The “Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics” (2013) by Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek can be read here →.
MAP 01.02.
The “tendency of the rate of profit to fall” is a classic problem of political economy. In Marx’s formulation, it describes the potential implosion of capitalism due to the fall of profits over the long term. See Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3, chapter 13.
The expression “One divides into Two” refers to the irreversible class division occurring within capitalism. Specifically, the term originated in Maoist China in the 1960s to criticize any political recomposition with capitalism (“Two combines into One”). See also Mladen Dolar, “One Divides into Two,” e-flux journal 33 (March 2012) →
Since Mario Tronti’s essay on the so-called social factory (“La fabbrica e la società,” Quaderni Rossi, no. 2 [1962]), and across the whole tradition of Italian Operaism, the expression “within and against capital” means that class struggle operates within the contradictions of capitalist development that it generates. The working class is not “ouside capital,” as class struggle is the very engine that pushes capitalist development.
MAP 02.02.
MAP 03.03.
MAP 03.13.
In Marx (and traditionally in political economy), “fixed capital” refers to money invested in fixed assets, such as buildings, machinery, and infrastructures (as opposed to “circulating capital,” which includes raw materials and workers’ wages). In post-Fordism, this capital may include information technologies, personal media, and also intangible assets like software, patents, and forms of collective knowledge. The “reappropriation of fixed capital” refers then to the reappropriation of a productive capacity (also under the form of value and welfare) by the collectivity of workers.
MAP 03.06.
MAP 03.11.
MAP 03.15.
MAP 03.24.
The notion of class composition was introduced by Italian Operaism to overcome the trite debates on “class consciousness” typical of the 1960s. Technical composition refers to the all material and also cultural forms of labor in a specific economic regime; political composition refers to the clash with and transformation of these forms into a political project. A given technical composition is not automatically conducive to a virtuous political recomposition.
A canonical quote: “The sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by isolated workers differs from the social force that is developed when many hands cooperate in the same undivided operation.” Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 443.
Translated by Matteo Pasquinelli. Originally published in Italian on Euronomade.