“Perhaps it is money that expresses the distinction between the two societies best.” This statement from Deleuze’s (1992: 5) famous “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (first published in French, cf. Deleuze 1990) should be taken seriously. Much has been made of the implications of this essay, especially for the description of contemporary digital culture: e.g., tracking as an example of the “control mechanism, giving the position of any element within an open environment at any given instant” (ibid.: 7). The central role of money and Deleuze’s specific ideas regarding the transformation of capitalism in (or as?) ‘societies of control’ have received comparatively little attention. Seb Franklin (2015: 3-10) has already discussed Deleuze’s famous essay in relation to questions of socio-economic order, but he did not explicitly discuss the role of money. This is all the more surprising if we consider that Deleuze called himself a Marxist: “I think Félix Guattari and I have remained Marxists, in our two different ways, perhaps, but both of us. You see, we think any political philosophy must turn on the analysis of capitalism and the ways it has developed” (Deleuze 1995: 171). Among others, Choat (2010: 125-55) has underlined that Deleuze’s thought was always very close to Marx (cf. also Thoburn 2003). It is therefore not surprising that Deleuze assigns money an important role in the description of control societies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:71592 |
| Date | 29 July 2020 |
| Creators | Schröter, Jens |
| Publisher | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-715979, qucosa:71597 |
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