Accelerationism

[fredfelt]

Thanks for the link ska invita . it's not a term that I've heard before. It seems to be grounded in the premise that analysis of the problem can lead to a manufactured solution. It reminds me of this quote from Marx...

Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.

There's certainly a problem with our debt based capitalism system, but I'm not convinced that the 'material conditions for its solution' are available to us.

 

[Brainaddict]

I think an interest in this is a natural consequence of a genuinely materialist outlook. I.e. If you really think that social/political forms are influenced by available technologies, then it is interesting to try to work out the effect of one of the most radical technological changes ever (the proliferation of high speed data networks and cheap data processing and storage). I'm not at all interested in some of the macho Nick Land-derived posturing around it, but I do think technology is relevant to how people are resisting and will resist the status quo, and think it's worth thinking about forms of resistance that both take advantage of and resonate with technological changes.

 

[J Ed]

You need to spend some time and effort in reading something like Nick Dyer-Witheford's Cyber-proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex or Deborah Cowen's The Deadly life of Logistics or even Ricardo Antunes The Meanings of Work. Essay on the Affirmation and Negation of Work instead of wasting your time with this stuff. This other stuff will get your feet on the ground for the sort of discussion you want. Accelerationism will not.

Thanks for the pdfs, I haven't read any of these pieces but I did listen to a podcast in which Deborah Cowen was interviewed about the subject of her book. Available here

 

[butchersapron]

I think an interest in this is a natural consequence of a genuinely materialist outlook. I.e. If you really think that social/political forms are influenced by available technologies, then it is interesting to try to work out the effect of one of the most radical technological changes ever (the proliferation of high speed data networks and cheap data processing and storage). I'm not at all interested in some of the macho Nick Land-derived posturing around it, but I do think technology is relevant to how people are resisting and will resist the status quo, and think it's worth thinking about forms of resistance that both take advantage of and resonate with technological changes.

There is no resistance in left-accelerationism. A proper materialist outlook is evident in the books i linked to above. It's perfectly possible to talk about technology in an idealist fasion (i, in fact think it's the dominant fashion) and accelerationism does just that. Just talking about technology doesn't provide you with an automatic material grounding. Which is precisely why the key critiques thus far of accelerationism (Noys or Power etc) point out their ignoring of material labour - of the shitty end of the technology stick, the people doing non-technological shit work, doing reproductive or caring work - in fact of the real material world which sustains their alienated fantasies.

 

[butchersapron]

Thanks for the pdfs, I haven't read any of these pieces but I did listen to a podcast in which Deborah Cowen was interviewed about the subject of her book. Available here

Ta for that, will have a listen tonight.

 

[J Ed]

Ta for that, will have a listen tonight.

You might also be interested in the most recent belaboured podcast, it touches on another dominant theme here - the idealised removal of 'dirty' or mundane work by automation vs the reality that much of it has simply been outsourced

 

[butchersapron]

You might also be interested in the most recent belaboured podcast, it touches on another dominant theme here - the idealised removal of 'dirty' or mundane work by automation vs the reality that much of it has simply been outsourced

Yes, i would - and tied to that sort of thing is the move from this bubble intellectuals previously not being able to see that sort of labour because it was happening in far away places they knew little of, but how they now can't see that those far away places have now moved and expanded into the heart of the cities and social systems they live in and feed off -rather than disappearing. Which again links to their lack of materialism.

 

[butchersapron]

To go back to indie club night:

“Enjoying the death of the universe”: is there anything more pitifully human? On the one hand, there is this idea that that this is going to be really exciting, that speed is something you can experience, that destruction is something you can experience, and then on the other hand, the disappointing day to day reality of sausage patties and various other things

 

[ska invita]

Plus i'm out the door in 5 minutes.

looks like a great thing...4000 people killed...staggering...

anyhow, when you get in, id really appreciate at least a vague summary to entice me to read it (ill start with the podcast)

It might be worth thinking about WHY it is neoliberals who are coming out with this Basic Income stuff, it's not because they are suddenly converts to the idea of social justice or giving a shit about the poor. Just like 'trickle down economics' it's there to provide cover and a moral justification for even more wealth redistribution from us to them.

Because there seems to be a genuine worry amongst those with a vested interest in perpetuating the system... they know all too well that big business needs to grow profits indefinitely, the last area they can really dig in to achieve that growth is through automation, and the prospect of high unemployment with less money floating around to spend genuinely worries them. Obvioulsy they'll want there to be the bare minimum in terms of handouts - but the bigger point is these are real trends the outcome of which we'll see in our lifetime... and Id like to understand better the accelerationsits view on it.

Which is precisely why the key critiques thus far of accelerationism (Noys or Power etc) point out the their ignoring of material labour - of the shitty end of the technology stick, the people doing non-technological shit work, doing reproductive or caring work - in fact of the real material world which sustains that alienated fantasies.

This will come down to just what percentage of work and the workforce can/will become automated. I think the figures are exaggerated somewhat by the evangelists, but history has a tendency to defy the moderates and traditionalists...

 

[ska invita]

Going back to the Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek • manifesto on future IT:

"We need to revive the argument that was traditionally made for post-capitalism: not only is capitalism an unjust and perverted system, but it is also a system that holds back progress. Our technological development is being suppressed by capitalism, as much as it has been unleashed. Accelerationism is the basic belief that these capacities can and should be let loose by moving beyond the limitations imposed by capitalist society. "

and

"Who amongst us fully recognizes what untapped potentials await in the technology which has already been developed? Our wager is that the true transformative potentials of much of our technological and scientific research remain unexploited, filled with presently redundant features (or pre-adaptations) that, following a shift beyond the short-sighted capitalist socius, can become decisive."

Is a little bit blind faith isnt it? So much of technological innovation has already happened on the margins and only later been brought into the financial system - im all for imagining the unimaginable, but hard to think what this could be like that isnt happening already at the edges.

 

[Sweet FA]

 

[ska invita]

seems to me they also be like this:

 

[Sweet FA]

seems to me they also be like this:

I can't pretend to know much about it (bar what I've read from this thread). Those pictures appeared on my fb (via Red London if you're interested) a couple of weeks ago and seemed relevant to yr interests.

 

[8115]

Excuse me if I'm wrong but isn't accelerationsim a lot like believing in the invisible hand of the market, only it's science instead of the market?

 

[LDC]

Red London? <shudder>

 

[Sweet FA]

Red London? <shudder>

I don't know much about them tbh; they had a pretty funny cartoon (not those above obvs) a couple of months ago & I liked them on the back of it... I like some of what she/he/they say(s) - why the shudder? Am I missing something?

 

[LDC]

Full on Stalinists. Pretty much a one man band rather than a group. And some nasty personal behavior to various people from them numerous times too.

 

[Sweet FA]

Thanks...didn't know about the last part.

 

[butchersapron]

Full on Stalinists. Pretty much a one man band rather than a group. And some nasty personal behavior to various people from them numerous times too.

Accelerationsist or red london. The formers worship of the plan with some rhtetorical PR about spontaneity chucked in as an after thought (all captured by the boss plan) woul;d fit nicely with the stalinism.

It's all sci-fi though - like Bogdanov going on about blood transfusions as the proletarian science.

 

[butchersapron]

Whole load of commentary and critiques here. Not read yet, but looks useful. I've flocked through the book (and wasn't even going to do that but noticed they thanked Harry Cleaver which means i'll probably give it a go). and it looks like stuff i've seen a million times over the last decade.

 

[ska invita]

I found that site slightly confusing, but I think this is the order to read things in (and skip if you so wish) - or at least the way they numbered them

1. Inventing the Future

2. Accelerationism Without Accelerationism

3. Postcapitalist Ecology: A Comment on Inventing the Future

4. (Why We Can’t) Let the Machines Do It: A Response to Inventing the Future

5. Myths of Invention

and there are other bits around that too

 

[butchersapron]

They're also here in one file/page in order. Perfect for sending to pocket and reading on the train home.

 

[ska invita]

Good definition from #2

The term accelerationism was coined by Benjamin Noys in 2010, in order to designate a political position that he rejected. In Noys’ account, accelerationism is the idea that things have to get worse before they can get better. The only way out of capitalism is the way through. The more abstract, violent, inhuman, contradictory, and destructive capitalism becomes, the closer it gets to tearing itself apart. Such a vision derives, ultimately, from the famous account of capitalism’s inherent dynamism in the Communist Manifesto. For Marx and Engels, capitalism is characterized by “constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation… All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” Far from deploring such developments, Marx and Engels see them as necessary preconditions for the overthrow of capitalism itself.

The trouble with accelerationism, according to Noys, is that it celebrates “uncertainty and agitation” as revolutionary in its own right. It doesn’t have any vision of a future beyond disruption. In the 1970s, Deleuze and Guattari suggest that we need, not to withdraw from capitalism, but “to go still further… in the movement of the market, of decoding and deterritorialization,”

It goes on....

 

[ska invita]

"
they suggest four basic demands around which the left can and should unite:

1. Full automation
2. The reduction of the working week
3. The provision of a basic income
4. The diminishment of the work ethic."

Quick show of hands - would anyone be against these demands, presuming that they are achievable?
I find it very appealing....

 

[LDC]

"
they suggest four basic demands around which the left can and should unite:

1. Full automation
2. The reduction of the working week
3. The provision of a basic income
4. The diminishment of the work ethic."

Quick show of hands - would anyone be against these demands, presuming that they are achievable?
I find it very appealing....

Not 'against them' as such, but even ignoring their simplicity and Eurocentrism, they're very limited and aren't fundamentally a challenge to capital or State.

 

[ska invita]

Even just reigniting the struggle for point 2 on its own (the reduction of the working week) feels so distant... the five-day week was won 100 years ago and has barely shifted since... infact 9 to 5, 5 days a week, which was the standard when i was growing up has now slipped to 9 to 6 in many offices... then we hear that British workers will have worst pensions of any major economy ...such a long way to go when things are moving in the wrong direction...

 

[sihhi]

"
they suggest four basic demands around which the left can and should unite:

1. Full automation
2. The reduction of the working week
3. The provision of a basic income
4. The diminishment of the work ethic."

and

5. Full international general strike.
6. The reduction of unpaid overtime.
7. The provision of free public transport.
8. The diminishment of the nationalist mindset.

Hey Verso, give us a book deal!

 

[laptop]

Good definition from #2

The term accelerationism was coined by Benjamin Noys in 2010, in order to designate a political position that he rejected. In Noys’ account, accelerationism is the idea that things have to get worse before they can get better. The only way out of capitalism is the way through...

So how does that differ from immiserationism?

It's spookily redolent of the start of the RCP's capitalist road...

 

[phildwyer]

Does anyone have any thoughts on Accelerationism?

It is Menshivism apres la lettre.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

So, Nick Land, then:

No Platform for Land: On Nick Land’s Racist Capitalism and a More General Problem

(a spinoff from the campaign to shut down the LD50 gallery in Dalston)