struggle linked to the continuous war of capital. It is especially important for us to prepare ourselves for the battles we will have to fight if we do not want to be always defeated.

Genres: Philosophy, War, Politics, Nonfiction, Economics

453 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 2016

About the author

Éric Alliez is a philosopher and Professor at Université Paris 8 and at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London. He is the author of Capital Times, The Signature of the World: Or, What is Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy?, The Brain-Eye: New Histories of Modern Painting, and Wars and Capital, with Maurizio Lazzarato (Semiotext(e), and editor of The Guattari Effect, with Andrew Goffey, and Spheres of Action: Art and Politics, with Peter Osborne (MIT Press).

Reviews

[Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wars and Capital begins a little slowly with a standard outline of 'primitive accumulation' prior to, and early within, the emergence of capitalism through to colonialism. The book adds its contribution in its analysis of 'total war' of the early 20th Century followed by Infinite Consumption as aspects of accumulation. The authors then explore the endocolonization of 'Western' populations - "'War amongst the population' does not only address 'terrorists and insurgents.' In its plural form of wars against populations, it is the main instrument of control, normalization, and disciplinarization of the globalized labor force." This brings us today to the "total form of value creation of capital". The authors seem to think that this is a good time to dispose of capitalism.

[inside an airport · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is examining Wars and Capital, with State in between as an important element to constitute the notion of politics (in a Schmittian & Greek sense). I came across the book in an exhibition titled Crossings in Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen this Christmas. The cover description of the book says: “A critique of capital through the lens of war, and a critique of war through the lens of the revolution of 1968.” I have read some of the works of Lazzarato before on notion of sovereignty, which made me interested to read this one.

The book is drawing heavily from the Nazi racist political scientist Carl Schmitt (who was going as far as demanding that all publications by Jewish scientists should henceforth be marked with a small symbol) and at the same time political works of Foucault and Deleuze. Unsurprisingly, Foucault has been criticized for being too liberal, specifically in chapter 7: “The Limits of the Liberalism of Foucault”. That’s also probably, the reason that Schmitt’s Naziism has not been mentioned throughout the whole book. Schmitt has been cited more than 35 times and one chapter is dedicated to him alongside Lenin. (Chapter 8: The Primacy of Capture, Between Schmitt and Lenin)

Alliez and Lazzarato seem to fully agree with Wallerstein’s world-system theory. Creation of the term "War of subjectivity” (which is also another fancy word for identity-politics) is a big part of the concept. Since today everyone has recognized that mostly white-boys are complaining about identity politics (for obvious reasons), writers have become creative in coming up with this new term “War of subjectivity”. However, the essence of the book is pushing for the same good-old critiques: fascism is not so different from Capitalism / Anthropocene is Capitalocene / poor White workers in England suffered as much as slaves in America (page 115, 374) / Postmodernism is bad, class-consciousness is needed… etc. etc.

“During colonization, entire peoples, after having been expropriated from their ‘life as savages,’ let themselves die off rather than fall into a slavery that could include the option of ‘free labor.’ ‘Free labor’ that the practice of working to death in workshops and manufactures brings so close to slavery itself that the Morning Star—the organ of the English free-traders—could exclaim: ‘Our white slaves, who are toiled into the grave, for the most part silently pine and die.’”

The centrality of the debt-economy concept is always present in the background of the book. Also, neoliberalism is defined as the “Global Civil War”. At some point, I questioned myself if he’s just adding the word WAR at the end of anything that capital is to blame for? War here is referred to as “the most deterritorial form of sovereignty”. “War of Subjectivity”, “War of Race, class, gender, sex, etc..”. This is also not a new strategy, orthodox white-boy Marxists have been presenting all sorts of privileges (especially “white-privilege” and “male privilege”) as a divider and a sidetrack for class wars. Borrowing from Giovanni Arrighi, they inserted a passage that clearly shows how they think about colonialism. They blame almost everything aside from the most important element: “racism”.

“The synergy between capitalism, industrialism, and militarism, driven by interstate competition, did indeed engender a virtuous circle of enrichment and empowerment for the peoples of European descent and a corresponding vicious circle of impoverishment and disempowerment for most other peoples.”

Full Review Here:
insideanairport
***

[Noah Trap · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reconstruction of history through the view of finance and capitalism as warfare, as movements of the state and markets and bloodless violence (and bloody), and the fractal, ongoing wars that capital reinforces between peoples intersectionally.

[jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

very unimpressed with this as a whole work. only the last chapter is worth reading, which makes the first 300 pages even more grating because it shows that there is the possibility of insight amidst all the name (and hyphen) dropping.

[Alex Cortes · Rating 3 out of 5]

La imagen de portada es erronea