Source
Guattari, Félix [2004], “2. El capitalismo mundial integrado y la revolución molecular”, Plan sobre el planeta. Capitalismo mundial integrado y revoluciones moleculares, Madrid, Traficantes de Sueños, pp. 57–74. PDF
Translation: Oliver Ferran
Félix Guattari was a French psychoanalyst, philosopher, semiologist, activist, and screenwriter. He founded schizoanalysis and ecosophy. He is known for his collaborations with Gilles Deleuze, particularly Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
The expansion of capitalism has reached the limits of its geopolitical extension. What remains now is to maintain the cohesion that has been achieved and not allow a single molecule to escape. This is the premise Félix Guattari offers when describing contemporary capitalism. For the French philosopher, it is necessary to understand that capitalism has now become Integrated World Capitalism (IWC).
It is no longer a matter of a capitalism that conceals its contradictions or rejects its opponents. Quite the opposite. It now seeks to reinvent itself. That is, it takes the world as it finds it, looks for ways to continue reproducing itself, and ultimately seeks to make everything work for capital.
World capitalism is integrated because it now infiltrates both the tangible and the intangible. Having consolidated its geographical expansion, it now seeks to penetrate every aspect governing life itself. IWC seeks to subject populations not only economically, but also culturally, politically, and socially.
Such subjection is made possible through deterritorialization and multicentralization within IWC. This capitalism does not respect borders, lifestyles, forms of organization, or identities. Rather, it appropriates or suppresses them; it forms its own axiomatic [the set of axioms on which a theory is based].
Nevertheless, deterritorialization also poses a major problem for IWC. Whatever it suppresses or incorporates has the potential to disrupt its axiomatic, from modes of production to formations of power. To address this problem, Guattari proposes three perspectives:
“1) That of its systems of production, economic expression, and axiomatization of the socius. 2) That of the new segmentarities it develops. 3) [T]he revolutionary war machines, assemblages of desire, and class struggles.”
The systems of production, economic expression, and axiomatization of IWC
1.- Regarding systems of production, for Guattari it is no longer possible to speak of the international division of labor, but rather of the globalization of the division of labor. In other words, labor is no longer confined to production and the labor force, since nothing now escapes IWC: domestic work, sport, leisure, culture. This is due to the incorporation of technology, the “machinic systems.”
Guattari describes machinization as leading to deterritorialization, since it blurs the boundary between socially necessary labor within the production process and activities outside the production process. Machinization opens up the possibility of producing beyond what already exists, of producing the unprecedented.
In short, under IWC, production takes place all the time. Because of this, it can allow activities—in the strict sense of the word—that do not generate value for it to develop. Such is the case with trade unions or unproductive activities. The text states:
“[T]he machinic-semiotic integration of human labor implies […] that the formation of each worker be taken into account within the production process [both] in terms of their knowledge [and] in the entirety of their systems of interaction with society and with the machinic environment.”
It also points out that the information revolution did nothing other than catalyze the integration of human beings with machines.
2.- Regarding economic expression, capitalism cannot be defined solely in terms of the circulation of goods and accumulation. Under IWC, the economic and the non-economic coexist. What results, therefore, is a form of subjection that loses its original locus. It subjects not only through the economic sphere but also through institutions, while simultaneously relying on the semiotic [the study of signs in social life].
In other words, it deterritorializes and integrates into its “reality” (its project of society) everything from production to the stratification of power, with machinization as the constant. Under IWC, both innovations and machinic expansion are permitted as long as they are incorporated into its axiomatic.
3.- Regarding the axiomatization of the socius, or, more precisely, how to adapt the social fabric to the interests of IWC, Guattari identifies three types of transformations: enclosure, territorialization, and segmentarity.
With regard to enclosure, a problem emerges. Namely, the globalization of capitalism represents a danger to the system itself because of the disturbances it may generate in its search for new forms of subjection. Ultimately, this may lead to its involution.
Hence, the French theorist has the necessary elements to formulate a hypothesis describing the present situation: the contemporary crisis can be interpreted as a capitalism that can no longer expand any further and therefore attempts to redefine its fields of application; that is, it seeks to axiomatize the socius, thereby vaporizing old practices (national compromises, centers of production, social relations).
In this sense, subjection under IWC becomes evident through deterritorialization. To deterritorialize means to blur the characteristics that once defined a particular place or society in order to subject and reconvert them according to the needs of IWC. This constitutes an expansion of the system, but no longer outward; rather, it takes place from within. The elements that constitute IWC must reach a degree of concentration that allows the system to continue reproducing itself.
The above does not necessarily imply the end of conflicts within capitalism. Rather, it involves achieving the absolute integration of the system. Not in the sense of imposing IWC, creating an egalitarian system, or resolving old conflicts. Instead, the objective is to make its elements function for the system. Contradictions and oppositions must also contribute, regardless of whether they represent the opposing side (as in its “relations” with “socialist” spaces such as China or the countries of the former Soviet Union).
In relation to the above, and moving on to the next point, Guattari argues that deterritorialization differs from what Marx called “the expropriation of the bourgeoisie by the bourgeoisie.” Deterritorialization does not seek to impose bourgeois democracy throughout the planet; it does have one, in effect, but rather seeks to homogenize modes of production, modes of circulation, as well as methods of social control.
The means of achieving this are machinization and the control exercised by mass media over human beings. More precisely, Guattari calls them “deterritorialized mechanisms” (mechanisms that have no particular form and therefore become difficult to attack).
Indeed, IWC does not impose itself; it enters organically. Within IWC, power is no longer concentrated in a single place; instead, it is distributed across different zones, which is why it is characterized as polycentric and multicentric. For the French theorist, this would explain why democracies and dictatorships can coexist within IWC; hyper-capitalist centers can exist in underdeveloped regions, while, conversely, zones of misery can exist in developed countries.
Regarding segmentarity, Guattari points out that IWC fragments its zones of influence and power because of its multicentric character. The author argues that the main difficulty for IWC is maintaining systems of social hierarchy. In Guattari’s words, this would constitute its fundamental axiom:
“to maintain the consistency of the collective labor force on a planetary scale […] it has to make both zones of superdevelopment [and] zones of relative underdevelopment [and] zones of absolute pauperization coexist.”
In other words, IWC must establish a zone with two clearly differentiated extremes. In this sense, a very large proportion of the population is destined to remain in its places of origin and submit to absolute precarization, while only a small fraction (the new aristocracy) will be permitted to move freely (in the name of social progress) throughout the zones of IWC.
This is why contemporary capitalism must maintain deterritorialization as well as multicentralization. In general terms, Guattari indicates that the axioms underlying segmentarity (family relations, educational functions, conjugal relations, to mention only a few) are interconnected. They therefore share a common objective: to modify and adapt social and economic life.
The new segmentarities of IWC
a) Transnational segmentarity
To explain the basis of such segmentarity, Guattari uses the term rhizome to suggest that IWC is a structure with numerous complex ramifications. They are complex because power is polycentric. But they are also complex because its contradictions are no longer situated solely within the old rivalries (East/West, Global North/Global South, national/multinational), but are also fused with the predominant contradiction of IWC: the separation between the “Third World in the process of development” and the “Third World moving toward absolute pauperization” (extermination).
Hence, Guattari once again emphasizes that IWC does not construct its axiomatic through the direct imposition of its dogma; rather, its dogma is already embedded within the production process. This would explain the failure of revolutionary struggles (which become increasingly illusory); therefore, it is necessary to note that he proposes developing subversive strategies on a global scale if one wishes to escape this framework.
b) European segmentarity
The economic and social segmentarity of IWC will lead Europe toward a new type of regime and juridical space. These changes will not consist in a return to fascism or the implementation of a German-American model. The oppositions between East/West and North/South will become assimilable or negotiable, while a new type of authoritarian democratic system will progressively emerge.
c) Molecular segmentarity
Within the capitalistic spaces of IWC, there will always be two types of struggles. Namely, struggles over interests (of an economic, social, or trade-union nature), and molecular struggles; that is, struggles at the individual and group levels that question everyday life, the environment, and a vast array of other issues.
Both types of struggle can be neutralized within IWC. They cannot escalate toward anything genuinely radical because they lack a global strategy. In the case of struggles over interests, the author argues that, in order to ensure its survival, IWC subsidizes any large-scale uprising economically; but it also resorts to repressive measures to put a halt to anything that threatens the stability of IWC.
In other words, when a capitalist stronghold is disturbed, the other strongholds come to its defense until the threat is neutralized. In the long term, this could lead either to a new Welfare State or to the opposite.
However, regarding molecular struggles, Guattari’s position changes. Although IWC may apparently be capable of neutralizing them, these struggles are not the same as struggles over interests. In reality, they do not respond to specific problems but rather represent disturbances within the social body caused by the environment in which they unfold (that which has been erected by IWC).
Molecular struggles act like bacteria or viruses: as they spread, they become increasingly difficult to apprehend, and therefore their consequences for IWC are unpredictable.
New revolutionary war machines, assemblages of desire, and class struggle
Guattari asks what the limits and possibilities of what he now calls the molecular revolution will be. His main thesis is that they can never be completely eradicated. IWC may possess resources with which to attempt to neutralize them, but the molecular revolution is also distinctive because it does not merely concern everyday relations between men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, and a great many other differences.
It also concerns the fact that these struggles modify the way things are understood and perceived, ultimately affecting “productive mutations.” To genuinely promote a social revolution, the assemblages of the molecular revolution must articulate struggles over interests together with political and social struggles.
Nevertheless, Guattari indicates that the molecular revolution is far from becoming a majority objective or representing the true potential for systemic change. He explains that this is not due to a lack of interest in these issues on the part of militants, but rather because they are perceived as a threat insofar as they can modify the order of their own organizations.
This is why it is assumed that, for the molecular revolution to exist, political objectives must first be overcome. In the author’s words, this can also be interpreted as:
“When it comes to entering this vague universe of desires, everyday life, and concrete freedoms, a strange deafness and selective myopia appear among the official spokespeople.”
Likewise, Guattari indicates that these militant groups are conformist insofar as they are consciously or unconsciously aligned with the interests of IWC. In other words, IWC also feeds on them—whether they are groups of the left or the right—without them it would not be what it is today.
Such organizations (as well as trade unions) can be assimilated to “apparatuses of power.”
Hence, the author has no exact answer to the question of how those involved in the molecular revolution should be organized. It is true that he suggests its emergence is here to stay, but what these movements demand cannot be resolved either through an imperative dialectic or through “apparatuses of direction that dominate and oppress them.”
“No one can define today what the future forms of coordination and organization of the molecular revolution will be, but what seems evident is that they will necessarily involve—as an absolute premise—the respect for the autonomy and singularity of each of its segments. It is already clear that the sensitivity of these segments, their degree of awareness, their rhythms of action, and their theoretical justifications do not coincide. It seems desirable, even essential, that they should never coincide.”
For the organizations of the molecular revolution to gain social acceptance, they must not reproduce the pernicious classical forms of militancy. Rather, they must recognize that they need to be structured around the understanding that struggles are no longer exclusively global in character, but also emerge from the local and the individual.
Thus, they must construct forms of organization and management that cross borders and extend across different latitudes.
Revolutionary movements must therefore take into account everything outlined above concerning the organization of their movements and set aside all the “social antagonisms” that no longer apply to the present.
If there is something to be learned from IWC, the author argues, it is that:
“it has equipped itself with the means to forge new weapons, to confront the disturbances generated by its transformations and its new segmentarity.”
In this sense, revolutionary movements must recognize that IWC has weak points centered around those who embody molecular transformations that question their relationship with the environment, work, other people, culture, and so forth.
In any case, believing that IWC is a fortress from which there is no escape is incorrect. IWC is sensitive to all struggles that develop from the individual level. It may be able to resolve or contain everything related to global aspects such as the control of the economy or society, but not the multiple struggles and challenges that emerge from minorities (according to the author, these will ultimately escape its grasp).
This is why the author urges us to recognize the deceptions and traps through which IWC has been inserted into the social body.
In a forceful and unequivocal conclusion to this section, Guattari writes:
“Neoliberals […] are indulging in sweet illusions if they think that things will resolve themselves in the capitalist happy world […] the tests of revolutionary force will continue to develop in the coming decades.”
Such is the case with the intensification of reactionary forces in cities such as Paris, Rome, London, and Tokyo, as well as the oppositions emerging throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Notes
[1]: Querrien (2004) explains that Guattari conceives of the Socius as “society inscribed within its material space, transformable according to social vectors through microscopic actions that propagate within it.”