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Axiomatics: The Apparatus of
Capitalism
Deepak Narang Sawhney
Thesis submitted for the
Degree of Ph.D.
University of Warwick
Department of Philosophy
May 1996
Contents
Acknowledgements
Declaration
Summary
Key to Abbreviations and Thesis Outline
i
Introduction
1
I
Consuming the Future
13
H
Body without Organs
50
III
The Stratification of the World-Economy
79
IV
Geopolitics: Antisysternic Movements of Resistance
116
V
Palimpsest: Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
152
Concluding Remarks:
'Class Consciousness'and 'The American Rhizome'
174
Tables
192
Bibliography
195
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledgeDr. Nick Land for his invaluable support throughout this
project, and to my family for their love and patience.
Declaration
The following is a list of chaptersfrom Axiomatics: TheApparatus of Capitalism that
are published in abridged form:
Chapter HI: 'The Stratification of the World-Economy', in Must Me Burn
Sade?,Deepak N Sawhney (ed) (NJ: Humanities Press, 1997)
Chapter IV: 'Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance', in Gilles
Deleuze and Minoritarian Becomings, Dorothea Olkowski (ed) (forthcoming,
1997)
Chapter V: 'Palimpsest: Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity', The
Difference of Deleuze, Keith-Ansell Pearson(ed) (London: Routledge, 1997)
Certain sections of the thesis have been presentedat conferences,most notably:
'Biocapital', presentedat Culture and Identity: City, Nation, World Second
Themy, Culture and Society Conference,Berlin, 10-14 August 1995
'Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance', presentedat the 19th
for
Association
Philosophy
for
International
The
and
annual meeting
Literature: Virtual Incorporations, Textual Spaces Villanova University,
Pennsylvania,USA May 10-13 1995
'Capitalism, Schizophrenia,and Geopolitics', presentedat Difference Engine
workshop, University of Warwick, March 16 1995
'CyberpocalypseNow', presentedat The Inhuman conference,University of
Central Lancashire,June 25 1994
Summary
The thesis critically appropriatesthe collaborative philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and
Rlix Guattari to argue that the general tendency of capitalism is towards the
disintegration of high-level control structures (for instance, the nation-state). This
disintegration doesnot entail a movementtowards total chaosor anarchy.I argue that
capital generatesits own guidance mechanisms,but ones that act at a low-level, and
respond flexibly to changing conditions (an instance of micro-politics). One of the
difficulties of this project stemsfrom the fact that the canon of philosophical discourse
itself operatesas a high-level control structure. In Marx, the development of capital
is controlled by a secularizedHegelian dialectic that determinesthe outcome of capital
in socialism. For'Freud, th& low level organization of the unconsciousis subjectedto
high-level control through the universality of the Oedipus complex. By addressingthe
need for new philosophical instrumentsto understandcapitalism, the thesis produces
critiques of Marx and Freud, and advancesa philosophy of economics by examining
the function of axiomatics. Moreover, in critiquing presupposed structures (for
example, the unconscious as a theatre of representation),the thesis argues for an
immanent system (mulliplicity) of interaction within capitalism.
The researchundertakento complete the thesis has consisted
of contemporary experiments in complexity theory, and current socio/economic
interest
been
has
labour
Of
the current demarkets.
analyses of
particular
industrialization that has taken place in the west coast of the United States.With the
influx of a periphery into the core area of Los Angeles, the current role of urban
literatures
desire
(most
Shakur's
unleash
notably
autobiography)
politics and minor
into the circuit of the city. I conclude with a re-examination of micro
political/economic movementsthat have manifestedthemselvesinto the economy of
Los Angeles. By decoding locally impoverished economic and cultural sectors,
emergentproperties have sprouted by realigning subversive activity onto the apex of
immanence
(an
to capitalist processes).
capital
i
Key to Abbreviations and Thesis Outline
Key to Abbreviations
The following is a key, unless otherwise indicated in the body of the text, to the
reference material used in the thesis. In order to assure consistency of the material
cited in the thesis, I have kept to the original spelling that appearsin the texts. For a
complete referenceguide please refer to the bibliography.
Axiomatics, Robert Blanch6
ACCM
Allitudes, Chaos and the Connectionist Mind, Richard Eiser
A0---
Copitalism and.Schizophrenia,-vol.1, Anti-0edipus, -Gilles Deleuze &
.....
Mix Guattari
ATP
Capitalism and Schizophrenia, vol. 2, A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles
Deleuze & Mix Guattari
Bergsonism, Gilles Deleuze
Complexity. The Emerging Scienceat the Edge of Order and Chaos,
Mitchell Waldrop
'CAL'
'California Rages Against the Dying of the Light', Richard Walker
6C"9
'Capitalism: A Very Special Delirium', Gilles Deleuze
cc
Civilization and Capitalism 15th Commerce,vol. 2, Femand Braudel
ccc
Civilization and Capitalism 151h- 18th Centuty.- YhePerspectiveof the
Morld, vol. 3, Femand Braudel
cl
Capital, vol. 1, Karl Marx
CHI
Capital, vol. 111,Karl Marx
OF
Commerce InfernationaL La Fin des Avantages Acquise, Gerard Lafay
& Colette Herzog
CLU
CommunistsLike Us, Mix Guattari & Antonio Negri
CQ
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, Mike Davis
18th Century The Wheels of
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
ii
'CRC'
'The Chinese Road to Capitalism' Richard Smith
Icycl
Tyberwar is Coming! ' John Arquilla & David Ronfeldt
DIA
Dialogues, Gilles Deleuze & Claire Pamet
DOE
The Death of Economics, Paul Onnerod
DR
Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze
DRC
Di-eaming the Rational City. The Myth
Amefican City-Planningi
-of
Christian Boyer
Ethics,.Baruch Spinoza
EBRCR
Economics,Bounded Rationality and the Cognitive Revolution, Simon
Herbert
'EU
'Energumen Capitalism', Jean-FrangoisLyotard
EP
Expressionismin Philosophy Spinoza, Gilles Deleuze
ES
Empiricism and Subjectivity.- An Essay on Hume's Theoty of Human
Mature, Gilles Deleuze
'EYW'
'Everywhere You Want to Be: Introduction to Fear', Brian Massumi
Foucault, Gilles Deleuze
FLE
Fh-sl and Last Emperors, Kenneth Dean & Brian Massumi
Gnindi-isse,Karl Marx
'GEAPI
'The Global Economy as an Adaptive Process', John Holland
GG
GM
Geopolitics and Geoculture: &says on the Changing Morld-System,
Immanuel Wallerstein
On The Genealogyof Moi als and Ecco,Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche
'IE[NM'
'Homes: Meshwork or Hierarchy?', Manuel Delanda
Key to Abbreviations and Thesis Outline
iii
'IENI'
'The Informational Economy and the New Internal Division of Labor',
Manual Castells
61V
'Intellectuals and Power: A Conversation Between Michel Foucault and
Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault
Kajka: Toward a Alfinor Literature, Gilles Deleuze & Mix Guattari
KMSW
Karl Marx: Selected Mritings, edited by David McLellan
L.
Libido: The Erench Existential Theories, AlPhonso Lingis
_.
LC
Late Capitalism, Ernest Mandel
LE
Libidinal Economy, Jean-FrangoisLyotard
LS
Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze
LTC
The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our
Times, Giovanni Arrighi
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, Sanyika
Shakur, aka Monster Kody Scott
'AIAIM'
'Markets and Anti-markets in the World Economy', Manuel Delanda
NNW
'The Myth of'the New Deal', Ronald Rodosh
MR
Molecular Revolution: Psychiahy and Politics, Mix
Mr
Macchina Tempo,Antonio Negri
'NOL'
'Nonorganic Life', Manuel Delanda
'NNVW'
'The Next World War: World System Cycles and Trends', Christopher
Chase-Dunn& Bruce Podobnik
oc
Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue ivith Nature, Ilya Prigogine
& Isabelle Stenger
PG
Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertionof Space in Critical Social
Themy, Edward Soja
Guattari
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
iv
PVM
The Politics of [Vorld-Economy. The States, The Movements,and The
Civilizations, Immanuel Wallerstein
SDBP
'The Society of DismemberedBody Parts', Alphonso Lingis
SP
Speed and Politics, Paul Virilio
ss
Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
'TCU
'The Challenge of Complexity', Ilya Prigogine & Peter Allen
TCCDM
Thinking in Complexity, The Complex Dynamics of Matter, Mind, and
Mankind, Klaus Mainzer
TD
The Theatre and Its Douhle, Antonin Artaud
'TGM'
'The Geology of Morals: A Neo-Materialist Interpretation', Manuel
Delanda
TKM
The Thought of Karl Marx, David McLellan
6UC9
'Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control and the Ecology of Fear', Mike
Davis
UG
A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Brian Massumi
TEESR'
'Virtual 'Environments and the Emergence of Synthetic Reason',
Manuel Delanda
WAIM
War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, Manuel Delanda
vm
Miat is Philosophy?, Gilles Deleuze & Mix Guattari
IVVKLAiI
'Who Killed Los Angeles? A Political Autopsy', Mike Davis
'Y4MAH'
'Who Killed Los Angeles? Part Two: The Verdict is Given', Mike
Davis
Key to Abbreviations and Thesis Outline
V
Thesis Outline
IntroductionI
YO9 e-w-5
Deleuze and Guattafi's Work
Braudel
a) Power Centresand Third World Zones
b) 'The Perspectiveof the World'
Wallerstein
a) Relationship to Braudel
b) Antisy§ternic Mov6fiients of Resistance
1) Geopolitics
2) Minoritarian Becomings
L-1-
5
IV
Delanda
a) Relationship to Braudel
1) Historical Attractors
2) Self-organizing Systems
3) Stratification
b) TVat-in the Age of Intelligent Machines
1) Machinic Phylum
v
Significance of Geopolitics
a) Cartography of the Centre and Internal Third Worlds
1) Building-block Segments
2) Resistance
VI
Los Angeles: Geopolitical Medium
a) Minoritarian Becomings
b) Pragmatics
c) Socio-economicHistory
d) Stratification
8
VII
Mike Davis: Los Angeles Historian
a) Relationship to Braudel
1) Mapping Strata and Micro-fissures
2) Genealogy of Power
3) 'Power-lines'
b) Socialist Politics
1) Historical Suppression
c) South Central Los Angeles
d) Third World Zones
2
4
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
VIII
vi
Minor Literature: Shakur's Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang
Member
a) South Central Los Angeles
b) Relationship to Strata
c) Geopolitical Immediacy
1) 'Machine in Motion'
d) Relationship to Braudel and Wallerstein
1) The Importance of Shakur
a) Communicating a Machinic Potentiality
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
Part I
I
Strata
a) Capturing of Desiring-production
b) Coding and Decoding
Desire
a) Territorial Production
Function of Strata
a) Transcendent Command Structures
1) Law
2) Shakur and Imprisonment
17)9
Part II
Capitalism: Axiomatics
a) Flux
b) Opposition to Coding
1) Prices
2) Demand
c) Abstraction
d) The New Deal
1) Chile
Capitalist Axiomatic
a) Striation
b) Power-Lines
1) Centre of Exchange
2) Expansion
Absolute Limit
a) Crisis: The Centre and Internal Third Worlds
bý.'Anti-market' and 'Market'
c) Limits
d) Axiomatics
e) Lines of Escape
Qo
ý
C?
16
Key to Abbreviations and Thesis Outline
vii
Part 1111
Capitalism and Schizophrenia
a) Relationship to Marx
1) Despot
c) Divergence from Marx
d) De-Socialization
1) Peripheral Zones
a) Low-level Interactions
2) Displacement: Demographics
a) Crisis
3) Fortification
Stratification
-a)
1) A Fortress of Desire
4) Models of Realization
e) The Future
33
Part IV
43
Market Prices
a) Uncertainty
b) The Neo-Classical Approach (Orthodox Economics)
c) Consuming the Future
Meshwork Structures
a) Intensive Economic arena
b) Reductionist Model
Organs
Body
Without
Introduction
to
the
c)
Chapter 11: Body without Organs
Part I
Body without Organs: Assemblages
(Repulsive)
Machine
Paranoiac
a)
b) Miraculating Machine (Attractor)
System
'Destiny'
the
of
q)
Subject
a) Attractive Attributes
b) Repulsive Attributes
Difference
a) Eliminating Transcendence
b) Spinoza's Contribution
c) Immanence
5o
55
5K
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
IV
Chronology/Machinic unconscious
a) Lines of Flight
b) Examples by Artaud and Massumi
V
Notion of History
a) Movement within the Machinic Phylum
b) What role does intensity have in the discourseof complex systems?
VI
Marx/Freud Polemic
Pragmatics
a) Fusional Multiplicity
Part 11 %, --,
H
viii
S4-
SS
'
Strata
a) Splitting Intensity
b) Fossilization
c) Striatal Apparatus
0/19
Stratification
a) Production of the 'World'
b) Territorialization
c) Relationship to Axiornatics
qO
Part 1111
State Formation (Despot)
Striation
Space
of
a)
b) F irst and Last Emperors
c) Recoding d) Appearing in a 'Single Stroke'
9-3
Introduction to the 'Anti-Market': The Stratification of the World-Economy
Chapter 111:The Stratification of the World-Economy
Part I
Nomadic-MesMvork Structures
Bloc-formations
State
a)
b) NAFTA
c) Chase-Dunnand Podobnik
1) Short Digression on China
Part 11
81
9-?
94
Key to Abbreviations and Thesis Outline
Mact-opolifics
a) Top-down Imposition
1) East and West Hegemonies
2) Isomotphism
3) Braudel
I
ix
la
b) Antisystemic Movements
1) Economic Models for Investment
2) Synergetics
14
IV &V
Parts 1111,
I
(Non)State Actors
a) Delanda's Mar in the Age of Intelligent Machines
b) Netivat- and Cyhei-war
1) Information Technology
2) Economic Micro-Systems
3) Mongols, as example
II
Criticism of Delanda
a) via Cyberwar
III
Summary
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
119
Introduction
Part I
I
Molar and the Molecular
a) Niches
Id
Manuel Delanda
Models
Economic
Top-down
Traditional
Problems
with
a)
b) Reasonsfor Above
c) Critique of Delanda
)a)
Part II
Geopolitics
a) Los Angeles: 'World City Economy'
b) Power Centres
c) Antisystemic Movements
)go
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
x
Chronicle of LA's Housing
(1781)
City
Birth
the
a)
of
b) Reterritorialization/Exclusion
1) Homeowners' Associations
2) Anti-African Housing Associations
3) Jim Crow Laws
Part III
I
De-industrialization
a) PostmodernCapitalism
b) Economic Micro-systems
1),Flexible Accumulation: Drug Trade
a) Commodities-styleExportei-s' Association
b) Statistics from The L,conomist
c) WFIFTA, Andean Pact and Mercosur Agreements
Experimentation on the Molecular Plane
a) Probe Head in Geohistory, Geopolitics and Geophilosophy
Chapter V: Palimpsest: Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
Application: Inscription
a) Strata: Absolute Difference
b) Law
Introduction to Shakur's Monster: TheAutobiography ofan LA. Gang Member
a) Function of the Minor
b) Minor Literature
H
Stratigraphy
a) Instance of High-level Control
b) How is it possible to re-influence the strata?
Monstrosity
Enunciation:
Collective
Assemblage
of
c)
d) Multiplicities
1) Deterritorialization with a Complementary Reterritorialization
2) Numbering Number
3) Third World
Charting Shakur's life
into
Initiation
the Gang World
a)
b) Tribalism
1) Lines of Race
c).Youth Training School
d) New Afrikan IndependenceMovement
in
Motion'
'Machine
e)
/SY
Key to Abbreviations and Thesis Outline
xi
Writing Machine
1) Discontinuous Assemblages
2) Cocking a Handgun
a) Immanent Communication
IV
Palimpsest:Critique of Shakur
a) Genealogical Suppression
1) Numbered Number Suppression
2) Differentiation
)30
b) Folding Back: Reterritorialization
c) Race as Minoritarian
d) Stfength: Minor Language
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness' and 'The American Rhizome'
a) 'Class Consciousness'and 'The American Rhizome'
1) Identification with Class (Majoritarian)
2) The West: 'The American Rhizome'
b) Minor Issues
1) Definable States
2) 'Crystals of Becoming'
c) Diagraming Peripheral Movements
1) Los Angeles: The 'Worker'
2) Late Capitalism
3) Geophilosophy and Micropolitics
d) Identification with Majoritarian Systems
1) 'Universal Consciousnessin the Proletariat'
2) Marxism
3) Capture by Strata
4) Alternative Strategies
e) The Minoritarian and America
1) 'American Rhizome'
2) Mapping America and the West
a) Geological Plates
b) Rhizomatic Territory
3) Deleuze and Guattari's Relationship to Europe
a) Relationship to EuropeanDiscourse
1) Class Consciousness
2) Capture PrecedesOppression
Tagging Peripheral Zones
1) 'Tearing' Flows from the Centre
)-74
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
xii
2) The Perspective on America
3) Limitations of Marxism
g) The Importance of Geopolitics
1) Construction of Micropolitics
2) Minoritarian Becomings
110\
Tables
Bibliography
I
q's
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
2
A theory is exactly like a box of tools [ ] It must be useful. It must
...
function. And not for itself. If no one uses it, beginning with the
theoretician himself (who then ceasesto be a theoretician), then the
theory is worthless or the moment is inappropriate. We don't revise a
theory, but construct new ones; we have no choice but to make others
[ ]A theory does not totalize; it is an instrument for multiplication
...
and it also multiplies itself. It is in the nature of power to totalize and
it is your position, and one I fully agreewith, that theory is by nature
opposed to power. As soon as a theory is enmeshedin a particular
point, we realize that it will never possess the slightest practical
importanceunlessit can erupt in a totally different area (Foucault, '11",
p.208).
The primary importance of Deleuze and Guattari's joint work is in their analysis of
capitalism. Of particular interest for this study is the displacementof internal Third
Worlds into the Centre of the capitalist world-economy, a cartographyof a core power
and peripheral zones. By addressingthe issues that are involved in this study, the
introduction will provide a general overview of the problems concerninginternal Third
Worlds, and will discuss certain writers that have an important role in this study.
The conversationreported in the above excerpt, on the role of intellectuals in
politics, took place between Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault on March 4 1972.
In the sameyear, Gilles Deleuze and Mix Guattari published their critical thesis on
1
LAnti-Oedipe.
Between this
psychoanalysis,marxism, structuralism, and capitalism:
first volume of Capitalisme et Schizophi-inie and the second-Mille Plateaux, which
was published in 1980-Deleuze and Guattan also waged their positive critique against
the canonical interpretations of Franz Kafka. Kajka: Pour tine fill6rature mineum
(1975) set the agendafor re-evaluating traditional psychoanalytical interpretations of
the author. By fragmenting transcendent,oedipalized notions within psychoanalysis,
they set the stage for a machinic hecomingin Kafka's work. The machinic becoming
'As Lyotard notes: 'In spite of its title, Anti-Oedipus is not a critical book. Rather, like the AntiChrist, it is a positive, assertivebook-,an energeticposition inscribed in discourse [ ]' ('EC', p. 11).
...
Introduction
is a positive assemblagethat bifurcates within a political, as well as an economic,
arenaof imnianence:a minor literature. The two forces of the political and economic
inextricably
entwined. ]Immanencehas to be distinguished from transcendence,for
are
the former is matter in the play of forces. To designate the latter, namely
transcendence,'[ ] is to fabricate a beneficentGod to explain geological movements'
...
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.3). Their last joint work, Quest-ce que la philosophie?
(1991), -is in certain respects-a summation of their venture in 'CapiOlism ý4nd
Schizophrenia.However, there is a sombre ingredient to the text, a mode of thought
unprecedented in their earlier books.2 Quest-ce que la philosophie? portrays a
movement of possibilities confronting thought on the edge of chaos: an operation
within the framework of the Arts, Scienceand Philosophy.
In addition to Deleuze and Guattari's joint work, the writings of Braudel are
of immenseimportance to understandingthe complex relationship betweencapitalism
and peripheral sectorsthat are drawn on the Earth, a topography of power Centresand
Third World zones. The evolution of 'anti-market' forces that systemize the
commodification of surplus-productionare meticulously elucidated in Braudel's three
volume set, Civilization and Capitalism 15th - 18th Century. Specifically, capitalism
is not designated by particular stages of growth, as in the traditional view of
economics,but rather through its ability to adapt to changing conditions:
to slip
from
form
in
to
times of crisis or
one
or
sector
another,
notice
at a moment's
(Braudel,
decline
CC, p.433). The perspective of growth
in
profit rates'
pronounced
ýl am thinking of the opening sentencespennedby Deleuze to introduce What is Philosophy?: The
question Owl is philosophy? can perhapsbe posedonly late in life, with the arrival of old age and the
time for speaking concretely [...] It is a questionposed in a moment of quiet restlessness,at midnight,
when there is no longer anything to ask [ ...] There was too much desire to do philosophy to wonder
what it was, except as a stylistic exercise. That point of nonstyle where one can fwally say, "What is
it I have been doing all my life? " had not been reached' (Deleuze & Guattari, TVIP,p. 1).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
4
in the world-economy has traditionally baseditself upon various stagescapitalism has
gone through in its path to 'maturity', a development resulting in 'true' capitalism.
Braudel critiques the limitations posed by this thought that advocatescapitalism's
progressiveand orderly growth to presentday 'maturity'. Instead, Braudel excavates
the sedimentedelementsthat contribute to the formation of capitalism by analyzing
the 'degreesof stratification' that have producedour economic history? A genealogy
of economics.,Braudel's thesis of capitalism is found in the capturing"of ihtbn§ity'by
the strata (capitalism), an operation that propagatesa core zone from which all flows
of captured intensity are developed.Braudel's influence in this study is found in the
analysis of Centre zones: the function of power and its relationship to the
commodification of the Earth. Capitalism is always associated with power structures
that axiomatize peripheral massesinto quantifiable zones. In appropriating Braudel's
thesis of the Centre in the capitalist matrix, I also use the writings of Wallerstein.
Wallerstein's work concerns itself with contemporary power structures that
systemically monopolize desiring-production back into the Centre. The historical
system that Wallerstein employs to isolate developmentswithin the capitalist worldeconomy is similar to Braudel's. More importantly, Wallerstein's diagram of
antisystemic movementsof resistance plays a crucial role in this study's mapping of
heterogeneous assemblagesthat resist the current power structures designed to
axiornatize flows within a configuration of surplus-production. An instance of
geopolitics, current antisysternicmovementsproducelow-level interactionsthat decode
"It would however be a mistake to imagine capitalism as something that developedin a series or
leaps-from- mercantile capitalism to industrial capitalism to finance capitalism, with some kind of
regular progressionfrom one phaseto the next, with "true" capitalism appearingonly at the late stage
when it took over production, and the only permissible term for the early period being mercantile
capitalism or even "pre-capitalism"' (Braudel, CCC, p.621).
Introduction
traditional models of socio-economic behaviour. Contemporary geopolitics concerns
itself with the apparatusesof capturethat suppressminoritarian hecomingswithin the
socius (Wallerstein, GG, p.68ff). The capacity to capture flows of production into
homogeneoussectors on the surface of the Earth, is not only a continuation of
Braudel's and Wallerstein's research,but it also provides this study with tools to map
the current dynamics that veer the socius into diverse interactions. It is always a
'
desiring-prbduction
flows
from
leak
that
the
'tracking
question'of
stfata.
The strata sediment flows into blockages by building upon captured intensity,
intensity
layering
layering
that fonns belts, interlinking the whole apparatus
upon
of
a
(re)inscribing
base:
the Earth, the
to
the
world-economy
a
capitalist
of capture
power
Centre zone. A re-inscription of desire, axiomatics are the regulating pathways and
desire
bridging
that
that
the
capitalist
shape
zones
world-economy,
conduits
of
traversesupon the Earth into commodified wholes, and creating internal Third Worlds
in the midst of the Centre.
Many socio-economic authors have applied the formulations derived from
Braudel's inquiry into the relationship between power and capitalism to their
individual writings. The first part of this study investigates such work. Of particular
interest for this study has been the examination undertakenby Delanda, concerning
he
derives
from
bridging
the
and
conclusions
power
structures;
current models of
seemingly disparate discourses, such as complexity science and socio-economic
history, into a cohesive and tangible theoretical trajectory of desire. Thus, Braudel's
4'After 500 years (the period that this has beengoing on) we have begun to reach a relatively high
degreeof commodification in the world-economy, a processwhose configuration logically approaches
an asymptote.As the processapproachesthe asymptoteit becomesmore and more difficult to solve
middle-run problems; this kind of process has created the long-nm so-called structural crisis that
involves a long period of transition in which historical choices are wide open' (Wallcrstein, GG, p.40).
The relationship betweenThird Worlds and the Centreis fully developedin the latter half of the study.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
6
emphasisof carefully gauging the historical attractors(flows) that sedimentinto molar
formations, is taken up by Delanda's current researchinto self-organizing systems.
Delanda's materialist investigation explores the relationship between attractors
capturedby the Centre, and the homogeneoussedimentationsthat inscribe on regions
foundations
body
implementing
by
the
theoretical
the
without
organs;
and
provided
of
Deleuzeand Guattari and Braudel, Delandajuxtaposescurrent complexity sciencewith
socio-economic,-analyses --in the t capitalist world-economy. For --instance,, by
diagramming pathwaysthe nation-Statedevisesto captureintensity into homogeneous
wholes, Delanda's fVar in the Age of Intelligent Machines examines the historical
appropriation of the nomad war machine by the strata. The text utilizes the tools
in
is
by
Guattari
Deleuze
to
that
technology
warfare
and
argue
cybernetic
produced
imminent.' Moreover, in applying the tools provided by A Thousand Plateaus, in
particular the conceptof the machinic Phylum, Delanda chartsthe particular attractors
that determine the future behaviour of systemswithin specific mediums: 'figures of
destiny' that have the potential to bifurcate the existing homogeneity of the Centre
into potentially diverse set of relations.' Even though this study incorporates the
theoretical foundation Delanda explicatesthrough Deleuze and Guattari and Braudel,
it neverthelessproducesdifferent conclusionsthan those suggestedby Delanda. This
is not to arguethat Delanda's contribution to current socio-economictheory is invalid,
but that there are limitations to the coordinateshe develops within the concept of the
5"Me transfer of control from the body to the machine that inark-sthe beginning of the evolution
of software was part of the process,describedby historian Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish,
the body to increaseits potential, while simultaneouslyreducing its mastery over its new
of discipliningZD
acquired skills' (Delanda, WAIM, p. 168).
641introduce the term "machinic phylum" to designatea single phylogenctic fine cutting through
all matter, "living" or "nonliving, " a single source of spontaneousorder for all of reality' (Delanda,
'NOL', p. 138).
Introduction
machinic phylum and the possibilities it presentsfor minoritarian becomings.While
advocating Delanda's work throughout this study, I also elucidate the short-comings
that are apparentwith his research.
The second half of this study devotes itself to specific empirical trajectories
that are presently changing the relationship between the Centre zone and peripheral
sectorsinto geopolitical movements.,Geopolitics is the medium'by W10ch"hii-ndfitdriaii
assemblagesconvergewith current socio-economichomogeneity,patterningnew levels
of interactions between the Centre and Third Worlds, redistributing transcendent
'spatial apartheid' into local compositions, and realigning ghettoized sectors within
post-industrial capitalism. Geopolitics is situatedwithin the cartography of the Centre
and its internal Third World, bifurcating (molar) sequences of repression that
systemically (re)capture desire within the stratification of the world-economy. By
recoding desireinto commodified wholes, the strata (capitalism) demarcatezonesfrom
which all flows are distributed from the Centre.The key to understandingthe complex
dynamicsthrough which the stratareterritorialize flows of commodity production back
into the capitalist world-economy, is to diagram contemporary, geopolitical systems
that resist the molar striation of space. The coordinates that produce a topography
intensity,
layering
layering
buildingboundaries
the
the
upon
a
city
are
of
within
of
block segments that separate desire from itself. a core zone with internal Third
Worlds.
Having set up a theoretical systemthat specifically dealswith the perpetuation
focuses
in
first
latter
in
the
the
the
the
world-economy
part,
part
of
study
of capitalism
homogeneous
Angeles
Los
the
the
that
are
presently
challenging
region
on areasof
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
8
strata. In examining Los Angeles as the intersection of post-industrial capitalism (the
Centre) and Third Worlds, this study appliesthe socio-economicfonnulations that are
developed in the earlier part of the study to minoritarian.becomings. The pragmatics
deal
issues
that minoritarian
to
this
socio-economic
empirically
with
of
approachare
becomings are presently confronting. Thus, the secondpart of this study zooms into
the city of Los Angeles, producing vivid accountsof present day interactions within
the confines-of the strata, documentingthe assemblagesthat resist fet&rritorializdtioh;
into
desire
history
that
the
a systemic
socio-economic
-sediments
and analyzing
Centres,
is
discuss
It
that perpetually
to
the
power
essential
of
mass.
surveillance
hand;
into
block
desire
to
the
at
otherwise, a
study
segments,
recode systems of
itself
limits
to only abstract,
the
the
of
world-economy
stratification
critique of
theoretical problems. This brings us to Mike Davis, urban critic and Los Angeles
historian, whose work is discussedat length in the second half of this study. The
levels
Angeles,
Future
Los
Davis
Quartz:
Excavating
City
in
the
a critique
of
author of
becomings
into
isolate
Centres
that
the
a grid of ghettoized
minoritarian
power
at
7
bases
in
Los
history
Charting
the
and
power
of class/racialsegregation
suppression.
Angeles, Davis engages in pragmatics similar to Braudel's discussion of the
demonstrate
both
the genealogical axis
the
authors
world-economy:
stratification of
that structure power bases around specific Centres; both specialize in mapping the
intricate micro-fissures that crack the homogeneous Centre; and both trace the
"Welcome to post-liberal Los Angeles, where the defenseof luxury lifestyles is translated into a
by
"armed
in
the
ubiquitous
undergirded
space
and
movement,
proliferation of new repressions
response". This obsession with physical security systems, and, collaterally, with the architectural
in
become
has
boundaries,
the
narrative
a
master
of
urban
a
zeitgeist
restructuring,
policing of social
debating
Yet
the role of
built
1990s.
theory,
the
urban
whether
contemporary
of
environment
emerging
dispersion
discussing
in
"postmodem
the
technologies
of urban
or
space",
precipitating
electronic
fimctions acrosspoly-centeredmetropolitan "galaxies",hasbeenstrangelysilent about the militarization
level'
CQ,
life
(Davis,
the
p.221).
visible
at
street
city
so
grimly
of
Introduction
9
coordinatesCpower lines) of the capitalist matrix that saturatedesire into suppression.
By tabling the apparatusesof capture that have shapedand developed contemporary
Los Angeles since the city's birth (1781), Davis's micro history is within Braudel's
global perspective of the capitalist world-economY. By fusing the two authors, this
study focuses on aspectsthat are not coveredby them individually; and by graphing
the Los Angeles terrain, this study produces alternative strategies for minoritarian
becomingswithin the stratification of the capitalist world-economy."'-*- ---
-"
Davis's writings cover a wide spectrumof American socialist politics, spanning
the historical suppressionof labour (union) movementsin open-shopLos Angeles, to
surveying the evolution of edge cities that have resulted from the Angeleno 'whiteflight', to covering regional movementsthat circumvent post-industrial 'depressions'
arising from late capitalism, particularly, in South Central Los Angeles. Even though
his approach to a socialist, socio-economic history is almost extinct in the
contemporarywest coast of the US, Davis, nevertheless,combines the gritty realism
of Los Angeles with Hollywood film noir, producing an elegant treatise that foretells
the future of cities to come. Unlike many boostersof Los Angeles that are blind to the
blue
in
Third
Davis's
the
World
the
consists
city,
agenda
of
collar
zones
existenceof
by
late
been
has
to
the
that
periphery
capitalism's postsystemically
pushed
class
industrialism. This plane consists of African-Americans, Latin-Americans, Hispanics
and a generally impoverished sector of the regional economy. To gauge the current
micro-political movementsin Los Angeles and the levels of geopolitical resistancethat
data
this
and statistics to negotiate
of
appropriates
a
plethora
study
are present,
between what Davis argues is the current state of Los Angeles and what this study
presentsas low-level, minoritarian becomings.Moreover, by utilizing current data on
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
10
the socio-economicsof Los Angeles, micro-political assemblagesare not only located
within the striated belts of the capitalist world-economy, but they also provide an
analysis of the apparatusof capture.
The study also appropriates Deleuze and Guattari's minor literature, by
mapping Sanyika Shakur's, aka Monster Kody Scott's, Monster: The Autobiography
ofan L.A. Gang Member onto the cartographyof desire in South Central Los Angeles.
The objective of zooming into'Shakur's autobiographyis-to focus 6ii"the'r6lati6fishio
the strata have to an individual, chronicling the movements that propagate the
deterritorialization
(coupled with a complementary reterritorialization)
onto the apex
of post-industrialization. The geopolitical immediacy of Shakur's writing-machine is
the becoming-minoritarian,an economyof immanent desirethat decodesthe sedentary
in
Universalization
that
advance. This locates the
posits a
plane of stratification
suppressionof desire not only within the capitalist world-economy, but also in the
socio-economic demarcation of race. Shakur's autobiography is the first-hand
'
in
Wallerstein
internal
Centre.
Third
Worlds
While
Braudel
the
and
of
experience
discuss,at length, the elementsthat createsedimentationson the surface of the Earth,
Shakur's tale is told from the other end of this European,capitalist 'experiment'. By
producing an immanent architecture that re-influences the strata with machinic
potentiality, Shakur's South Central Los Angeles dismantlesbinary oppositionsstored
As
(historical)
the title suggests,Shakur's
the
the
super-stratum.
memory
of
within
initiation
into
the gang world of Los Angeles; but the
the
rites
autobiography charts
8'1have pushedpeople violently out of this existenceand have fathered three children. I have felt
completely free and have sat in total solitary confinement in San Quentin state prison. I have shot
in
been
in
have
I
have
South Central and
been
times
myself
shot
seven
gunfights
people
and
numerous
knife fights in Folsom state prison. Today, I languish at the bottom of one of the strictest
maximum-security state prisons in this country' (Shakur, M, p.xiii).
Introduction
II
importance of the text is explicated in the assemblageof becoming-monster,such as
'
a wolf. In designating a becoming, Shakur's 'Machine in Motion' is a tag, or,
intensity,
line
functions
locate
that
to
the
geopolitical
of flight. Even though,
molecular
Shakur is presently confined to a maximum security prison in California, the machinic
voices generatedfrom his autobiographyarethe antisysternicmovementsof resistance
that challenge the presenthomogeneity of the strata.10
-..---
Connecting Shakur -to the authors discussed above is -polemical,- especially
within academic discourse. And, yet, that is where his importance lies: having
educated himself while serving his sentence(s) in prison, his writing is a journey into
the myriad layers of captured intensity that keep us all bound to the strata. By
cataloguingthe striation of spaceto the reterritorialization of desire to the suppression
of the minor in Los Angeles, Shakur's prison-writing communicates a machinic
potentiality that is reminiscent of such authorsas, de Sade,Genet and GeorgeJackson.
To produce a perspective on capitalism that sets limits to its growth by creating Third
Worlds," would be incomplete without witnessing the first-hand experience of an
9Referto Delcuze & Guattari, ATP, '1914: One or Several WolvesT pp.26-38, for an extended
discussionon becoming-wolE Chapter IV briefly examinesthe function of becoming-wolf in relation
to the stratification within psychoanalysis.
"Ibe F.B.I. and the rest of the authorities have the namesof everyonewho has ever beento Youth
Authority in a huge data bank in Washington. When you go to state or federal prison, they simply
in
bank.
involved
data
If
their
you
get
anything they think is notewordW-and everything is
update
noteworthy to a hunter-they put it in your file in their data bank. ney know what you may do long
before it happens,as well as what you have the potential to do. Becausegang actions are seen as selfdestructive and not a threat to the security of this country, it's not necessaryfor them to stop you. But
if you begin to questionthe right of those in authority or resist the chains that constantlybind you, then
you'll be elevated as a security risk and more than likely put in the Agitators Index file. I've been in
the Agitators Index since 1986' (Shakur, M, pp.321-322).
"Capitalism
continually sets and then repels its own limits, but in so doing gives rise to
numerous flows in all directions that escapeits axiomatic [ ...] It does not effect the "conjugation" of
the deterritorialized and decoded flows without those forging ahead;without their escapingboth the
axiomatic that conjugatesthem and the models that reterritorialize them; without their tending to enter
into "connections" that delineate a new Land [ ] we are referring [ ] to the coexistence and
...
...
inseparability of that which the system conjugates,and that which never ceasesto escapeit following
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
12
individual who surpassessuch zones of suppression. To localize a trajectory of
becoming in Shakur's South Central Los Angeles is the revolutionary potential that
12
desire.
Shakur's minoritarian language is the capacity to deterritorialize
charts
Centres of power to a machinic becoming, to supplant zones of control to decoded
desire, and to fonnulate a strategy... and, yet, he is confined to a solitary cell in
Northem Califomia...
13
'Writing has nothing to do with signifying. It has to do -with -surveying,
mapping, even realms that are yet to come' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
pp.4-5).
lines of flight that are themselvesconnectable' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, pp.472-73).
"'It is this plasticity or viscosity that traces everywhere and nowhere the difference between
political economyand libidinal economy, and owing to which in particular, a great savageconfiguration
(a great apparatus)-for examplcý-canbe disinvested,pipes and filters can fall into obsolescenceand the
libido can be distributed differently in another configuration: it is thus in this viscosity that all
revolutionary potential lies' (Lyotard, 'EC', p.26).
"'To break-with the set, I'd had to draw on my well of strength and sum up the courageto step
out of myself, my set, my learned ways and take an objective look at what was going on in the world
around me. This had been neither easy nor comfortable. The process was slow, often obscured, and
always painful. I'd had to look back beyond the good times and happy days to the tears and griefstricken faces of mothers who had lost their children. I've found that unless you have children you'll
never know what it's like to lose a child. I'd had to open my eyes and earsto hear the soundsof clips
being pushed in and weapons being cocked, screeching car tires, running feet, the hunted and the
hunters, the suddenblasts of gunfire; to see the twisted, lifeless bodies, the wounded still trying to run
or crawl, the yellow homicide tape being strung, the tears over a family's lack of funds for a proper
burial, die drugs, the alcohol, the angry faces-this process,the way of fife for so many, repeateditself
over and over. These are the scenesthat contributed to my awareness:a firsthand knowledge of life and
death on the lines of all-out war' (Shakur, M, p.376).
[ ] Subjectivity is not necessarily uniform, but rather very differentiated. It is
...
differentiated as a function of the requirementsof production, as a function of racial
segregations,as a function of sexual segregations,as a function of x difference,
becausethe objective is not to create a universal subjectivity, but to continue to
reproducesomething that guaranteespower [ ...].
Mix Guattari, interview (1985)
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
15
I
The rule of continually producing production, of grafting producing
onto the product, is a characteristicof desiring-machinesor of primary
production: the production of production (Deleuze& Guattari, AO, p.7).
[ ] Breaks or interruptions are not the result of an analysis; rather in
...
and of themselves, they are syntheses.Synthesesproduce divisions.
(ibid, p.41).
Capitalism and Schizophreniais a machinic assemblagethat dismantleshomogeneous
tiers -(strata);- a --pi-agmatics-rather than-a claim -to Truth, a- model--that--activates
'
immanence
is
diagrammatic
Its
production.
of
machinic
rather than textual:
processes
at variance with the transcendent apparatusesthat have occupied the history of
'
philosophy. What is at stake is its functionality, a production of a plane (plateau)that
perpetuatesitself, a line that intersects with other machines of desh-e: molecular
'
machine, writing machine, revolutionary machine... In this chapter, we discuss
various aspects of the apparatus of capture that stratifies desiring-production. Of
interest
function
becomings
in
is
the
minoritarian
of
relation to the capitalist
particular
into
discussing
Centre,
Third
Worlds
By
the
the
capture
we
of
world-economy.
"Philosophy does not consist in knowing and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categorieslike
Interesting, Remark-able,or Important determinesuccessor failure' (Deleuze & Guattari, WIP, p.82).
"There is no difference betweenwhat a book talks about and how it is made. Therefore a book has
no object' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.4). See Deleuze and Guattari, ATP, p. 141ff, for particulars
surrounding the function of the diagram: 'The diagrammatic [ ...] does not function to represent,even
something real, but rather constructs a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality' (p.142).
'Desire-desiring-production-is a compassused throughout Capitalism and Schizophrenia,as well
as this study, to chart the (de)stratification of the world-economy and molecular (re)tcrritorializations.
Though other ternis will be usedto tag desire,suchas 'gangs', 'assemblages','nomads', 'multiplicities',
'minor processes','antisystemic movements of resistance' and 'market exchanges',they nevertheless
J
]
desire
by
desire:
does not take as its object persons or things,
flux
is
that
to
the
generated
refer
...
but the entire surroundingsthat it traverses,the vibrations and flows of every sort to which it is joined,
introducing therein breaks and captures-an always nomadic and migrant desire [ I' (Deleuze &
...
Guattari, AO, p.292). And: 'To desire consists of this: to make cuts, to let certain contrary flows run,
to take samplingsof the flows, to cut the chains that are wedded to the flows. There is no meaning, no
interpretation to be given, no significance' (Guattari, Chaosophy,p.76).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
16
diagram the minoritarian as being a continuous process.In playing an important role
in Deleuze and Guattari's writings, the minoritarian processis the zone of machinic
becomings, a mapping of heterogeneouselementsthat bifurcate the layers of strata
that bind desiring-production to a molarization."
The strata depend upon the capture of desiring-production (machinic
flows
desiring-production
impedes
An
thwarts
of
capture
of
and
processes). apparatus
- The-strata
them- from leaking out of the social strata,''an instance of -aXidms.
desiring-production,
intensity.
The strata are
an overcoding of
reterritorialize
constellations of rigid and homogeneouslinks that coordinate and produce a global
molarization, thereby allocating desiring-production as something above production
itself The capturing of desiring-production to a transcendent globalization is the
(re)coding by the strata: 'To code desire-and the fear, the anguishof decodedflows-is
the business of the socius' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p. 139). The strata code and
decodedesiring-production in order to maintain an equilibrium between the fields of
forces of the transcendentState,and in order to prevent intensity from bifurcating into
'Bifurcations are important to Deleuze and Guattari's analysisof capitalism. They suggestthat there
hand,
incremental,
in
the
there
the
two
types
are
gradual changes,an
one
of
change
capitalism:
on
are
instance of variation; and, on the other, there are the sudden catastrophic changes of regimes. The
bifurcation
is
By
is
bifurcations.
kind
variation
and
at
what
at
stake
with
placing
of
change
second
opposite endsof the continuum of change,Deleuze and Guattari designatethe different transformations
that occur in the socius.
Biffircations split homogeneoussystems, or apparatusesof capture, into diverse, molecular
for
These
the possibility of dynamic and creative movements to take
transformations
allow
elements.
place within the apparatusof capture. The primary importance of bifurcations lies in this process that
bifurcations
By
diagramming
the
the
within the socius, we can map
strata.
of
configuration
challenges
bifurcations
by
'[
]
the
the
the
that
world
set
up
of
mechanisms
strata:
coding
escape
assemblages
...
The
IVAIM,
9,
236).
'world
in
(Delanda,
the
p.
nature'
note
source
of
creativity
andvariability
represents
of bifurcations' plays a crucial role in the analysisof internal Third Worlds that are placed in the Centre
of the capitalist world-economy. The relationship that existsbetweenthe deterritorialization of the strata
]
lies
'[
The process of
desiring-production
'source
this
the
creativity'.
of
within
recapturing of
and
...
incamating bifurcations into attractorsand these,in turn, into concretephysical systems,has beengiven
the name of "stratification": the creation of the stable geological, chemical and organic strata that make
up reality' (ibid).
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
17
'
(minoritarian
bureaucracy
desire.
The
machinic potentiality
assemblages):a
of
compartmentalization and cellular partitioning of desiring-production erects a
judgement of God by reterritorializing intensity to a categorization of life forms,
stratified through the representationsof genus and species.
Desire, however, is not representationalbut entirely productive; it is the
machinic production of the reaL Since desire, in its molecular usage, does not have
an-object,there-is -nodifferentiation betweenreality and desire."Tlfdf'd*i§-fi66fit6l69i6'dl
difference between desire and its effect and at no level of analysis can there be a
separationof desirefrom its production. 'There is no needto distinguish here between
producing and its product' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.7); desire is entirely positive
'
is
is
is
the
the
and
outcome of
machine: nothing outside of what produced. Desire
only becomesrepresentationalwhen the strata capture intensities into homogeneous
units, an implementationthat unifies minoritarian assemblagesinto globalized wholes.
The capturing of desire is a resurfacing of production into tangible units of identity,
5,[ ] Codes continue to exist-even as an archaism:
they assumea function that is perfectly
-but
...
contemporary and adapted to the situation within personified capital (the capitalist, the worker, the
mercliant, the banker) [ ...] flows ofcode that are both interior and exterior to the machine, forming the
elements of a technology and even a science' (Delcuze & Guattari, AO, p.232).
'Input and output are the binary operationsof the connective synthesis,the particular assemblages
of desire being equivalent to a flow. The flows are energetic or libidinal in continuously varying
quantities. The binary series of input and output are the partial objects of the priniary process in that
there is a perpetual assemblageof desire. This being the ininianent plane of the synthesisit details the
be
At
the
the
stage
can
process
connective
axis.
no
consummatedas a self-sufficient
usage
of
partial
global object on the molecular axis, as was evidencedby the earth being the first global and molar
whole socius.This leadsDeleuzeand Guattari to clarify processesbetweenthe non-specific and specific,
whereby the former is the molecular usageinsofar as wholes are additive and the latter is the process
of substituted wholes. The earth as specific entails a global molarization of its process of an endless
stream of partial objectsjumping to the end of the assemblage.In other words, it is an attempt to build
from the start that which is going to be assembled(producing global objects from non-specific
processes).'If desire produces,its product is real. If desire is productive, it can be productive only in
the real world and can produce only reality. Desire is the set of passive swithesesthat engineerpartial
objects, flows, and bodies, and that function as units of production. The real is the end product, the
result of the passive synthesisof desire as autoProductionof the unconscious.Desire and its object are
one and the same thing: the machine, as a machine of a machine. Desire is a machine, and the object
of desire is another machine connectedto it' (ibid, p.26).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
18
an apparatusof (re)coding. By stratifying desire into a global object, a unity emerges
in advanceinsofar as desire becomescontingent upon what is libidinally available.'
Under the conditions of territorial production we find the first socius and the
is
The
the
than
of
earth
as
something
other
above
production!
earth
placement
or
seenas territorial or standing above itself This is an attempt to collapse all machinic
into
is
The
the
transcendence.
transcendent
the
usage
of
synthesis
processes
presupposition of an outcome-in advance-ofthe,flows connecting.- Tife ýobius is the
locus of transcendencesince it develops from the notion of a social being (a global
entity that accountsfor production). Society is hierarchically organized as a substitute
for the whole. Wherever there is a socius, there is a transcendentusage of desiring-
machines.
The function of the strata fundamentally lies in their capacity to capture
intensity for the purposesof composing a substituted whole from partial, molecular
flows. This is achievedthrough transcendentcommand structuresthat bifurcate local
variables of heterogeneous intensity into a genealogy of suppression-'[ ...] one
suspects,we shall find a great deal of severity, cruelty, and pain' (Nietzsche, GM,
is
is
law
One
the
transcendent
64).
that
the
worth
noting
of
apparatuses
of
capture
p.
that is inscribed (coded) and reinscribed (recoded) on the palimpsest of desire. The
'See Table I for the differences resulting from the molecular and molar usage of desiringproduction.
"For there is no less an econonzy,an energeticsin that which will regulate lineagesand alliances
and thus distribute the flows of intensity in concretionsof roles, personsand goods on the surface of
the socius, finally producing what is called the organization of savagesociety (an organism that is in
fact never unified, always divided betweenthe thousandpoles of small, multiple organs,partial objects,
libidinal segments[ ] )-no less an economy in the laws of kinship, no less an economy even in the
...
distribution of the libido on the surface of the organlessbody, in the hooking-up of small, desiring,
energy transforming, and pleasure-seeking organs,than in the economics and distribution of capital,
no less of a producing-inscribing apparatusthere than here' (Lyotard, 'EC', p. 18).
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
19
palimpsest can be the body of 'The Penal Colony'-[ ...] the penalty that writes both
the verdict and the rule that has been broken' (Deleuze and Guattari, AO, p.212)-the
prescription and the paradoxical aspectof writing the punishmentupon the body, even
through the letters will go unread by the guilty who is being punished. The inscribed
law appears as the juridical forra which arises in a single stroke; '[ ]a pure and
...
empty form without content, the object of which remains unknowable: the law can be
expressedonly through a sentence,-andthe *sentence-can--belearned-only-through' a
punishment.No one knows the law's interior'(Deleuze & Guattari, K, p.43). The strata
loom acrossthe horizon, appeanng with a strategy in a single moment, manifesting
an abstract unity that renders desiring-production up to a cartography of the State
machine.The strata are separatedby an eternal,non-negotiabledistinction that covers
the entire production apparatus:a judgement of God. Desire is, therefore, striated into
a hierarchically orchestrated zone of repression, juridically binding itself to the
apparatusof the Statemachine, and assuringthe continuous recoding of heterogeneity
to a systematicmanipulation of desire.'
'Even though I present an in-depth discussion of Sanyika Shakur's, aka Monster Kody Scott's,
Monster. The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member in chapter V, the following is an excerpt that
provides an inverse to the juridical economy set up by the strata. Imprisonment is also an inscription
the law inflicts on an individual's life, a recoding that is rarely erased,placing an 'indelible scar' on
an existence.The representationalmodel of imprisonment is to display punishment to the rest of the
socius: the higher the security of the prison the more lethal the crime; the stricter the prison the harsher
the inscription of the law on a life: an organizedand precisemodel implementedto deter transgressions
within the strata.Yet, as Shakur explains, the inscribing system the stratautilize to recodea life through
imprisonment fractures immanently, creating an implosion that reversesthe purpose of capturing a life
behind bars. When respectincreasesdue to the higher level of security that one is in, the function of
imprisoning someoneis collapsing: 'What we did in the juvenile tank was reflected inside the prisons
where we were headed.The rank systemnever ended.Just as it was on the streetwith continuouslevels
of recognition, so too was it in jail. Those in placement-foster homes--looked up to those in juvenile
hall, those in juvenile hall looked up to those in camp, those in camp looked up to those in Youth
Authority, and those in Youth Authority looked up to those in prison. Most of us in the juvenile tank
looked up to those in prison, becausethat's where the district attorney was trying to send us' (Shakur,
M, p. 163). Furthermore,recent statistics releasedby the US Government tell a shocking story of race
determining incarceration: '[ ] 565 out of every 100,000 Americans are behind bars. And although
...
blacks comprise only 13% of the population, they account for almost half the country's 1.4m inmates'
(The Economist,December9-15 1995). It is not surprising, then, that Shak-ur'snarration of recognition,
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
20
III
[ ] The decodingof flows in capitalism has freed, deterritorialized, and
...
decodedthe flows of code just as it has the others-to such a degree
that the axiomatic machine has always increasingly internalized them
in its body or its structure as a field of forces
(Deleuze & Guattari,
AO, p.233).
Capitalism forms with a general axiomatic of decodedflows (Delouze
& Guattari, ATP, p.453).
Capitalism is stratified. The strata are the social machinery that axiomatize
desiring-production in the socius. Axiomatics are a socio-economic apparatusthat
capture (reterritorialize) desire in the capitalist world-economy. Axiomatics function
as a social machinery by implementing solutions quantitatively, as opposedto codes
that have predefined solutions already built into the system. Axiomatics allow for a
materialist account of application" by tracing the quantitative flows of the strata.
The general axiomatic of decoded flows representsa flow theory of production and
consumption whereby capital is not reinstated into a governing, all-encompassing
class, that controls all aspectsof law, wealth, religion and writing. It is rather via the
channel of perpetually decoding and deterritorializing (for example naked tabour or
independentcapital), that capitalism disintegratescoding by employing flows of profit
"
be
in
to
to
threshold.
continuously reabsorbed order reach a capitalist
and capital
being basedon a hierarchically structured system ('looked up to'), relies on the level of imprisonment
one is in to have acknowledgement.Granted,this systemof recognition (and respect) is similar to what
the strata institute (for example,'the boss'), but, nevertheless,the palimpsestof inscription crackswhen
recognition is based upon the higher the level of incarceration that one is in: 'It is a matter of
relationships of intensities through which the subjectpasseson the body without organs,a processthat
engageshim in becornings, rises and falls, migrations and displacements' (Delcuze & Guattari, AO,
p.84).
"Application is the processof overlaying one set of elementsor attributes over another. This will
be expandedin the following chapters.
"'A new threshold of deferritorialization' (Deleuze & Guattari, A TP, p.453).
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
21
However, disintegration is not to be seenas the abolition of coding since capitalism
cannot form or operate without the use of coding; in other words: 'capital never
operatesas a code. It operateson codes' (Massurni, UG, p. 134). Riding the coding
"
left
by
despotic
the
synthesis, capitalism integrates its own processesof
system
interaction and communication resulting in the abrogationof the State insofar as there
is no '[ ] longer a need for a State, for distinct juridical and political domination, in
...
Thd bddn*Orfiý
order to -ensure appropriation; which'has, become directly ecdnbniid**"
constitutesa world axiomatic, a "universal cosmopolitanenergywhich overflows every
bond",
(Deleuze
[
I'
& Guattari,
convertible
a
and
substance
mobile
restriction and
...
ATP, p.453).
Emerging from the despotic socius, the axiomatic engineers codes that have
become decodedand deterritorialized flux (pure energy or intensity). Essentially this
takes place between capital and labour insofar as they need to become abstractsince
the axiomatic '[ ] deals directly with purely functional elementsand relations whose
...
immediately
is
realized in highly varied domains
nature not specified, and which are
simultaneously [ ...]' (ibid, p.454). The despotic regime initially has opportunities to
by
labour
thereby making
the
and
capitalism
capital
emergence
of
severing
prohibit
between
]
'[
potentiality:
express
specific
relations
codes ...
capital virtual, a machinic
formal
by
higher
(overcoding)
be
that
subsumed
a
unity
cannot
qualified elements
"
indirect
(ibid,
in
fashion'
by
transcendenceand
an
p-454). The axioms'
except
"For an extendeddiscussionregarding despotismrefer to Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p. 192ff.
"Overcoding is essentialin the despotic structure to directly realign language, social norms and
religion via a transcendenthierarchy. Overeoding can be defined as a process of resurfacing that
produces a new cartography. 'A code is always of a "miIieu", or relatively stable, often statistical,
mixing of elements [ ...]a code is the same as a "form" (an order and organization of functions)'
(Massumi, UG, p.51). Through the resurfacing, the despot enforces the overcoding of the conquered
territory to constitute the 'essenceof the State' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p. 199ft).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
22
opposition to coding is essentiallybasedupon an external-internalrelation dichotomy:
the axiom is a transformation from an internal system (as evidenced in codes) to an
external process. For example, axiomatics can be added and subtractedwhile codes
are woven together by an internal, transcendentconnection; and axioms are flexible
and have the capacity to reprogramme or re-channel themselves in the capitalist
market than do codes(since they are bound by a State logical apparatus).Axiomatics
are quantitative in fonn. in as much as they index abstraction-vis-&vis -codes.Axioms
have no specific types, there is only difference in quantity. Being able to enter into
relations of isomorphic resources,axioms are fundamentally abstractin nature. Codes
"
into
due
being
by
to
their
never enter
relations
specific
nature. Codes specify a
solution insofar as any society that is coded (territorial) or over-coded (despotic) has
"
inherently
into
built
to
the
certain solutions problems
system. The system (socius)
is guided entirely by regimenting codes,whilst axioms enumerateproblems in abstract
quantitative terms and feed them into the market. For example, axiomatics set up a
demandthat the market is to resolve. Ratherthan capital being coded and a particular
result following, Deleuze and Guattari arguethat instead capital is fed a quantitative
problem and any system operating with axioms will translate and produce a solution
via prices, and not be stringently held by an internal mechanismthat relies on rituals,
"For a discussioninvolving the actual and the virtual in relation to axiomatics and coding refer to
Deleuze's Difference and Repeliflon: 'The virtual possessesthe reality of a task to be performed or a
problem to be solved: it is the problem which orientates,conditions and engenderssolutions, but these
do not resemble the conditions of the problem' (Delcuze, DR, pg. 212). As Deleuze and Guattari
suggest, codes operationalize the virtual as if it were a whole, a conduction (wiUn the plane of
consistency)that adopts a virtual array from which selectionsare made.
15Themost abstract and deterritorialized coding operation means nothing more than that two
simultaneousprocessesare taking place. A codeimplies a fusional apparatus,rather than a constructive
operation (or axiomatic). With coding there is no escape,or possibility of changing intensity, because
the variations are only of a homogeneoustype. Homogeneity is the building-block- of complementary
reterritorialization. To garner heterogeneousmultiplicities is to produce lines of flight.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
23
festivals, initiations etc. When prices are set up they are placed on a terrain styled by
axioms so that particular price levels will be the solution to the problems, while a
coded apparatusis a direct imposition of the solution insofar as it is fulfilling a direct
task set by an authority."
[...] Axiom bears on the condition of metamorphosis and transfer:
exchangevalue. Axiom and not code: energy and its objects are no
longer marked with a sign; properly speaking, there are no more signs
since there is no more code, no referenceto an origin, to a norm, to a
cpractice',''to a supposednature or surreality or'reality. 'to-d"Piffadigmor to a Great Other-there is nothing left but a little price tag, the index
of exchangeability: it is nothing, it is enormous, it is something else
(Lyotard, 'EC', p.20).
The advent of de-socializationis the one resourcecapitalism has in order to perpetuate
itself For example, capitalism is a parasiteof social disillusion and alienation in the
work force. The worker and the capitalist are found at opposite endsof the continuum
in
both
though
the same processof desiring-production.
are
even
Capitalism
continuously
rips
up
codes, propagates an
immense
deterritorialization of flux from carefully engineeredchannels,thereby breaking down
and dismantling thesechannels.Channelsof labour and wealth are turned into abstract
continuities: abstract labour and abstract wealth. Being built on experimentation,
capitalism is the source for surplus value. However, without channels of
16
Furthermore,the axiomatic is constructive: any unit of code can be decodedif given the principle
and elementsurrounding the assemblage.It is purely functional. Axioms are a decoding movement that
branch out of intrinsic codesinto constructivevalues.This movementby-passescoding machineriesand
recognition mechanisms.Axioms are'[ ...] operativestatementsthat constitute the serniological form of
Capital and that enter as componentparts into assemblagesof production, circulation, and consumption'
(Delcuze & Guattari, ATP, p.461). This is the basis for the perpetuation of capitalist development.
Coding is always operating from a binary-opposition, relinquishing immanenceto transcendence,while
axioms are entirely immanent.Axiomatics function through an abstractionthat is independentfrom each
other, and are
primary statements,which do not derive from or depend upon another statement'
(ibid).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
24
17
representation, capitalism is schizophrenic,since it cannot generateits own coding
apparatus;as stated earlier, capitalism's processis the shredding up of codes,and the
only generativeaccessto the production of codesis tei-ritoty. 'But this is precisely the
in
sense which the State is termed "territorial". Capitalism, on the other hand, is not
at all territorial, even in its beginnings: its power of deterritorialization consists in
taking as its object, not the earth, but "materialized labour", the commodity' (Deleuze
& Guattari, ATP,,-p.454).
The abstraction within capitalism is the system of feedback (for example,
Marx's formula of profit Mý-C-M) that operateswithin itself to propel further into
its
it
is
limits
the
time
capital
same
expansion;
sets
own
while at
continuously
germinating and multiplying: 'One sometimeshas the impressionthat flows of capital
would willingly dispatch themselvesto the moon if the capitalist State were not there
to bring them back to earth' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.258). The hyperbole
is
this
associatedwith
rocketing effect of capitalism regulatedand maintained through
stringent axiomatics that are constantly evolving to accommodate present day
economics.The immanenceof axiomatics is presentedin A ThousandPlateaus as if
it
like
believe
]
'[
to
that
us
confronts the limits of the Universe,
capitalism would ...
the extreme limits of resourcesand energy.But all it confronts are its own limits (the
periodic depreciation of existing capital); all it repels or displaces are its own limits
(the formation of new capital, in new industries with a high profit rate)' (Deleuze &
17'Representation
no longer relates to a distinct object, but to productive activity itself The socius
as full body has become directly economic as capital-money; it does not tolerate any other
preconditions' (Delcuze & Guattari, AO, p.263).
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
25
Guattari, ATP, p.463).'s
***
Circulation constitutes capital as a subjectivity commensuratewith
society in its entirety. But this new social subjectivity can form only to
the extent that the decodedflows overspill their conjunctions and attain
a level of decoding that the State apparatusesare no longer able to
reclaim: on the one hand, the flow of labor must no longer be
determined as slavery or serfdom but must become naked and free
labor; and on the othei- hand, wealth must no longer be determined as
"A Thousand Plateaus furthers the development of the axiomatic from the first volume by
distinguishing two desiring-production processesthat occur in present day economics. 'It is not only
in periods of expansionor recovery that axioms multiply. What makes the axiomatic vary, in relation
to the States, is the distinction and relation between foreign and domestic markets' (ibid, p.462).
Essentially, Deletize and Guattari specify differences emerging from a social democracy State to a
totalitarian State. For instance, the New Deal (an 'axiom laboratory') in the United States was a
rigorous attemptto assurethat capital did not decodeinto schizophrenia.By integrating social, economic
and familial codes into an abstract, solution based model of axiomatics (an application), F. D.
Roosevelt's plan suggestsa highly stratified structure the federal government implemented to control
and pattern levels of chaotic intensities (for example, the crash of the stock market in 1929 and the
Depression) to a more regulated and contained system: an 'anti-mark-et' zone of interaction. For
instance,the Statedefined its true jurisdiction through the New Deal when the United Statesgovernment
yielded to the fact that the depressionwould not dissipatethrough individual state participation. The
federal governmenthad to enforce its domain in order to direct the country into more stablemeans.'No
government bureau ever directly touched the lives of so many millions of Americans-the old, the
jobless, the sick, the ncedy, the blind, the mothers, the children-with so little confusion or complaint
[ I The federal government was at last chargedwith the obligation to provide its citizens a measure
...
the general welfare began a new phase of
of protection from the hazards and vicissitudes of life
national history' (Rodosh,AIND, p.42).
To contrast the above example of social democracy, the totalitarian State is found in the
developmentof Chile and its role in political policies. The degreeof totalitarianism to subtract an axiom
The tendencyto withdraw,
equalsthe level of politicization that is placed upon the Stateapparatus.
subtract axionis [ ...I One falls back on a very small number of axioms regulating the dominant flows,
while the other flows are given a derivative, consequentialstatus [ ...] or are left in an untamedstate that
does not preclude the brutal intervention of Statepower, quite the contrary' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.462). Chile elucidatesthe pure totalitarian Statealleviating any internal domesticpressureto produce
solutions (for example,imports) for a crisis. The division from code (an internal apparatus)to axiomatic
is acceleratedby Chile insofar as problems are fed quantitatively into the market and result in pure
mechanismsof export culminating in completede-regulation.On the other hand, social democracyrelies
heavily on the political and reterritorializing axiomatic whereby there is a perpetual insistence on an
internal, domestic equation: regulation. 'A very general pole of the State, "social democracy," can be
defined by this tendencyto add, invent axioms in relation to spheresof investment and sourcesof profit
L ] In this case,they aremasteredby the multiplication of directing axioms' (ibid). The difference lying
...
between the New Deal and the advent of the Chilean 'anarcho-capitalist' participation in the world
economy, is the basis of the axiomatic as it is presentedin Capitalism and Schizophrenia, volume 11
(p.462ft). The New Deal was a re-axiomatization of flows in an internal domestic economic structure
to restoreequilibrium. Chile's policy toward re-axiomatizationafter its crisis was to navigate away from
a stringent mechanism of regulation, with the intention of opening up their markets to the world
economy and thereby increasing the process of deterritorialization. 'At the limit, the only axioms that
are retained concern the equilibrium of the foreign sector, reserve levels and the inflation rate; "the
population is no longer a given, it has become a consequence"'(ibid, p.462).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
26
money dealing, merchant's or landed wealth, but must become pure
homogeneous and independent capital (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.452).
The strata (capitalist axiomatic) construct a socius that continuously
deterritorializes itself, expansion is the only operation, whereby the capitalist worldeconomy (conjunctive synthesis) is an inherent parasite of the globe, creating within
its immanent system a surplus value for the propagation process to continue. The
limits of capital--and-the decoding of flows intenninably'expos&"iftfd-k-rdifibld-iýa:
&h
other upon the myriad planes of the representational strata. Representation is
production on the socius as the full body becoming: '[ ...] directly economic as capitalmoney [ ...]' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.263). With this expansion in the capitalist
world-economy, the social machinery limits flows of desiring-production from
escaping into schizophrenia. The strata compose representational models to
(re)territorialize
desiring-production within a matrix of realization, " to produce a
global whole from partial objects, and to displace the peripheral mass into a Third
World. " Deleuze and Guattari argue that flows (through limits) present us with a
systemic apparatusthe strata utilize to prevent desiring-production assemblagesfrom
decoding the entire socius (ibid, p.175ff). Thus, the stratified lines coordinate flows
within a matrix of production: an apparatusthat prevents an escapeinto molecular
desire.The stratastriate smooth spaceinto criss-crossedlines by (re)coding the surface
of the body without organs,by expandingthe capitalist world-economy to the ends of
the Earth, and by generating surplus-productivity, a demarcation of specific trade
zones from which the Centre controls and navigates trajectories of exchange. The
"Or, models of realization.
2OThiswill be expandedin the following sections.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
27
geometric topography that surfaces the body without organs is the sectioning of the
entire orbital diameter of the planet, a capacity that decodesall desire into surplusproductivity. Every part is connected to every other part through the bands of
distribution that are processedthrough the Centre. This movement establishespowerlines acrossthe surface of the body without organs, axiornatizing specific regions for
into
labour
quantifying
surplus-productivity and
surplus
exchangeablecommodities.
The-Jines--of'-striation that- (re)inscribe' upon--the body 'without -'dtgdfis'funttioh to
capturesectorsof heterogeneousintensity by linking them to a mediated Centre.With
all flows of surplus-productivity being negotiatedthrough the Centre of exchange,the
ends of the Earth are procured for surpluses from which the Centre can expand
continuously: 'Long-distance trade certainly made super-profit: it was after all based
on the price of difference between two markets very far apart, with supply and
demand in complete ignorance of each other and brought into contact only by the
activities of the middleman. There could only have been a competitive market if there
had been plenty of separateand independentmiddlemen (Braudel, CC, p.405).21
The absolute limit has an important role in our discussion of the dynamics of
limit
is
draws
line
in
The
the
that
crevice
a
of
escape,
crack
absolute
a
a
capitalism.
axiomatization of the capitalist world-economy; it is the limit to what the strata can
limitation
frees
desiring-production
that
through
their
operation,
a
coding
onto
achieve
the body without organs, a revolutionary potential. It also presentsus with the crisis
that results from the strata axiomatizing zones into peripheral massesof desire, the
inability to capture flows of commodities and naked labour into surplus-productivity:
I'llic
function of the middleman will be expandedin chapter Ill.
'
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
28
We shall speak of an absolute limit every time the schizo-flows,pass
through the wall, scrambleall the codes,and deterritorialize the socius:
the body without organs is the deterritorialized socius, the wilderness
where the decodedflows run free, the end of the world, the apocalypse
(Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p. 176).
With the deterritorialization that generatesfrom this diffei-enceor divei-gence the
'22
schizophrenicand the capitalist axiomatic are perpetually in a state of tension, where
the former is the absolutedecoding of the socius, and the latter implements regulative
control-onto-the socius by the axiomatic: 'With the result that schi;t6phrehid'OdNddeg
the entire capitalist field from one end to the other. But for capitalism it is a question
of binding the schizophrenicchargesand energiesinto a world axiomatic that always
flows
interior
limits'
(ibid,
decoded
the
with
new
revolutionary potential of
opposes
p. 246). By quantitatively abstracting axioms to recode nomadic trajectories of escape
into homogeneousplates of the world economy, the strata not only reterritorialize
desire back into the Centre of control (First World), from which all exchange of
surplus-productivity is mediated, but also push the socius to the absolute limit of
desiring-production. However much the strata recode intensity into homogeneous
surplus-productivity, there is always a movement to the periphery. For capitalism to
be realized: '[ ] there must be a whole integral of decodedfloivs, a whole generalized
...
(Deleuze
&
the
that
overturns
apparatuses'
overspills and
preceding
conjunction
Guattari, ATP, p.452). Capitalism operates not only by appropriating desiring('preceding)
but
implements
decoding
apparatuses
of
also
a
capture,
via
production
Centre through which all flows are exchanged.
Braudel's thesis on the developmentof capitalism rests on power Centresthat
dependent
by
flows
that
peripheral
are
on the
producing
zones
control
of exchange
22SeeDeleuze & Guattari, AO, p. 246.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
29
core for development. It is always a question of acquiring power through the
axiornatizationof the world-economy, of sustainingdominanceover peripheral sectors
that generate the surplus-production, of controlling market prices and the
'
labour:
'anti-market'.
The absolutelimit is the cusp that lies
the
commodification,of
between the 'anti-market' apparatusesof capture and the 'market'. The 'market'
bifurcates sequencesof control produced by the 'anti-market's' dominance over
surplus-production: The absolute limit -diagrams the decoding' of* the 'sciciu§ by
peripheral assemblages,as well as the re-axiomatizationthat reconstructsthe Centre's
position in the 'anti-market'.
The tendency,on the one hand, of pushing flows further into the schizophrenic
is
forces
to
take
the
capital
an
axiomatic
root,
other,
perpetually
machinery, while on
the absolute limit's topography. The absolute limit is located between capitalist
production and schizophrenic delirium, presenting the possibility of absolute
deterritorialization that would lead one to acquiesceto 'decoded flows' operating at
the limit, as expressedin Anti-Oedipus. Limits are the obstacles to the process of
liquidating national boundaries and the labour force: 'society is no longer merely
is
by
integrated
it
by
the
mode of
absorbed
entirely
subsumed capitalist command;
Capitalism
(Guattari
CLU,
The
&
Negri,
49).
[or
of
p.
ability
speed]'
and
production
Schizophrenia to account for a philosophy of desire, portrays the 'destined'
into
leaking
flows
the
and
exchange
production
out
of
commodity
assimilation of
"Every world-economy is a sort of jigsaw puzzle, a juxtaposition of zones interconnected,but at
different levels. On the ground, at least three different areasor categoriescan be distinguished: a narrow
core, a fairly developedmiddle zone and a vast periphery. The ccntre or core contains everything that
is most advancedand diversified- The next zone possessesonly some of thesebenefits, although it has
some share in them [ ...] The huge periphery, with its scatteredpopulation, representson the contrary
backwardness,archaism, and exploitation by others' (Braudel, CCC, p.39). We will elucidate the
function of the 'anti-mark-et' in chaptersIII and IV.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
30
'wilderness' of the molecular axis. This is referring more to the position outlined by
the secondvolume, where Deleuze and Guattari state the following: 'The State-form,
as a form of interiority, has a tendencyto reproduceitself, remaining identical to itself
across its variations and easily recognizable within the limits of its pole, always
seeking public recognition (there is no masked state)' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
limit
is
The
360).
p.
absolute
a singularity situated as an order spontaneously
materializing -out -of chaos: 'The critical points,from incoherent-to"dohetehrare'
singular thresholds marking the emergenceof order out of chaos' (Delanda, JVAIM,
p. 15). The singularity is the potential for heterogeneousassemblagesto converge on
the stratified belts of the world-economy,
Aec,&A., 4 the
socius to 'market'
-a
dynamics. By mapping the trajectory of the singularity, the peripheral mass realigns
itself on the cuspthat lies betweencapitalism and schizophrenia,creating an immanent
formula for exchangeby destratifying the layers that bind it to the Centre. And yet,
the Centre's strategy to locate the peripheral mass within the matrix of the worldeconomy, is to saturate the heterogeneoussingularity with axioms. This assuresa
reterritorialization within the confines of the world-economy, as well as providing the
strata accessto zones in the Third World: a construction of a globalization out of
partial objects. For the Centre, it a question of either adding or subtracting axioms to
the socius, a control mechanismthat continuously manipulatesdesiring-production to
the capitalist world-economy. Axiomatics striate smooth space into a unity of
commodification and exchange,functioning to coordinate all processesof production
into one quantifiable apparatus. 'The axiomatic method aims specifically at
establishingisomorphismsbetweenapparentlyheterogeneousconcretetheories,thereby
exhibiting the unity of the abstract system underlying them all' (Blanch6, A, p.36).
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
31
The twilight of capitalism and the emergenceof antisysternic'markets' is the absolute
limit. The absolute limit:
[ I causesthe flows to travel in a free state on a desocialized body
...
without organs. Hence one can say that schizophrenia is the exterior
limit of capitalism itself or the conclusion of its deepesttendency, but
that capitalism only functions on condition that it inhibit this tendency,
or that it push back or displace this limit, by substituting for it its own
immanentrelative limits, which it continually reproduceson a widened
scale (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.246).
Deleuze and,Guattari suggest that the second synthesis,' despotisnf,"all6wed for the
possibility for capitalism, to germinate and propagate within the formation of
economics,whereby limits within the disjunctive synthesisare abradedin order to let
flows of capital circulate in the conjunctive deterritorialized-reterritorialized axiomatic
"
of capitalism. The absolute limit takes on an important role since this limit is the
only real accessone has in deciphering between the two processesthat are taking
place.
[Capitalism] liberates the flows of desire, but under the social
conditions that define its limit and the possibility of its own dissolution,
so that it is constantly opposing with all its exasperatedstrength the
movement that drives it toward this limit. At capitalism's limit the
deterritorialized socius gives way to the body without organs, and the
decodedflows throw themselvesinto desiring-production (ibid, pp.139140).
The political expansionsthat were necessaryto alleviate the economic market, in order
to encompassexternal investment, or the reduction in the number of axiomaticstaking
"
is
[
]
'organization
defined by the
ubiquitous,
capitalism,
ecumenical
root,
an
...
'4'Capitalism is indeed the limit of all societies,insofar as it brings about the decoding of the flows
that the other social formations coded and overcoded' (ibid, pp.245-246).
2'l am thirding of Deleuze and Guattari's contrastthat is developedin relation to social democracy
and totalitarianism (with Chile as an example).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
32
heterogeneous
of
social formations' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
encompassment
26
43
5).
There is no difference between capitalism,the axiomatic that stratifies or
p.
destratifies flows of desiring-production wkthe system of commodified exchange.
Axiomatics absorbheterogeneousassemblagesby producing an underlying unity from
which all levels of desiring-production can be perpetuated within the matrix of
is
discussed
As
there
earlier,
no difference between production and its
exchange.
is
between
is
it
difference
there
'and
-what
what-it
and
with"
capitalism,
effect;
no
27
produces. The immanence that perpetuatesintensity to the limits of the socius
places axioms in a development that on the one hand, is presently breaking up
mandates of political reterritorialization, while on the other, is manufacturing the
velocity to produce a price index for all production of commodity and desire so that:
Money becomes the general equivalent for rendering the outside
peoples, their riches ('products), and their poverty ('needs'),
determin(ing)
buy
[
]
they
thus
the
which
with
goods
commensurable
...
it
between
determines
because
the
calculable
quantities,
relations
prices
offers and demandsfor goods (Lyotard, LE, p.200).
Monetary systems (or axioniatics of denumerablesets) are applications that stratify
trajectories of desiring-production by quantifying intensity into a numerical surplusbody
desire
flows
By
travelling
the
through
on
enumerating
monetary
production.
foreign
Centre's
Third
Worlds
through
the
are created
appropriation of
without organs,
monetary systems, and immanent 'market' exchangesare axiomatized into a global
field
fusing
in
by
housed
Centre.
The
the
the
axiomatize
strata
entire
social
monopoly
dominator:
territories
the
a
common
money. The quantification
within
matrix
of
all
26Hencethe European Economic Community (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFFA), and the dawn of the Westem.HemisphereFree Trade Agreement (NVHFTA).
"However, models of realization do allow us to differentiate between certain layers of the strata
that function in varying degrees.This will be discussedin the following sections.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
33
of the axiomatic mechanism regulatesthe internal economic boundaries,producing an
'anti-market' apparatus, while the schizophrenic tendency liquifies processes of
recaptureddesire. Capitalism [ ...] 'continually sets and then repels its own limits, but
in so doing gives rise to numerous flows in all directions that escapeits axiomatic'
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.472). It is always a question of capturing desiring-
production: the flows that deterritorialize are re-axiomatized via a complementary
reterritorialization.---,It
is -always -a' movement of release-'and
Thb
homogeneousstrata operate through this binary opposition. The line of escapeis the
crevice through which
assemblages, that resist reterritorialization, formulate
heterogeneoussequencesthat allow desiring-productionto bifurcate into multiplicities.
Deterritorialization coupled with a complementary reterritorialization is the model
from which axiomatics can abstract problems and convert them into quantifiable
solutions.
III
'Capital is the universal body without organs, a recording surface in which all the
movementsof desire are inscribed and marked in the code of the abstractaxiomatics
of money' (Lingis, L, p. 101). Capitalism and Schizophrenia systematically follows
Marx's theories of expansion and the limits capitalism sets upon itself, and affirms
Marx's predictions of automation and abstraction.Marx's fundamental thesis lies in
the discovery of the force capitalist production placeson the creation and development
of machinic flows:
The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itsetf. It is that
capital and its self-expansion appearas the starting and closing point,
the motive and the purpose of production; that production is only
production for capital and not vice versa, the means of production are
not mere means for a constant expansionof the living process of the
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
34
society of producers (Marx, cited in McLellan, TKM, p.98).
And:
pursuing this tendency, capital has pushedbeyond national boundaries
inherited
beyond
deification
the
and prejudices,
of nature and
selfsufficient satisfaction of existing needs confined within well-defined
bounds,and the reproduction of the traditional way of life (Marx, cited
in KAHTV, p.364).
Images of the despotic regime and the evolution of capitalism fit into the overall
schema delineated by Matx.'"However, Deleuze and 'Guattari cl,ýiffi...thfit- MArx i§
in
his
for
following
thesis
the
misguided
reason: they argue that Marx should have
written from the end of capitalism not its beginning, because there are various
transformationsoccurring in the coding processof the capitalist machinery which his
theory doesnot account for. Marx would be correct if there were a perpetualtendency
to invest technical codes in the machine; however, if labour, as they argue, is
decoding.
be
In other words, eachtime
there
then
of
can a constantprocess
production
you decode you displace the limit insofar as capital is a differential equation that
cannot be resolved:
The tendency's only limit is internal, and it is continually going beyond
it, but by displacing this limit-that is, by reconstituting it, by
by
it
internal
limit
be
the means
to
surpassed
again
an
rediscovering as
of a displacement; thus the continuity of the capitalist process
is
displaced,
in
itself
in
break
break
that
this
this
always
of a
engenders
unity of the schiz and the flow (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.230).
Beyond this time-scaled criticism, the axiornatization that produces capitalism from
the despot is evident since the formation of surplus value is when money begets
money, or value a surplus value. As Marx argues:
the circulation of money as
itself,
is
in
for
the valourization of value takes place only within this
capital an end
is
limitless'
(Marx,
This
therefore
of
capital
movement
constantly renewedmovement.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
35
CI, p.253). Since capital is the movement to the periphery there will be a pressure,
like a ripple, to move to the circumference (which in turn is a spatial displacement).
While pre-capitalist regimes are entirely situated in the past capitalism places variable
capital into a movement in futural time. When capital is decoding, it is geared for the
movement to the future: money as effective virtuality. The dynamic of capital is to
expand to the limits on a futural scale as opposed to the past. For example, banks
operate on forms of debt (credit or'loans) that'push capital and
futural dimension based upon absolute speculation. The rate of profit in being geared
toward debt (futural) is the schizophrenic turning point of capitalism.
The more the decoded flows enter into a central axiomatic, the more
they tend to escape to the periphery, to present problems that the
axiomatic is incapable of resolving or controlling (even by adding
special axioms for the periphery) (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 468). "
The decoded flows that escape from axiornatization
are pushed to the
periphery, placing Third Worlds into the core of the hegemonic First, displacing
workers from the nation-state, and realigning molar economies of desiring-production
to minoritarian exchanges 29 The more production is allocated to a peripheral zone
.
in the capitalist axiomatic, the more underdevelopment takes root in the Centre of
capitalism, resulting in a de-axiomatized mass of labour that is disjointed from the
'The above excerpt will be discussedagain in chapter III.
"The more the worldwide axiomatic installs high industry
at the periphery, provisionally
reserving for the center so-called postindustrial activities (automation, electronics, information
technologies, the conquest of space, overannament, etc.), the more it installs peripheral zones of
underdevelopmentinside the center, internal Third Worlds, internalSouths. "Masses" of the population
are abandonedto erratic work- (subcontracting,temporary work-, or work- in the underground economy)
[ ] The opposition heAveenthe axioniatic and flieflows it does not succeeditz mastering heconiesall
...
the more accentuated' (ibid, p.469; emphasisadded).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
36
"
the
capitalist market. Minoritarian desiring-production becomesthe locus
core of
for heterogeneous,antisystemic interactions. The minor functions as the desiring
sequencethat the Centre fails to appropriateinto its surplus-productivity. By placing
desiring-production to a peripheral zone, the high-level control structures that
fail
to re-axiomatizeminoritarian
the
capital
of
surplus-production
of
perpetuate circuit
flows of desire. This generatesa pragmaticsby which desiring-production is not fed
into -a,high-level-plane of production, but into low-level, heterogeneousmultipliditi&§
that bifurcate high-level control structures.A subversion of the apparatusof capture,
the decoded peripheral mass (labour) locate antisystemic movements that resist the
homogeneity of the worldwide axiomatic. The positive feedback that amplifies the
worldwide axiomatic, of feeding quantitative problems into the matrix of production,
finds itself unable to cope with low-level assemblagesthat bypass its numerical
apparatusof control. Capitalist production finds itself having to displace its production
boundariesfurther afield from the Centre,creatingwithin its own core a mass(labour)
that realigns itself immanently to a peripheral becoming.
The demographicsof the Centreare re-axiomatizedto accommodatethe influx
installing
is
The
Third
World.
the
the
ghettoized
core
redrawn,
of
cartography
of
"
deterritorializing
Centre
The
from
proliferate.
which
minoritarian
assemblages
zones
'As chapterIV will show, the deterritorialization of the worker in Los Angeles, particularly South
Central Los Angeles, placed a peripheral mass of labour into a gridlock- that has only been partially
relieved through antisysternic activities: '[ ...] the unionized branch-plant economy toward which
decent
jobs
had
for
looked
Chicanos)
Blacks
(and
collapsed.As the Los Angeles
always
working-class
industrial
heartland
East
from
American
in
"unplugged"
1970s
to
the
the
and
rewired
was
economy
Asia, non-Anglo workers have borne the brunt of adaptation and sacrifice' (Davis, CQ, p.304).
"I am referring to the privatized Jim Crow Laws that were instigated to supersedethe Supreme
Court's decision to aflow Affican-Americans the right to buy, seU and inhabit properties within Los
Angeles. See chapter IV for details regarding Jim Crow Laws and Homeowners' Associations in Los
Angeles; see chapter V for a discussion of minoritarian assemblages.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
37
is Perpetually re-dxiomatized by the strata. This reconfiguration is an attempt to
separatethe periphery from the core, to re-axiomatize flows into surplus productivity,
to reformulate space through land speculation, and to accentuate class structures
through monetary divisions (Davis, CQ, p. 101ff). The inevitable and continuous crisis
of capitalism results from the inability of the strata to recapture flows that have
escaped:a construction of Third Worlds that shift the demographicsof control away
from the Centre.Minoritarian assemblageslocalize desiring-produbtibrito &culate and
distribute intensity that is not traceableby the strata, an instance of low-level control
that maps desire to an immanent plane of interaction. The mapping of desire, as
opposedto tracing, pusheslabour to the periphery, displacing the surplus-productivity
the strata institute as the mechanism of capture. In other words, labour that escapes
the re-axiomatization of the strata finds itself on the edge of surplus-productivity, a
zone where the Third World intersectswith schizophrenia(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.469ff). This displacementof labour is the periphery of capitalism, where the 'mass'
of desiring-productionfunctions through a localized variant. As noted earlier, surplusdecodes
the
that
strengthens
circuit
and recodes desiring-production into
production
the capitalist axiomatic of profit. Once labour is not coded within an axiomatic of
capitalism, it finds itself in an internal Third World as an expended layer of
production on the planes of capitalism. 'The situation seemsinextricable becausethe
axiomatic never ceasesto create all of these problems, while at the same time its
axioms, even multiplied, deny it the means of resolving them [ ...]' (Deleuze &
Guattari, A TP, p.468). The stratifying machinery that aligns desiring-production to an
axiomatic of profit, inevitability finds itself having to peripheralize greater flows of
desire to Third Worlds, to assurethe demographicplates of capture are not saturated
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
38
by schizophrenicshifts. The plates of capturereterritorialize to create a homogeneous
whole by implementing a Centre through which all desiring-production is mediated.
The deterritorialization and reterritorialization that operatesthe capitalist axiomatic of
displacing and replacing desiring-production,is the pivotal point that createscrisis in
capitalism.
The necessity of high-level control and the dispersion of labour to peripheral
zones.- placesthe-capitalistaxiomatic in a-precariousposition. Since labour that-cahnot
be fed back into the capitalist axiomatic is decoded into a marginalized mass, the
Centre increasingly has to fortify itself from its own Third World; thus assuring that
an infiltration from a low-level, de-axiomatizedassemblagedoes not circumvent the
Centre's hegemonicposition in the capitalist world-economy. The apparatusof capture
that sustainsthe Centre's homogeneity over the internal Third World, manufactures
transcendentconstructsto preserveits control. This preservesthe hegemonicposition
of the Centre in relation to the marginalizedaxis of the minor. Transcendentconstructs
discrepancies
for
Centre
the
that exist
the
to
and
economic
social
account
enable
between the two zones,to reterritorialize the peripheral in an inferior image to itself,
to stratify the masswithin prison systems,and to implement strategiesthat keep the
"
in
bay:
'It
effect operateswith two "universals," the
underdevelopedperiphery at
Whole as the final ground of being or all-encompassinghorizon, and the Subject as
the principle that converts being into being-for-us' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.379).
A transcendentmeasurement,the strata systemically fortify peripheral massesthat
cannot be axiornatized via the capitalist world-economy. The fear of assemblages
"Chapters IV and V examine the particulars surrounding this formula of the capitalist axiomatic
coupled with transcendentconstructs designedto sustain power centres.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
39
bifurcating into heterogeneous,antisystemic movements of resistance,introduces a
surveillance of desireby the strata. The possibility of desiring-productiontrickling out
of the layers of stratification and rupturing the legislative and homogeneousplanes of
capitalism, compels the strata to subjugate the periphery back into double-pincer
control. A fortress of desire, the modulations that cast heterogeneity within an
apparatusof capture, bring to the surfacethe intricate web the strata weave to sustain
"
desire.
The minoritarian, in -contestingits transc&ndeiit's"dgrdgdtion'ftdiii
power over
the Centre, finds itself stratified in a similar modulation that the strata have already
employedto keep the peripheral massat bay. The danger lies in being capturedby the
same mechanism the strata have implemented, even though, on the surface, it may
seem as if the minoritarian assemblage is heterogeneously bifurcating into
multiplicities. As we have already. discussed, Third Worlds are erected on the
periphery of capital due to the inability of the strata to code (or re-axiomatize) the
flows that are generated.Transcendentapparatusesof control are another layer on the
stratification on the body without organs, assuringthat a division exists between the
two worlds: a molecular infection that permeatesthe potentiality of minoritarian
assemblagesby having desire fold back onto itself
The stratification that leads to the inevitable crisis of capitalism is the nonterritorial aspectof capitalism itself. As statedearlier, capitalism only functions when
it can commodify abstract labour by converting it into surplus-productivity; it takes
as its object 'materialized labour' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.454). 'That is why
"Modulations refer to Deleuze's article, 'Postscript on the Societies of Control', where he
differentiates them from niolds: 'Enclosures are molds, distinct castings,but controls are a modulation,
like a self-deforming castthat will continuously changefrom one movement to the other, or like a sieve
whose mesh will transmute from point to point' (p.4). I am using modulations in the loose senseof
control--microfascisms-for Delcuze goes on to discussthe role modulations play in the homogeneity
of corporate life.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
40
capitalism marks a mutation in worldwide or ecumenical organizations, which now
take on a consistencyof their own: the worldwide axiomatic, insteadof resulting from
heterogeneoussocial formations and their relations, for the most part distributes these
formations, determinestheir relations, while organizing an international division of
labor' (ibid). It is only when the State's models of realization," an axiomatic in
itself, regulates territory (Centre versus the Third World) through transcendent
constructs, do -we find a predefined solution built" into -the*
to *Ted6dd
"
(intensive
nondenumerablesets
multiplicities). Since capital only functions and
expands by abstracting labour through axiornatics, the crisis is intensified when the
capitalist world-economy is unable to accommodate surplus-productivity into its
quantitative, solution basedapparatus.With the intervention of the State's models of
realization, we find the limitations inherent in the abstract,capitalist world-economy.
The nation-state, a model of realization in itself, is a stratum that is designed to
intervene and fill the gaps and fissures left by the abstract, axiomatic system. 'What
is called a nation-state,in the most diverse forms, is precisely the State as a model of
realization' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.456). The models of realization are derived
from the inability to create a social subjection from which assemblagescan be coded
back into homogeneity. When the strata implement a transcendentconstruct, in which
desire
itself
dealing
through,
codes
we
are
minoritarian
with a system that stratifies
'The term niodels ofrealization is found in BIanch6's authoritative treatise on the axiom system,
Axioniatics: 'Since the meaningsof the terms and consequentlyof all the propositions is only partially
limited by the postulateswe can, if there are severalsystemsof values which equally well satisfy the
relations statedby the postulates,give them different concreteinterpretations,or, in other words, choose
between different realizations. These concrete realizations of an axiomatic system are called niodels'
(Blanchd, A, pp.35-36).
"The usageof an axiomatic and code is not a paradox in this context. When a constructis mediated
through transcendentformulas of desire, a code is needed to provide an immutable, non-negotiable
leverage from which the strata can operate.
Chapter I: Consuming the Future
41
desire through suppression.The strata institute an economics of desire that level the
two planes of the body without organs (molar and molecular) into a megareterritorialization. On the one hand, we have the capitalist world-economy
fragmenting and peripheralizing zonesof surplus-productionto internal Third Worlds;
while on the other, the nation-state appropriatesdespotic codings of desire to block
peripheral Worlds from leaking into the Centre.
It is - within the framework - of the nation-State.- 'or *'of "'dAtiolial.
subjectivities, that processesof subjectification and the corresponding
subjectionsare manifested.The axiomatic itself, of which the Statesare
models of realization, restores or reinvents [ ...] an entire system of
"
(Deleuze
&
Guattari,
ATP,
457-458).
machinic enslavement
pp.
'Deleuze and Guattari continue their description by emphasizingthat models of realization do not
representan imperial machine,nor are they constitutedunder the transcendenceof a formal Unity (ibid).
However, as we will discuss in the latter part of this study, the reterritorializing mechanism that
compensatesfor the destratilying flows is found in the relationship that exists between race and
territory. This is by far the most important aspectof transcendentconstructsthis study will investigate.
The apparatusof differentiating colour, or the mythic voyage to rediscovering race, tribe, or sect,
requires a transcendent Unity to 'authenticate' desire, as it reterritorializes upon itself This
predominantly takes place by implementing race, or the differentiation that exists betweenraces,as the
transcendentelement that separatesthe two zones in the capitalist world-economy. (Transcendence
fulfills the task set up by the strata to code the gaps that cannot be completed otherwise). This
separationof colour that exists betweenthe Centreand the Third World assuresthat the peripheral mass
is coded once again via a high-level structure, thereby sustaining the gulf between the two worlds.
Before posing a question regarding the suppression race inflicts in the stratification of
minoritarian desire, Deleuze and Guattari realize the molar/molecular problems associatedwith the
theme of race: 'We immediately see the dangers,the profound ambiguities accompanying in this
enterprise,as if each effort and each creation faceda possible infamy. For what can be done to prevent
the theme of race from turning into a racism, a dominant and all encompassingfascism, or into a sect
and a folk-lore, microfascisms?' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.379). When minoritarian assemblages
cataloguedesirethrough race, we are facedwith the peripheral massreterritorializing through the same
operation the stratautilize to separatethe Centre from the Third World. Granted,the movementbetween
the molar and molecular aspect of race is complicated,but it will be taken up again in the latter part
of this study. 'Bastard and mixed-blood are the true namesof race' (ibid). '[.. ] Race is not something
to be rediscovered[.. ] race only exists in the constitution of a tribe that peoples and traversesa smooth
space' (ibid, pp.379-380).
The conceptof immanenceis crucial to the abovediscussionregarding the theme of race. Even
though we will examine the concept of immanence throughout this study, let us for the moment,
juxtapose it to the transcendentconstruct of race. Deleuze and Guattari's concept of immanence is a
trajectory of desirethat flows on a molecular plane,releasingassemblagesfrom the strata,reconfiguring
multiplicities that bifurcate the levels of stratification, and effectuating a minor literature. 'Assemblages
are passional,they are compositions of desire. Desire has nothing to do with a natural or spontaneous
determination; there is no desire but assembling,assembled,desire' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.399).
Immanenceis a topography of becoming minor: a movement that punctuatesthe cracks the strata have
not coded; a movement that diagrams the fissuresresulting from the operations of deterritorialization
and reterritorialization; and a movement that localizesheterogeneityto a war machine: it provides '[ ...]
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
42
The inevitable crisis that results from capitalism's inability to recode and
reappropriate surplus flows of desiring-production back into the socius, is already
etching its presencein our contemporary world. The consumption of the future has
already erected numerous Third Worlds into the core of the First, resulting in
institutionalized molar operations designed to suppress and subjugate minoritarian
assemblagesto a homogeneousconfiguration. The future is the only assetthe strata
have in their attempt to redesign the presentgrid of consumption. Yet, the future has
already exhausted itself by the crisis that engulfs our present capitalist grid, as
peripheral zones are engulfed in low-intensity warfare, as minoritarian assemblages
fascistically reterritorialize on molar identities, as tribalistic sects fold back on desire
through their allegiance to transcendent,mythical pasts, and as the Centre infiltrates
desire by abstracting axiomatics to a transcendentlevel."
IV
becoming-molecular...' (ibid, p.473),
so many weaponsfor the becoming of everybody/everything
giving rise to desiring-production that escapethe axiomatic of capitalism. This formula for immanent
movement eliminates or dismantles constructs of race that are utilized by the strata to control and
homogenize flows of desiring-production. It is a question of creating other forms of interaction, of
'redefining' minor elementsin the socius, and of producing a micropolitics of desire: 'If minorities do
not constitute viable States culturally, politically, economically, it is becausethe State-form is not
appropriateto them, nor the axiomatic of capital, nor the corresponding culture. We have often seen
capitalism maintain and organizeinviable States,accordingto its needs,and for the precisepurpose of
crushing minorities. The minorities issue is insteadthat of smashingcapitalism, of redefining socialism,
of constituting a war machine capableof countering the world war machine by other means' (Deleuze
& Guattari, ATP, p.472).
"The future intersecting with the present allows for many speculations-espccially post-BladeRunner scenariosin Los Angcles-and Mike Davis is no exception: 'Strikes broke out in assembly
plants, security walls were set afire and toppled, the sale of guns, and their price, soaredin the elderly
areas.The younger Latinos painted the elderly asparasites,who had enjoyed all the benefits of society
when those benefits were free and now blithely continued to tax the workers to maintain their style of
living. The elderly painted the younger Latinos as foreignerswho were soaking up benefits that should
go to the elderly, as non-Americanswho were threateningto dilute American culture, as crime-ridden,
diseaseridden, and lawless. Each side preparedfor a last assaulton the other' (quoted in Davis, 'UC',
p. 15). The gulf betweenthe First World and its internal Third World continuesto widen, asmovements
within the cartography of the Centre are restricted to the surplus-productive organizations, while the
decoded flows that resist axiomatization are peripherahzed.
Chapter I: Consuming the Future
43
The entire society becomesproductive; the rhythm of production is the
rhythm of life (Negri, Aff, p.285).
Marx's account of capital being basedupon an historical, dialectical design,
incorporatesnotions of inherited, accumulative,ancestralwealth which dominatesthe
present mode of capitalist production; while Deleuze and Guattari propose an
alternative spatial immanenceto accountfor a worldwide axiomatic that installs Third
Worlds into-the-Centre zone -of production,-to -account'for'the'inability, of the'stratd
to re-axiomatize flows of desiring-production into surplus productivity, and to
implement strategiesthrough which heterogeneousassemblagesconvergeand repel the
limits set by capitalism." Another perspective that needs to be considered, in
addition to the stratification (axiornatics) of desiring-production and Third Worlds, is
the function of market prices in the world-economy. The role of market prices is the
integration of all known information that is capable of predicting future behaviour in
the capitalist exchange.Prices reflect an anticipated future." As we witness in the
global stock market, the buying and selling of commodities fluctuate according to
forecasting,
in
ill-defined
interaction
that
sometimesnebulous
often results
methodsof
'Capitalism: '[ ] does and does not have an exterior limit: it has an exterior limit that is
...
schizophrenia, that is, the absolute decoding of flows, but it functions only by pushing back and
exorcising this limit. And it also has, yet doesnot have, interior limits: it has interior limits under the
specific conditions of capitalist production and circulation, that is, in capital itself, but it ftinctions only
by reproducing and widening these limits on an always vaster scale. The strength*of capitalism indeed
residesin the fact that its axiomatic is never saturated,that it is always capableof adding a new axiom
to the previous ones. Capitalism defines a field of immanence and never ceasesto fully occupy this
field' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.250).
'9'[.. ] (N)eo-classicaltheoreticalmodels arenot only basedon the assumptionthat somemysterious
mechanismcan ensuresimultaneousmaximization of individuals' objective functions; they also assume
that the model explaining the working of the system is simple enough to enable each of us to foresee
the future, provided we know the initial conditions and the value of all exogeneousvariables' (Simon,
EBRCR, p.14).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
44
"
amongstmarket controllers. A reasonfor misguided navigation in the stock market,
for example crashes,is in feeding negative information into the overall apparatusof
guidance (or periodic auractors). This limits the growth of the market, thereby
"
levelling
its
development.
Since the market is an
continuously
an enclosure upon
open system, the possibility for negative feedback into the stock, exchange is even
more intensified by manipulating or inputting the wrong data. Moreover, uncertainty
complicates-the futural aspect of commodity exchanges-further, while ''at the *9amd
time, innovation in the technical sphere, for instance, places a conundrum on neoclassicalpredictions of the economy.As Herbert Simon explains: 'We can predict that
there will be bigger and faster supercomputersin five years hencethan there are now,
and that they'll be cheaper,without being able to design that future supercomputer.
You have to separatethe ability to predict that things of a certain kind are going to
happen from the ability to predict in detail what they are' (Simon, EBRCR, p.15).
What is important to discuss within the present context of this chapter is
Delanda's concept of meshwork structuresthat compromisesthe contemporarydebate
surrounding the dogmatists, who assert molar processes,and the current science
encompassingmolecular operations(Delanda,'HMH). As Manuel Delandaexplicates
the current debate,he suggeststhat both perspectivesneed to be included in the non-
'As John Holland points out in 'The Global Economy as an Adaptive Process', anticipation can
have adverseeffects upon the global market: 'In the global economy,the anticipation of an oil shortage
or of a significant default of foreign loans can have profound effects upon the course of the economy,
whether or not the anticipated events come to pass' ('GEAP', p. 119).
"Researchers at the Santa Fe Institute speculate that as: J... ] non-linear systems grow more
complex, they can become more unstable. When a system-say, an ecology,-whose componentsare
tightly interlinked becomes unstable, small changes can cause massive consequences[ ] such
...
unpredictablechangeis the hallmark-of non-linear systems[ ...] non-linear systems,like the weather [as
well as the stock market], can react with sharp oscillations to small disturbances' (Thomas, 'Cashing
in on Chaos').
Chapter I: Consuming the Future
linear simulations of the economy,namely:
45
boundedrationality, that is, a realistic
limited degreeof problem-solving skills, but also delays,bottlenecksand other sources
of friction which are also key to their self-organization' (Delanda, 'HMH).
By
inputting energy continuously, self-organizing systems export entropy. Entropy is
always veering towards an equilibrium state,whereasthe biosphere,for instance,ships
out disorder and thereby establishesstability. Production in capital is always excessive
and-overspills -into -crevices to propagate-its -expansion:"
A complex system, such as the social system, is characterized by
equations expressingthe interdependenceof the various actors of the
system and that these intrinsic nonlinearities, in dialogue with
fluctuations, result in the self-organization of the system, so that its
structures, articulations, and hierarchies are the result, not of the
operationsof some 'global optimiser,' some'collective utility fianction,'
but of successive instabilities near bifurcation points (Prigogine &
Allen, 'TCC', p.37).
This position is antithetical to theories supportedby neo-classicaleconomics,whereby
a rational component of supply and demandreachesan equilibrium state through the
intervention of a knowledgeableagency.As Delandadiscussesthe role complexity has
in our modem, intensive-economiO' arena, he suggeststhat history has shown that
rational agents, or centralization of supply and demand, did not necessarily preside
development:
over economic
Pre-capitalist markets, like those which existed in medieval Europe, in
China or India, or indeed in many small towns even today, are
"W. Brian Arthur illustrates positive feedback,or third order non-linearities, in his article, 'SelfReinforcing Mechanismsin Economics', concerning: '[ I factors that would drive some sector of the
...
economy invay from equilibrium' (Waldrop, C, p. 138).
43Namely, time is taken to be the mutating variable in the open system, thereby having no limit to
growth. This is contrastedwith an extensivemodel (time axis), where a regular, temporal, metric curve
is positioned to plot extensively in increments.This model is peggedat regular intervals, and by plotting
exponentially an increaseof variables againstregular incrementsis shown. An intensivemodel doesnot
impose an external limit to the end of capitalism (or schizophrenia),rather pure speedis the governing
singularity.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
46
structuresthat emerge out of a decentralizeddecision-making process
which brings heterogeneousneedsand offerings together. In modem
nonlinear models, markets have very little to do with the 'invisible
hand', involving complex processesof self-organization and not just
demand and supply (Delanda, 'I-IMH').
Furthermore, the recent probing of self-organizing systems in the molecular sciences
has assistedthe investigation of complexity scienceto permeateits discourseinto the
economic sphere. The most compelling criticisms have been levelled against neoclassical,(or -orthodox) economics,- in particular, their obedience ta-strict"top-down
analysis of how the economy functions and their well-versed predictions of the future
'
the
of
market. The underlying force behind orthodox economicsstems from arguing
that the whole can be dismantled into its separateparts and logical conclusions can
be derived, therefore enabling an anticipation of what the market will produce in the
future. By manipulating parts or subsetsof the system, the surface of the components
of the economy will reach an equilibrium point since as the theory states, each
rational agent within the system will have the necessaryaccessto all information
governing the market, thereby a perfect supply meeting demand will arise.
To trace the argument in more detail, it is important to examine the
implications of the reductionist model. In essence, the model argues that by
dismantling a complex whole (of a system), it is still possible to preserve the
phenomenon, even though the process of the system has been dissected into its
multifaceted regions. In other words, by analyzing the additive parts of the system
separately,traditional economistsargue that the whole system's behaviour can then
be predicted. 'The behaviour of such systemsat the aggregate,macro-level cannot be
4"Any reliable model embodying all relevant knowledge of the working of the economy can only
be used to visualize possible scenarios through simulation processes [.. ]' (Simon, EBRCR, p. 14;
emphasisadded).
Chapter I: Consuming the Future
47
deducedfrom simple extrapolation of the behaviour of a single individual. The whole
is different from the sum of the parts' (Ormerod, DOE, p.91). As Deleuze and
Guattari, along with contemporary studies in self-organizing systems,indicate, molar
models, such as orthodox economics, postulate wholes as if they were logical
substitutive wholes. This appearsas an index of the operation of power, a transcendent
condition for production or manipulation of the economic forces that determine or
anticipate- the future. The- pre-conditioning of neo-classical" ec6hoihits-"places' d
transcendentmysticism to the operation of the market." The mirroring of prices to
a calculatedmeasureof what the future is going to be is an attempt to create a perfect
quantitative factor of all modes of production and labour. The body without organs
presentsa glimpse into the functioning of the economic sphere,for the inscription of
production is produced as a whole on the plane of the body without organs. Yet, the
totalization of the body without organsdoes not correspondto the whole by counting
and allocating the subsetsthat constitute the different frequenciesand wavelengths of
the surface. Each component works alongside other flows on the field of the body
"
does
Furthermore, the
the
to
totality.
without organs, and yet
not unify
process a
concept of the whole misleads the calculation of pricing by subsuming the whole to
its integral parts, and producing a unidirectional perspectiveof the production process.
'5'The implication of such a situation is that there is not just one but many possible solutions to the
equationswhich describe a competitive economy. In other words, there is not just one equilibrium in
the economy, but many equilibria [ ] In other words, large changesaround any particular solution
...
in the overall nature of the new solution at which the
might lead to important and unforeseenchanges
0
system endsup, and which the free-marketsystemitself is quite unable to determine' (Ormerod, DOE,
pp.86 & 87).
"The body without organs is produced as a whole, but in its own particular place within the
processof production, alongsidethe parts that it neither unifies nor totalizes. And when it operateson
them, when it turns back upon them, it brings about transverse communications, transfinite
(Deleuze & Guattari,
summarizations,polyvocal and transcursiveinscriptions on its own surface
AO, p.43).
Axiornatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
48
In other words, when new parts are addedto the system,the perspectiveof the whole
has to be overhauled in order to conform to the current status of the subset. Selforganizing systems allow us to perceive the polemic surrounding heterogeneous
fragmentsas not having to 'round off their rough edges', but rather a processin which
the: '[ ] whole not only coexists with all the parts [ ] it is contiguous to them, it
...
...
exists as a product that is produced apart from them and yet at the same time is
related to-thom' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, pp.43-44).
In conclusion, this chapter has discussedthe current developments in late
capitalism. Of particular interest for this chapter has been the function of axiomatics
in relation to codes.We have argued that axioms are abstract in nature, and that they
produce solutions quantitatively as opposedto codes. Since codes are based on an
internal system of predefined solutions they do not enter into isomorphic relations.
Moreover, we have utilized the function of axiomatics to discuss contemporary
problems associatedwith late capitalism. In particular, the displacement of internal
Third Worlds into the Centre of the capitalist world-economy. By peripheralizing
sectorsof the capitalist world-economy into Third World zones, the Centre attempts
to maintain power over economic regions. This respondsto the crisis resulting from
capitalism's inability to re-axiomatize flows of desiring-production back into the
overall matrix of the capitalist world-economy. We have also introduced minoritarian
assemblagesthat challenge the present homogeneousstructure. The apparatus of
11
implements
to
that'Ch
-.
capture
models of realization reterritorialize assemblages
the present molar configuration. The last section introduces the function of market
prices in the world-economY.We examinedrecentdevelopmentsin complexity science
to argue that molar systemstrace wholes as if they were logical substitutive wholes.
Chapter 1: Consuming the Future
49
By investigating self-organizing systems,we can diagram molecular processesthat
decode such molar apparatusesof control. The body without organs is the intensive
spatium acrosswhich antisystemic movementsof resistancecan be mapped.
Axiornatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
52
I
As there is no surface,the inside and the outside, the container and the
contained,no longer have a precise limit; they plunge into a universal
depth or turn in the circle of a present which gets to be more
contractedas it is filled. Hence the schizophrenicmanner of living the
contradiction: either in the deep fissure which traversesthe body, or in
the fragmentedparts which encaseone another and spin about. Bodysieve, fragmentedbody, and dissociatedbody [ ...] (Deleuze,LS, p.87).
We are passengersof the empty circle who only wish to arrive before
they leave. Speedis a perfect will. to impotence (Virilio, SP, p.55).
The strata depend upon the capture of intensities, producing resonance,a zone of
homogeneity, an equilibrium machine. The apparatusof capture codes intensities by
inducing the stratification process onto another plateau, a building block through
segmentation.As Deleuze and Guattari suggest, it is on the most deterritorialized
elementthat reterritorialization takes place. It is becauseof intensities having escaped
that a particular line, or system of behaviour, becomes an inducer for the
'
brings
body
This
the
to
the
rearrangementof
strata.
us
without organs. In operating
with a zero presupposition,a multiplicity or difference, the BwO occupies the space
of transcendencewithout implementing domains of a higher unity to guaranteethe
'
process. Thus the entergenteffect of production is immanent to the system:
And God, who designatesnone other than the energy of recording, can
be the greatestenemy in the paranoiacinscription, but also the greatest
friend in the miraculating inscription. In any case, the question of a
being superior to man and to nature does not arise here at all.
'Hereafter, referred to as BwO.
'Zero is punctual in that it has no extension due to its incommensurability with all other numbers.
This is not to suggest that zero is not spatial, since it is distributed in smooth space,but it does not
provide a metric measurement,as in the quantitative configuration of One. By taking zero out of
stratified, numbered-number systems, it is assigned to the assemblages of singularitics. The
philosophical crisis arises when the construction of the State is premised on the numeric One, as the
constituting apparatusfrom which all intensity derives. The history of philosophy has subjecteditself
to a similar division, whereby zero (body without organs) is numerated as a replicable piece of code
through the essenceof One. This will be discussedin the following chapters.
Chapter H: ljody without Organs
53
Everything is on the body without organs, both what is inscribed and
the energy that inscribes it. On the unengendered body, the
nondecomposable distances are necessarily surveyed, while the
disjoined terms are all affirmed (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.78).
'
The BwO is the binary current betweenthe molecular and molar processes.
As in the above reported excerpt, the paranoiac machine is a rage against the
'
'
is
The
BwO
the
organism.
organism asa permutation: a multiplicity. The system (the
BwO) is absolutely plastic, the transcendental element of zero, with featureless
componentsaddedto the multiplicity. The disjunctive synthesisis in the wake of the
paranoiacmachine, a rewiring of the body, which then manifests itself in a grid of an
"
either-or apparatus. Even though zero intensity is indivisible, any reconfiguration to
desire is via the BwO: nothing in principle can be integrated off. ' The BwO is the
massive conveyor between the paranoiac machine (repulsive, or repellors) and the
Refer to Table I.
'Recalling Artaud's schizophrenic immersion, the body is locked into a presupposed linear
transcendence,abrogatingimmanenceto the functioning of the system: the organsare the enemy of the
body. Or abstractionrevolts against the body: 'This is the real meaning of the paranoiac machine: the
desiring-machinesattempt to break-into the body without organs, and the body without organs repels
them, since it experiencesthem as an over-all persecutionapparatus' (ibid, p.9).
'The concept of multiplicity: '[ ] was createdprecisely in order to escapethe abstract opposition
..
between the multiple and one, to escapedialectics, to succeedin conceiving the multiple in the pure
state, to ceasetreating it as a numerical fragment of a lost Unity or Totality or as the organic element
of a Unity or Totality yet to come, and instead distinguish between different types of multiplicity'
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.32).
'Me birth of the State,with mechanismsof separationand hierarchies.For example,zero intensity
operating on a continuum, via an abstract componentof the State machine.
'Intensity that is drawn and squeezedbetween the belts of the strata is the body without organs:
zero. The body without organs is not relative to a system of representation:a static device uniformly
overcoding intensities through signification, a numbered-numberquantification. Since the zero point
never actualizes through transcendent representation, the body without organs is always real: a
trafficking of intensities that leak from the coded mechanismsof the super-stratum,a commerce that
escapesinto the machinic phylum of desire. This not only functions as a weapon for molecular
becoming-a deterritorialization from codedtranscendenccýbut,at the sametime, is appropriatedby the
strata (the molar State) to recaptureflows of desireback into stratification. The system of stratification
is the fundamental machinic component of (re)capture. The strata belts produce a taxonomy of
homogeneoussystemsof thought that supersedelocalized variations of heterogeneity.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
54
nziraculating machine (attractor). The miraculating machine glues partial objects
together by means of the BwO. Even though the BwO maps every particle of
existence together, thus being the sole source of communication, it has no feature
intrinsic to itself, it is only functional, a process.
Moreover, reterritorialization by a miraculating machine is parallel to a
recoding processthrough the BwO. The dependenciesof the functional mechanism
(for- example, attractors) pass- directly - between the --singularitieg-c6ricefffed:' the
distinction of inside/outside becomes obsolete. The primary territorialization' is
replacedby a recoding. The dependencyis affected by way of the BwO, which in turn
has the 'destiny' of the system mapped out. 'More specifically, the attractors define
the more or less stable and permanent features of this reality (its long-term
tendencies),and bifurcations constitute its source of creativity and variability. Or to
put it more philosophically, attractorsareveritable "figures of destiny," for they define
the future of many systems' (Delanda, 'NOL', pp. 138-139). The dependenciesthat are
stratified at the point attractor are expressionsthat converge out of veneer substances
of content. Any non-linear process involves a coupling of deterritorialization and
"
reterritorialization. A paradoxical relationship arises between deterritorialization and
insofar
feedback
into
itself needsto be constantly remapped.
the
as
reterritorialization,
This creates, as stated in A Thousand Plateaus, the absolute defet-fiforialization
"
back
to
convergencerunning away, and eventually crashing
some primordial space.
The first synthesis.
'As in the operation of capitalism.
"Also see Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy? for an extended discussion on absolute
deterritorialization: Teterritorialization of such a plane doesnot preclude reterritorialization but posits
it as the creation of a future new earth' (p.88).
Chapter Id: Body without Organs
55
The subject emergesas a consolidated machinic assemblage,and has as its
foundation attractive and repulsive attributes that guide the partial objects into the
orientation of subjectivity. Particles are tracked insofar as the disjunctive network
"
bifurcations:
from
intensity.
Only positive deviations arise
produces
a magnitude
zero
from the sum total outcome between the attractive and repulsive machinic
"
processes. By the time intensity multiplies it germinates into a plexus, a loop on
a particular point-on-the disjunctive zero intensity. This componeAt'-6fth&'r&dI*fill9
virtual space, an intensive amplitude that cannot be divided without changing its
nature, because any attempt at cutting up intensities occurs by mutating the
13
processes. The subject is not part of an internal existence; rather the subject is the
effect of an intensity: a cartography of attractive and repulsive forces. (Repulsion is
the place holder of the connective synthesis.Theseparticular lines of repulsive forces
produce an intricate network and integrate to an intensity).
Plasticity is the BwO's absolute accumulation to events, and the desiring"
heterogeneous
the
machine constitutes
element of production. The elementscan be
"'In mathematicalterminology, the eventsat the onsetof self-organizationare called "bifurcations".
Bifurcations are mutations that occur at critical points in the "balance of power" between physical
forces-temperature,pressure,speedand so on-when new configurationsbecomesenergeticallypossible,
and matter spontaneouslyadopts them' (Delanda, 'NOL', p. 135).
"The
term, machinic enunciation, is the fusion of multiplicities arising from heterogeneous
formations surfacing the BwO. 'Inasmuch as these heterogeneities are matters ofexpression, we say that
their synthesis itself, their consistency or capture, forms a properly machinic "statement" or
"enunciation. " The varying relations into which a color, sound, gesture, movement, or position enters
in the same species, and in different species, form so many machinic enunciations' (ATP, pp. 330-331).
"The reason for this is becausethere is no homogeneity or common characterthat is incremental
in the stagesof intensity.
141heBwO is the vehicle for abstractmatter. Anti-Oedipus is influenced by Marx's notion of plastic
labour power, as an abstractproductive capacity, and Freud's theory of abstract fibido. Both are units
of desire that are not material. This is not to suggestthat abstraction is an idealization. For instance,
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
56
entirely different, since the functioning of the BwO is to integrate absolute diversity.
For instance,partial objects in the BwO eradicatenotion of the same: a programmed
ontology. Deleuze and Guattari's polemic againstthe history of philosophy stemsfrom
their aversiontowards the hierarchy, and implementation,of molar modelsto navigate
15
nature's attributes. What they execute is a radicalization of bifurcations within
"
molecular elements, thereby eliminating dependencyon transcendentprinciples that
constitute a, universalization-between-forces; and that which is mbdeled by *it. -The
BwO becomesinfinitely abstractthrough this de-hierarchical process,since it equals
nothing but zero. For instance, any specific character would be a molar concretion
without any justification on the molecular plane. Furthermore, all elements lose
intrinsic relatedness,since particulars have nothing in common with eachother except
the BwO.
Since the BwO is infinitely abstract,it can mistakenly lead one to sPecify it
as having an a priori foundation. On the contrary, the BwO is purely desiring'The
the
cipher
multiplicity,
of
plasticity.
notion of multiplicity savesus
production:
from thinking in terms of "One and Multiple"' (Deleuze,B, p.43). There is no attempt
to produce universal concepts of what radical difference would be, since to
conceptualizesuch a concept of difference would lead back into a molar model, the
very conflict waged by Deleuze and Guattari. Reminiscent of Spinoza, the BwO
encompassessubstance and alft-ibutes that correlate to the repulsive and attractive
capitalism produces abstract correlates through money, an axiomatization. These processesare not
ideological positions, but purely quantitative indices of abstract matter that are a potentiality: an
abstraction of intensity.
151nparticular, Aristotelian separation of genus and species.
16Schizoanalysis.
Chapter H: Body without Organs
57
forces engineeredwithin the process:
The body without organs is the matter that always fills spaceto given
degreesof intensity, and the partial objects are these degrees,these
intensive parts that produce the real in space starting from matter as
intensity=O.The body without organsis the immanent substance,in the
most Spinozist sense of the word; and the partial objects are like its
ultimate attributes, which belong to it precisely insofar as they are
really distinct and cannot on this account exclude or oppose one
another (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, pp.326-327).
To read Spinoza as a superior empiricist is parallel to the apparatus of absolute
difference and plasticity, in the network of the BwO.
After all, is not Spinoza's Ethics the great book of the BwO? The
attributes are types or genusesof BwO's, substances,powers, zero
intensities as matrices of production. The modes are everything that
comes to pass: waves and vibrations, migrations, thresholds and
gradients, intensities produced in a given type of substancestarting
from a given matrix (Deleuze & Guattari, 4TP, p. 153).
Zero intensity is immanent to the production of destratification, insofar as there is no
extrinsic reliance, or possibility, of analyzing intensity outside of its deviation.
Spinoza's notoriety in Capitalism and Schizophreniais in atheological terms, insofar
as not allowing space for a transcendentdivinity of any kind. As Deleuze states:
'Spinoza's ontology is dominated by the notions of a cause of itself, in itself and
through itsetf(Deleuze, EP, p. 162). For Spinoza, substanceis immanent to itselfBy substanceI mean that which is in itself and is conceived through
itself, that is, that the conception of which does not require the
conception of anotherthing from which it has to be found (Spinoza,E,
p.407).
And:
For an attribute is that which intellect perceives of substance as
it
its
so
essence,and
must be conceived through itself
constituting
(ibid, p.41 1).
Time does not extend the BwO, since the latter is the processfor all possible
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
58
temporization. The reason as to why the BwO arises is not associated with chronology,
or a logical order; rather, it is the plasticity of the BwO and multiplicities germinating
within. The BwO does not have an occult distinction of difference. BwO is a megamolecule that relates solely to difference by the connective synthesis. 'A plateau is a
piece of immanence. Every BwO is made up of plateaus. Every BwO is itself a
in
plateau communication with other plateauson the plane of consistency.The BwO
is, a component of passage" (Deleuze, & Guattari, ATP, p. 159),.* Its-friachinic7-dotiplingg
differential
the
are
elementsof the components.And these couplings switch over, as
discussedearlier, to generatethe disjunctive synthesis on the molar axis. The three
synthesesare sequentially derived so that the undifferentiable objects, as intensity, are
articulated.When the BwO redistributesenergyvia the disjunctive synthesis,all partial
objects are connectedup to the rest of the system. By means of the BwO there is a
recording, registration' of all difference to disjunctive explication. And, for any
machinic system,we have a machinic unconsciouswhich is a recording, or inscribing,
of everything on it. However, the questionarises,how do the BwO and the disjunctive
synthesisdeeply integrate?And, what is the pre-figuring domain of schizo-delirium?
To answer these questions is to investigate the desiring-machine's function to the
BwO. In a desiring-machine,there is always a virtual possibility of a line of flight that
"
is
itself
into
disjunctive
There
the
code.
machinic
a
can propel
communication
system, whereby a recording is imprinted onto the network. This would be a schizoanalytical movement to the machinic unconscious.'One phase is for the fabrication
of the BwO, the other to make something circulate on it or pass acrossit; the same
proceduresare neverthelessused in both phases,but they must be done over, done
"Of the machinic unconscious.
Chapter ILI:Body without Organs
59
twice' (Deleuze and Guattari, ATP, p. 152).
The egg is the milieu of pure intensity, spatium not extension, Zero
intensity as principle of production [ ] the egg always designatesthis
...
intensive reality, which is not undifferentiated, but is where things and
organs are distinguished solely by gradients, migrations, zones of
proximity (ibid, p. 164).
There is a distribution of intensive principles of organs, with their
positive indefinite articles, within a collectivity or multiplicity, inside
an assemblage,and according to machinic connectionsoperating on a
BwO (ibid, p.165).
This virtual delirium is displayed in phase space," which allows for all possible
madnessor psychosisto generateas a collective machinic production. The inability
to track to zero degree'9 in phase space, allows Deleuze and Guattari to speculate on
the possibility of non-linear lines of flights that abrogatenotions of identity, gender,
or psychoanalytical complexes that sustain the subject in a solidified mode of
"
representation. This collectivity is the processby which separationbecomesopaque,
"'The dynamic state of a point particle is specified by position (a vector with three components)
and by momentum (also a vector with three components).We may representthis state by two points,
each in a three-dimensionalspace, or by a single point in the six-dimensional space formed by the
coordinates and momenta. This is the phase space' (Prigogine & Stenger, OC, p.247). Or, the BwO.
Phasespaceis the dimension of behaviourial optionsby which a systemcan modify itself For example,
the production of territory is smeared across real phase space. And, territorialization is an inhibited
range of movement in phase space; it is glued to a semi-predictablemachine. If a system has varied
behavioursof territoriality, it is locked into a particular dimension of potentiality. It is territorial insofar
as it is to do with processesin space,a relation of proximity that takes place through linkages. The
system is the nexus of behaviour. The miraculating machine in phase space produces attraction, a
capturing. By casting itself over intensities like a net, miraculating machines perpetuatestratification
by inhibiting movement.The flipside of this processis the paranoiacmachine's production of repulsion,
where intensity is continuously deterritorialized. This destratification is a movement to the edge, a line
of ffight.
"'[ I We must be cautious: arbitrarily small doesnot mean zero, and it is not certain a priori that
...
this limiting process will lead to the possibility of consistently predicting a single well-defined
trajectory' (ibid, p.248).
'Massurni paraphrasesDeleuze on the problematic surrounding the thought of representational
thinking in State philosophy: J ] it reposeson a double identity: of the thinking subject, and of the
...
conceptsit createsand to which it lends its own presumedattributes of samenessand constancy [ ...]
Representationalthought is analogical; its concern is to establish a correspondencebetween these
synnnetrically structureddomains' (Massumi, in DeIeuze& Guattari, ATP, p.xi). In The Logic ofSense,
Deleuzeperverts the traditional stronghold philosophershave enjoyed since the Socratic identification
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
60
and the instigation of a mass movement to destratified areasof the BwO is ignited.
Echoing the bellicose writings of Artaud relays the importance of this collectivity in
his Theatre of Cruelly:
Once the plague is establishedin a city, normal social order collapses.
There is no more refuse collection, no more army police or
municipality. Pyres are lit to bum the dead whenever men are
available. Each family wants its own. Then wood, spaceand fire grow
scarce,families fight around the pyres, soon to be followed by general
flight since there are too many corpses.The streetsare already choked
withcrumbling pyramids,of the -dead,the vermin'gilawing 'attIf6"edj6s.
The stench arises in the air like tongues of flame (Artaud, TD, p. 14).
Or as Brian Massumi places the disintegration of the socius in the following:
An unspecified enemy threatensto rise up at any time at any point in
social or geographical space [ ...] What society looks toward is no
longer a return to the promised land but a general disaster that is
already upon us, woven into the fabric of day-to-day life. The content
of the disaster is unimportant. Its particulars are annulled by its
here
The
times:
of
plurality
possible agents and
and to come
enemy is virtual (Massumi, 'EYW', p. 11).
Since thought is illegitimately coded, by tracing, or capturing, intensity onto
body
intersecting
importance
intensity
the
the
planes
on
without
organs,
of
stratified
lies precisely in this incommensurability: there is no external referencepoint to judge
validity or purpose. With no universal frame by which to compare intensities of
thought, Deleuze and Guattari addressthe possibilities of transfon-ningthe behaviour
of molar operations that stratify discourse, politics, and economics into models of
transcendence.Thesepunctual transmutationscontinuously reconfigure the dynamics,
thus breaking through threshold strata levels. To move out of a stratum is to find a
of reason and virtue: The philosopher is no longer the being of the eaves,nor Plato's soul or bird, but
rather the animal which is on the level with the surfacc-a tick- or a louse' (p. 133). Finally, Delcuze
states the purpose of philosophical investigations: '[ ...]a philosophical theory is an elaborately
developed question, and nothing else; by itself and in itself, it is not the resolution to a problem, but
the elaboration, to the very end, of the necessaryimplications of a formulated question. It shows us
what things are, or what things should be [ ...]' (Deleuze, FS, p. 106).
Chapter IT Body without Organs
61
line of decoding and destratification; a line that short-circuits double-pincer
articulation. This involves a multiplicity that excites elements in the direction of
deterritorialization: a line of flight assemblingexcitation within the system. This can
take place from a molar assemblageby influencing the macro to the micro; or by
exciting the molecular which moves from the micro to the molar. There is always a
tendency for stratification to be molar, a normalization that emits a frequency, or a
i-edundancy,
--formed out of heterogeneousparticles.
Philosophy has traditionally based its discourse by combining models of
thought to a whole super-stratum,a hierarchy from which intensities interact and are
coded.The global consistencyof politics-powei-is transcendentof control, a Unifying
and Totalizing thread that binds discourse together. However, by fragmenting, or
drawing lines of flight, mutation on a regional, or local, strata emerges to:
struggle against power, a struggle aimed at revealing and undermining power where
it is most invisible and insidious' (Foucault, 'IP', p.208). Since intensity is always tied
flight
levels
draw
line
threshold
the
that
strata,
an
can
up with
within
assemblage
a
of
ruptures solidified strata to de-stratify, thereby generating a new configuration. This
is always possible with multiplicities. 21It is never a question of transcendence since
21Multiplicities
arerhizomatic assemblagesexpressingintensities.Intensity is an unpredictableopen
territory; a zone where the interacting parts do not dependon a central processingunit or an external
code,to validate its function. This blurs the function and formation dichotomy that arisesout of binary
oppositions. Rhizomes engagemachinically, thereby according a wide range of fertile zones that are
extraordinarily effective in dealing with networks of interaction. Rhizomes are always operative and'
circumvent homogeneoustraits of expression(specialty, or applicability). In other words, any point in
a rhizome (or patch) can be linked to any other without mediating through transcendence.Rhizomes
can be anywhereon the lattice beyond its zone of designatedapplicability; '[ ...] any point of a rhizome
can be connectedto anything other, and must be' (Deleuze& Guattari, ATP, p. 7). This is the trait, or
feature,that indicates intensity, since the rhizomatic is the quotient traversing the body without organs.
The strength behind rhizomes is precisely in the assaultit wages against Unity, the form of the One.
Even though, at times, it may seemto be a very low, subduedquotient of intensity, it is, nevertheless,
a rhizome: 'Every rhizome contains lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified,
territorialized, organized, signified, attributed, etc., as well as lines of deterritorialization down which
it constantly flees. 'Mere is a rupture in the rhizome whenever segmentarylines explode into a line of
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
62
it is putting at stake the elements that have been combined. This is opposed to
Plurality which remains the same throughout the phase change. Multiplicities arise
be
is
is
this
to
confused with an essenceor nature
when something produced;
not
in
is
it
is
fusion,
innovation,
the
whose sole existence
or
a
processing
change,rather
that fusion. There is nothing outside or aboveit; there is no type or category by which
to define it; it is the i-eal: 'There is no universal capitalism, there is no capitalism in
itself, -capitalism'is at the crossroadsof all kinds of formations,-it-isý'fi&&4pitalimi by
face,
both-all
for
face
invents
its
It
them
the
and
and
reshapes
eastern
western
nature.
intensity;
it
be
by
its
is
&
Guattari,
A
(Deleuze
TP,
20).
It
own
can
exhausted
p.
worst'
designated,but not treated as a case. However much the concept seems to work,
is
Since
has
be
there
to
no
made
and
remade7-pragmatics.
continuously
multiplicity
is
binary
intensity
by
to,
to
oppositions,
multiplicity
can
refer
such
as
concept which
22
dangerous
zone.
experimental, a potentially
The real, abstract virtuality, is then the BwO. As previously delineated, the
direct association of the BwO is to the desiring-machine. The BwO is reached by
flight, but the line of flight is part of the rhizome' (ibid, p.9).
22Amultiplicity only changesquantitatively in the type of composition that inscribes on the body
without organs; a function of decoding. There are remarkable similarities between Deleuze and
Guattari's critique of transcendencer-atheatre of philosophy-and Lyotard's discussionof the fictional,
has
'We
tale
should not continue to confuse the closure of
provided:
representation
philosophical
from
dropping
discovery,
that
the
that
of
scales
our eyes, by those
sham
sarcastic
representation,
thinkers who come and tell us: what is outside is really inside, there is no outside, the exteriority of the
theatre is just as much its interiority - don't mix up this sad piece of news [ ...] And every intensity,
scorching or remote, is always this and not-this, not at all through the effect of castration,of repression,
but
because
intensity
Zero,
due
tragedy
to
the
pertains to an asynthetic,
great
of
of ambivalence,
by
it
is,
but
in
less
the
that
so
rapid
surface
engendered
at each
any
event
complex,
movernent,more or
of its points, at the sametime this and not-this. Of no point, of no region, however small, can one say
what either is, becausethis region or this point has not only already disappearedwhen one claims to
speak of it, but, in the singular or aternporalinstanceof intensepassage,either the point or the region
has been invested in from both sides at once' (LE, pp.4 & 15).
Chapter H: Body without Organs
63
deterritorializing the strata.' The dismantling of the socius is capitalism's voyage to
the BwO. The BwO comes at the end of history, even though it has always operated
throughout history. Moreover, zero intensity cannot be specified in a chronological
series (even though absolute deterritorialization culminates in zero intensity, it is
neverthelessindependentof any temporal, serial processes).Nothing constrains the
BwO, thus there is no privileged outcome or narrative obtained, only positive
difference:
For one only has to replace the actual terms in the movement that
producesthem to bring them back to the virtuality actualized in them,
in order to see that differentiation is never a negation but a creation,
and that difference is never negative but essentially positive and
creative (Deleuze, B, p. 103).
The BwO is always a function of desifing-production,and the socius is the integration
into a general, desiring-production mechanism.
The body without organs is permeatedby unformed, unstable matters,
by flows in all directions, by free intensities or nomadic singularities,
by mad or transitory particles [ ] (But) there simultaneously occurs
...
inevitable
is
important,
that
the
very
phenomenon
earth
a
upon
beneficial in many respects and unfortunate in many others:
forrn
Strata
Belts.
They
Layers,
to
consist
of
giving
are
stratification.
matters,of imprisoning intensities or locking singularities into systems
of resonanceand redundancy,of producing upon the body of the earth
into
large
them
and
small
and
molar aggregates
molecules
organizing
[ ] The strata are judgments of God; stratification in general is the
...
body
judgement
God
(but
the
the
earth, or
without
of
entire system of
flees
becomes
judgement,
that
eludes
and
organs, constantly
destratified, decoded, deterritorialized) (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.40).
This then subordinateshistory to a topography, whereby the subject is located in an
historical chronicle due to the socius stratifying, or layering, upon the BwO. This
2'For stratification leads to the socius. This will be elaboratedin the forthcoming chapter.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
64
doubling, namely, the machinic phylum" and the inscription of history, is on the one
hand, an historical dynamic of capitalism that is an irreversible destratification;" while
on the other, this zone of destratification is outside of any mode of territorialization.
Essentially, this is between a synchronic versus a diachronic movement that leads to
the different planes of the BwO. This progression temporally comes under
stratification. Accordingly, communication betweenthe different strata, for instance,
in
features,
intertwine
the machinic
machine-code,genetic code, micro/macro physical
phylum. An a-temporal event would entail the navigation to infinitely abstractmatter
(the end of the machinic phylum). The termination point on the plane of destratifying
production illuminates a virtual simulation of having 'knowledge' of everything. In
is
displacement
from
the
capitalism, or the apparatus
movement
a
words,
schizo
other
that axiomatizes every formation or flow within the phylum. The nomadic flight
fracturing
by
to
the
thresholds:
through
escapes
phylum
The schizophrenic deliberately seeksout the very limit of capitalism:
he is its inherent tendency brought to fulfillment, its surplus product,
its proletariat, and its exterminating angel (Deleuze & Guattari, 40,
p.35).
However, the question then posed, is what role does intensity have in the
discourse of complex systems?The answer to this arises from the notion of global
inhibit
functioning
in
the
that
of a complex
units
a certain senseobstruct, repressor
frameworks
intensity
friction
To
the
with
global
and
associated
elucidate
system.
by
in
Deleuze
Guattari
taken
the
up
and
schizoanalysis.
combat
should enlighten
Spontaneousemergence(deterritorialized stratum) is the other side of the spectrum of
2"We always get back to this definition: the machinic phylum is materiality, natural or artificial,
and both simultaneously; it is matter in movement, in flux, in variation, matter as conveyor of
singularitics and traits of expression' (ibid, p.409).
'Hence, the tendency for capitalism to move to schizophrenia.
Chapter H: Body without Organs
65
an organizedsystem,for the latter entails a rigidifying or thwarting to its own process.
Furthennore, one always seeks to find a transcendentvalidator, a heavily encoded
inducer, that will producedefinite taxonomic outcomes.Being fabricated from the start
to meet the teleological demands of an ordered system, the inverse is true for
spontaneousemergence,for there is no need for organizers, but just the capacity for
pre-individual multiplicities and absolute difference to emerge.The continuum is not
contingent. upon,-a temporal--sequence.
--Spontaneous intensity "is"'nbt 'spatiAlly of
temporally determined.This is not to suggestthat the machinic production apparatus
has cooled down on the molecular continuum, but any pattern of organization is
in
always play with forces:
For the BwO already exists in the strata as well as on the destratified
plane of consistency, but in a totally different manner. Take the
is
indeed a BwO that opposes the
there
stratum:
organism as a
organization of the organs we call the organism, but there is also a
BwO of the organismthat belongsto that stratum (Deleuze & Guattari,
A TP, pp.162-163).
The underlying systemof desiring-productionlies betweenMarx's and Freud's
work: a micro/pragmatic experimentation.Marx and Freud are to be understoodwithin
the same medium, namely, abstract desiring-production. Marx's analysis of capital
equatesto that of production, while for Freud, desire is sublimated to representation.
This functioning is not a contingent theatrical mistake, but is programmed by the
nature of capital, insofar as it is within the capitalist machine to split the convergence
in two. This entails that the immanenceof desiring-production needsto be repressed
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
66
in a molar formation stemming from the two dichotomies." The heart of the social
mechanism lies within the configuration of production and consumption, whereby
work is instituted in order to consume, and consumption creates a movement to
produce. 'The code of production itself always aims at the "infinite receptacle of
consumption"' (Virilio, SP, p. 127). The responseby Deleuze and Guattari is to initiate
a plane of schizoanalysis, micro-politics, or latter, in A Thousand Plateaus, a
pragmatics-whereby-a return'to the'immanence of desire 'and 'production -can--bd
reinstated independently of the crevice in capitalist production. Pragmatics,
encompassingthe manoeuvre to access schizophrenia, is taken up in the second
volume, 'How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?. The project is tied
up with taking down global control systems that in turn decode macro/political
apparatusesof capture.
This is an affair not of ideology but of economy and the organization
"For instance, by simultaneously stratifying matter and abstraction, we are at the illegitimate
production of the body without organs.This fusion addsa body to the organism,thereby trapping desire
within the matrix of Oedipus. Oedipus is an axiomatized application, whereby the volcanic processof
pure capitalism can find stability in a mechanismfor rescuing codes.The triangular family engenders
a psychopathology(Oedipus) which representsa private familial neurosis,through a collective coding
system. Oedipus is the major source of repressionemployed by capitalism to impede flows of desire
from escaping: 'Oedipus is this displaced or internalized limit where desire lets itself be caught. The
Oedipal triangle is the personal and private territoriality that correspondsto all of capitalism's efforts
at social reterritorialization (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.266) [ ...] the familial determinations become
the application of the social axiomatic' (ibid, p.264). The oedipalization of the unconscious via
capitalism thrusts the family to the limits of the social field. Once the circulation of codesand flux are
not describedwithin kinship, the family becomesavailable to produce an axiomatic within capitalism.
The family becomes a reserve army to be deployed for another task, namely, Oedipus. Since the
capitalist operation is not particularly concernedabout the family as an empirical function of society,
fandlialism emergesas being the interlock betweenthe group and the social field, which in turn gets
connectedto other sets of categories.The Mummy-Daddy-Me floats as a mobile, abstract,spiritualized
set of categories. The application of familialism describesthe overlaying of '[ ...] social categories
(centered around the family)' (Massumi, UG, p.77). 'It is only in the capitalist formation that the
Oedipal limit finds itself not only occupied, but inhabited and lived, in the sensein which the social
images produced by the decoded flows actually fall back in restricted familial images invented by
desire' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.267). And: 'Oedipus is a vector: 4,3,2,1,0... Four is the famous
fourth symbolic term, 3 is the triangulation, 2 is the dual images, I is narcissism, and 0 is the death
instinct. Oedipus is the entropy of the desirin&machine, its tendency to external abolition' (Guattari,
Chaosophy,p. 128-29).
Chapter Id: Body without Organs
67
of power (pouvoir) (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.175).
[ ] (IF)he material problem confronting schizoanalysis is knowing
...
whether we have it within our means to make the selection, to
distinguish the BwO from its doubles:empty vitreous bodies,cancerous
bodies, totalitarian and fascist (ibid, p. 165).
On the micro level we have already arrived upon the BwO. There is no
privileged scale determining the outcome in the course of singularities bifurcating.
'The BwO is what remains when you take everything away' (ibid, p.151). The
question of the plateau is to think of the procedure as a fisional multiplicity. These
multiplicities are machines within machines. Macro structure machines narrow or
impede lines of flight from emerging due to molar structures.
A BwO is made in such a way that it can be occupied, populated only
by intensities. Only intensities pass and circulate. Still, the BwO is not
a scene, a place, or even a support upon which something comes to
pass. It has nothing to do with phantasy, there is nothing to interpret.
The BwO causes intensities to pass; it produces and distributes them
in a spatium that is itself intensive, lacking extension (ibid, p. 153).
A perpetual and violent combat between the plane of consistency,
dismantling
frees
BwO,
the
and
all of the strata,
cutting
across
which
it
block
it
that
the
or make recoil (ibid,
surfaces of stratification
and
p.159).
In summary,whenevermachinesconvergeand interact, they inscribe upon the
27
BwO. Nothing populatesthe BwO exceptintensities:the cooling down processis the
coding of desiring-production into apparatusesof capture. An ontology of elements,
distinctions and strata-signsproduce homogeneoustiers by which desiring-production
is captured.Stratification is the judgement of God, insofar as the freezing of the strata
"Ibe field of immanenceor plane of consistencymust be constructed.This can take place in very
different social formations through very different assemblages[...] with different types of bodieswithout
organs' (ibid, p. 157).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
68
"
divisions,
by
transcendent
creates
as evidenced
mechanismsof repression.
According to Deleuze and Guattari, processesof stratification occur [ ]
...
in every sphereof reality. In other words, any sphereof reality [ ] can
...
be defined in terms of flows of matter of energy and the reservoirs
driving those flows. At any given point in time, portions of theseflows
will be involved in any number of actively self-organizing processes;
other portions of the flows, however,will have sedimentedor hardened
into more or less stable structures (Delanda, 'NOL', p. 143).
Il
inStrata
homogenization
that
the
are
engagedof intensities'placetht'nbmadic
,-, ---,
traj.ectory in a division, a splitting of intensity in two. Complex systems locate the
agitation the strataproduce,an effect that can be chartedthrough binary oppositions-a
metaphysicsof dichotomies and hierarchies.We can now statethat the basic machinic
'
is
intensities
the
to
through
element of
strata
neutralize
a complementarity.
An
intensity that is locked in a state of capture is in a reciprocal, neutralizing alignment.
This is a relationship of mutual cancellation, whereby intensities that are aligned
within a stratifying production sequenceare reterritorialized: the twin effect that
cancels each other out produces an element of control. The epitome of the
'Having discussedthe function of the BwO, it is important to note the dangers Deleuze and
Guattari explicate concerning destratification. 'There are, in fact, several ways of botching the BwO:
either one fails to produce it, or one producesit more or less,but nothing is produced on it, intensities
do not pass or are blocked. This is becausethe BwO is always swinging between the surfaces that
stratify it and the plane that sets it free. If you free it with too violent an action, if you blow apart the
strata without taking precautions,then instead of drawing the plane you will be killed, plunged into a
black hole, or even draggedtoward catastrophe'(Delcuze& Guattari,ATP, p. 161). Precautionis utilized
to ward off suicidal deterritorializations when experimenting with lines of flight. Camouflage-a
renderingimperceptible-allows for movementwithin the stratified levels ofrepresentation.'It is through
a meticulous relation with the strata that one succeedsin freeing fines of flight, causing conjugated
flows to pass and escapeand bringing forth continuous intensities for a BwO' (ibid). How does one
construct a relation to the strata?Movement. However, drawing on the plane requires sober caution:
a pragmatic interaction with the body without organs and a mimicking of the strata. Caution is
deliberately stressedin A ThousandPlateaus: 'You don't reach the BwO, and its plane of consistency,
by wildly destratifying' (ibid). Tapping into the machinic phylum's head allows for a tracking of
heterogeneousparticles of intensity that solidify on the strata.
2913y
this, I am suggestingthat the complementarityis a homogenizing,quantitative andrecognizable
strata part. It is constituted by an interchangeable, regularized unit that is interrelated by a
commensurability to the super-stratum.
Chapter IJ: Body without Organs
69
malfunctioning strata is its upheaval-a processwhereby intensities line up to escape
through the thresholds of control mechanisms(an instance of deterritorialization). It
is essentialto diagram the departing intensities that flow out of this equilibrium state
that the strata institute. Either intensities are (re)capturedby a new pincer of stratum
(machinery),thereby crashinginto anotherzoneof homogeneousspace,or they simply
disappearonto the body without organs. It is the capturing of the escaping element
that. becomes the basis for the- new strata; an issue that -particularly - concerns the
secondvolume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia.The filtering mechanismutilized by
the strata to sort out differenceý--betweenthreshold and gradient and type and
degreeP--undergoesa phasechange in order to accommodatethe implementation of
the new layers of strata. The ruptured tendency of this operation is compressedand
concentratedinto an extreme form of the new strata.Every stacking of strata is a relic
of a recaptured,escapethreshold. In other words, whenever there are two strata,there
is a testamentto a fossilized threshold portraying escapedintensities. We then find
that the conjunction of singular names (proper names) and intensive numbers are
adapted to the strata. Singular names and intensive numbers that pass through
thresholds of (re)territorialization echo within the strata: a sequencethat excites the
molarization of stratification by generalizing singular names and, at the same time,
eliminating multiplicities. This flattens intensive numbers onto planes of reducible
units of measure,thereby assuringthe twin effect of generality and homogeneity.The
limited capacity of the despot's overcoding lies in absorbing one set of codes into
'The intensity of stratification is equivalent to the degreeof difference between the threshold and
gradient phaseof the strata7-thisseparationis neverperfected.If it were perfected,then the break-within
the strata would enable a concept of types and degrees,that are in principle distinguishable, to cease
to be machinically operative. Ultimately, intensities need to be traceable in order to solidify flux into
coded machines.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
70
another, while decoding melts the apparatus of overcoding to a zone of
31
axiomatization.
Stratification is defined by a series of plates that split intensities. The plates
lock themselvesinto thresholds,whereby a particular point on the intensive gradient
is captured by the machinery. The locking sequence prevents the restoration or
immanent - integration of --intensity.- The strata -produce- the- 'world" through'this
capturing of liquid flows into tangible wholes-a rigidifying of ambivalent points of
32 The outcome is a difference in type: the machinery
intensity to representation.
processingintensities into homogenizedand interchangeablelayers of transcendence,
the vertical stacking up of flows to the apex of the despot-a judgement of God. The
immanenttrajectory that thwarts this captureis a diagonal movement. This movement
is directed at the machinic circuit that places intensities onto homogeneousbelts, an
obstruction from integration.With stratification comesterritorialization: a geographical
territory that is derived from a zone of implementation. (Writing, for instance,
territorializes on speech,an inscription processimplemented by the despotto sustain
the transcendentgulo. It is always a relationship of singularities commercing within
"The stratifying processdoesnot have an existing internal code relation, rather it has an apparatus
that appearsin a single stroke-the despot.Dcleuze and Guattari's emphasison the notion of code is an
from
divergence
flatten
transcendentmodels of
to
onto
plane,
a
machinic
a
out
processes
attempt
representation.Uie flattening out of material flows is essential due to the importance they attach to
practical instances,a pragmatic model of interaction that advancescritique.
'Intensities allow us to map the myriad layers of stratification. Everything at issue is compatible
with the strata.The reasonfor this is that the strataprovide a guide to the excavationthat is undertaken
to harmonize intensities to an equilibrium. The application-the overlaying of one set of elementsto
another-of folding desire back onto the strata Mines molar production. Strata have to be tagged as
systems based upon split intensities; for instance, the apparatus that is constructed through
detcrritorialization (coupled with a complementary reterritorialization) is a process of dividing and
allocating zones,whereby intensities solidify into wholes. Everything that is used has to be stolen from
the strata.
Chapter ll: Body without Organs
71
the field of territorialization. (A territory is always flat in accordanceto the strata).
The application of codes produces a stable correlation between elements of two
different plates, a production of correspondencebetweenthe strata. However, there is
"
limit
be
from
to
the
what can
always a
achieved
utilization of codes. The limited
effect that is generatedfrom the use of codespresupposesthe axiornatization of the
world-economy: capitalism. Axiomatics are unlike codes; they actually are the
stratifying - machine,-a pure -stratification. Granted, axiomatics ar&'still "attdched 16
specific correspondences,such as the abstract machine that includes the- basic
processesof economic organization, statusand space-timelocale; but axiomatics only
quantify problems and their solutions produceabstractchange,while codesare always
specific about particular outcomes. The actual concrete arrangementis peripheral to
the abstract model of axiornatics. In other words, there is an axiomatic system
wheneverwe are dealing with an open-endedseriesof quantitatively defined problems.
The singularities that operatewithin the axiornatizedstratification build constellations
of numeric entities. Everything dependsupon spatial distributions, such as enclosures,
"Codes provide an essenceto space,wherebymultiplicities that convergeon (re)territorialized space
have processesof coded material within their assemblages:the machine is frozen from its desiring
flows. Dcleuze and Guattari arguethat codeshave no exogeneoussource,rather codesthat are chopped
in particular formations are always peripheral to desire itself 'nie end resuIt is a physical aggregate
,
constitutedby a hylomorphic apparatusof discourse.The hylomorphic model is a clue to the apparatus
of capture the strata institute. Before venturing into hylomorphic tracings, it is essential to restate
Deleuze and Guattari's insistence that it is never a question of movementspopulating masseswith
molecular desire, but a conjunction of couplings that immanently model the variables the strata
condition for themselves.The artificial simultaneity that induces multiplicities to a homogeneousrelic
of fossilized strata, is a hylomorphic model/construct that is coded by a topographical system of
reference.Hylomorphism is the cultural trait of attributing form to an exterior element.Formlessmatter
is elevated to an intrinsic eternal Ideal that is down-loaded from ajudgement of God The result is a
stratifying process, whereby plateaus within the body without organs are solidified through the
appropriation by the strata. The form is a harmonizing structure that corresponds to the strata
reterritorializing escapedintensities.Needlessto say, Deleuzeand Guattari position it not as a: 'question
of surrendering[.. ] then [as] following where it leadsby connecting operationsto a materiality, instead
of imposing a form upon a matter: what one addressesis less a matter submitted to the laws than a
materiality possessinga nonios.One addresseslessa form capableof imposing propertiesupon a matter
than material traits of expressionconstituting affects' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.408). This is the
significance of emergentproperties that level a critique of the strata.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
72
breaks, seepages,and circuits of desire, that will present the opportunity for the
diagonal movement out of the abstractenvelopmentof axiornatics. Axiomatics do not
depend on systemsof predefined solutions to determine their outcome in the socius,
as evidencedby the despot. Capitalism builds this axiom model of interaction into its
system of behaviour-a potential migration to a new equilibrium. The compensatory
alignment is the fragmentation of intensitiestwisting into mutual zones of articulation
that, the 'anti-market' can utilize. Antisysternic movements are an' autonomous'and
intensive singularity (numbering-number)that are not fundamentally determinedfrom
34
the homogenizing generality of the strata. By disengagingfrom the stratified, servile
formation, these movementsclimb onto a cusp, a diagonal movement away from the
strata, whereby the segmentation that binds the intensity is deterritorialized. (The
diagonal composition is undistinguishable from mapping-it is always a question of
finding a line that is not overcoded,or segmented).The spontaneousevent cannot be
tracked in relation to a metric of speedor velocity; rather, thresholds and singularities
34Numbering-numberputs into practice a nomad numeracy, an antisystemic, vortical motion that
consistsof an open-endedprocess.A division into itself, the movement that is effectuatedby the nomad
is made not by:
adding a higher dimension, but rather in the simplest ways, by dint of sobriety,
with the number of dimensionsone already has available' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.6). These lines
that constitute the destratification processconvergewith the lamella belts of the strata. To open up the
space of movement is to let the nomad fold back onto itself (Nomadism is characterizedby its mode
of occupying smooth space, a zone of interaction that is not coordinated by a grid of stratification).
What provides the nomad machine with a numerical componentis its fine articulation that complicates
molar space.(The numerical is anti-coded by the nature of its difference). The fundamental character
of numeracy lies in its composition to detcrritorialize, an escape from numbered-number systems.
Numbering-number is a sequencethrough which the nomos can be designatedas a free distribution on
the plane(s) of the body without organs.Sincenomosis never divided or segmented,numbering-number
is never assigneda (transcendent)value becauseit functions only in smooth space.(As nomos can only
divide into itself, to assign a value would have to take place on an immanent plane, whereby the
intensity would fold back on itself to bifurcate a new threshold of becoming: '[ I becoming is the
...
concept itself. It is bom in Ilistory, and falls back into it, but is not of it In itself it has neither
beginning nor end but only a milieu. It is thus more geographicalthan historical. Such are revolutions
and [ ...] societies of resistance,becauseto createis to resist: pure becomings, pure events on a plane
of immanence' (Deleuze& Guattari, IVIP, p. 110)). To compensate,the strataimpose numbered-number
chains through a systemic manipulation of homogeneousspace. This strategy is assigned a value
becauseit is positioned through a coordinatedspacethat can only register an external, geometric matrix
of numberhood.
Chapter H: Body without Organs
73
"
discharged
to
the
provide a map
numeracy.
III
The State seemsto rise up in a single stroke, in an imperial form, and
does not depend on progressive factors (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.359).
We are compelled to say that there has always been a State, quite
perfect, quite complete (ibid, p.360).
We have now discussedthe formal operation the strata institute to trap nomad
flows onto plates of homogeneity. This allocates featureless components within a
molar domain, a binding apparatusthrough double articulation. The importance of
discussingthis processlies in the function of stratification: the inhibition of intensive
flows that eliminates friction through the capitalist axiomatic. The systemof planetary,
capitalist overcoding places a grid onto smooth spacethat is further complicated by
rigorous cross-sectionsof political and libidinal investment: a displacementof Third
Worlds into the Centre matrix. The designatingbands that distribute intensity on the
Earth geometrically section the orbital diameter of the planet, whereby every part is
connected to every other by the Centre. A complete navigational apparatus is
constructedfrom which the Centre controls desiring-production,a strategyof capturing
intensity to a molar economy of desire. The machinic foice of the capitalist worldeconomy generatesnot only a deterritorializing space of commodity production, but
also a complementary reterritorialization, that allows for the ever expansive
developmentto continue. 'We are not only seeinga processof internationalization of
"This should be taken with caution. The actual impact of singularities, the physical event accorded
to the strata,is a diagonal line that is actualized(reterritoriahzed) as it attemptsto move away from the
belts that hold it together. In other words, singularities that are on the point of convergenceare cut-up
in their range of intensities producing a saturation of flows that will come together in the abstract
machine. (nie two processesthat are essentialto the operation of the strata are the abstractmachine
of mutation and overcoding. 'niese two processeswill be discussedin the forthcoming chapters).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
74
the economy, but a processof globalization-that is, the interpenetrationof economic
activities and national economiesat the global level' (Castells, 'IENF, p. 19). Before
'6
discuss
function
'market'
the
the
the
we
of
within
capitalist world-economy, it is
important to summarize the role of the (despotic) State within the context of the
preceding sections. This will allow us to bridge the discussion of the preceding
sectionsto the latter parts of the study. Of particular interest for the latter part of the
study is the concept of models of realization in relation to the State.-However; for the
moment, let us investigate the formation of the State and the process of coding that
occurs to bind desiring-production to the strata. In addition to A ThousandPlateaus,
we examine the first part of Kenneth Dean and Brian Massumi's First and Last
Emperors in our discussion of the State apparatusthat captures intensity by coding
heterogeneouselementsto a hierarchy of suppression.
The opening part of Eb-stand Last Emperors provides us with a glimpse into
the despotic terrain that regulates and commandsthe State, with all its methods of
"
in
punishment and paranoia group-formations. This in turn recodesthe mass into a
unified movement toward transcendence:
The "individual" in a despotic state is a working part in a megamachine-or rather, a mega-organism.The people of the empire are
organs of the emperor's body. The organicity of the system is supraindividual. In other words, body parts have been abstracted from
individual bodies and recast as social formations (Dean & Massumi,
FLE, p.80).
36The'market' diagrams movements that convergewith smooth space, a process that assembles
minoritarian beconiings onto the matrix of the capitalist world-economy. 'Smooth space is a field
without conduits or channels.A field, a heterogeneousmooth space,is weddedto a very particular type
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.371).
of multiplicity: nonmetric, acentered,rhizomatic multiplicity
Deviating from an historical (despotic) State, and following a non-linear tracking, allows for 'market'
processesto emerge and bifurcate on the BwO.
37Or, collectiveparanoid: '[.. ] bringing into operationeverything that militates againstany liberation
of schizo desire in the social situation' (Guattari, MR, p.86).
Chapter H: Body without Organs
75
The strata fixate movement within the confines of territory. To achievethis sedentary
plane, transcendencevia the emperor is instrumental in slowing down the processes
of intensity that flow upon the BwO. Inscribing legislation not only on the earth, but
"
body,
the
upon
enhancesthe credibility of the emperor as the dominion of truth.
Repulsive and attractive forces position intensity to revolve around an abstract
is
State,
the
thereby
that
uni-directional to the mode
coalescing
a
stratum
machine of
of -transcendence.Hence, the - State' orchestratesparticular'rndvýffidits 'throtigh -thd
unfolding of predeten-ninedchannels,implementing transcendenceas the guarantor of
the abstract State. 'it is an abstract process: a drive to "unity". To the extent that
empirical states concretize that drive, they are one and the same. Every state is the
state. The state does not evolve, nor even have an origin. It arrives, like fate, in a
single stroke and fully formed, from a plane that cannot be located. Over and over
again' (Dean & Massurni, FLE, p. 153). Unity, as composition of the whole, the one,
is the 'probe head' of the abstract machine; the State propels further into the many
strata of the BwO, capturing flows into coded matter. Recomposing, or continually
drive
into
'Any
the
to unity
the
terrain
submission:
and
populace
recoding, solidifies
is necessarily a drive to dominion' (ibid, p. 194). By recodification, the levelling of
strata integratesinto exteriority and interiority, leaving behind only tracesof lines, or
in
that
turn assimilateand mould private and public space.
of
configurations,
residues
The etching onto the earth, transforming matter into codified material, is tapping into
the vein of the phylum, aiding the liaison betweenthe molecular and the molar forces
'As in punislunent.
Axiornatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
76
"
intensity.
of
As converter and capturer,the Statedoesnot just relativize movement,
it reimparts absolutemovement.It does not just go from the smooth to
the striated, it reconstitutes smooth space; it reimparts smooth in the
wake of the striated (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.387).
The State strikes in a single stroke, emerging and giving birth to itself
spontaneously.The attractorsgoverning the forces at play bifurcate in an instant and
actualize the State formation with all its lines of movement. The awakening of
territorial identity beckonsa domesticationof the populace into servitude, that in turn
propels the identity of the despot, or exclusivedisjunctions, into motion. Yet there is
always a leakage, a circulatory phase change that ceaselesslypushes flows to the
outside, the exterior. The State responds by initiating a gamering of all facets of
commerce to be plugged into the hierarchical plane of unity, thereby capturing all
flows in order to recode and sanction them with legitimacy, within the confines of its
apparatusof capture.
One of the fundamental tasks of the State is to striate the space over
which it reigns, or to utilize smooth spaces as a means of
communication in the service of striated space.It is a vital concern of
every State not only to vanquish nomadism but to control migrations
and, more generally, to establish a zone of rights over an entire
"exterior," over all of the flows traversing the ecumenon(ibid, p.395).
The State launchesa teleological undertaking, capturing all movementswithin
the phylum to be integrated in a linear formation. Feeding back into itself, but not
find
flows
heterogeneously
the emperorasthe apotheosis
to
assemble,
we
surrendering
levels
The
of stratification determine the approximate locality of
of all movement.
(T)he sedentaryassemblagesand state apparatuseseffect a capture of the phylum, put the
]'
traits of expressioninto a form or a code,make the holes resonatetogether,plug
rý the lines of flight [
...
(Dcleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.415).
Chapter IL Body without Organs
77
heterogeneouselements that have been integrated into surplus-productivity.40Being
orientated from the start, the State, with all its faciality traits, deems itself to be the
impetus of division. Yet, as always, a crevice, a hole in the surface emerges:letting
unbounded excess pour into the fissure of the phylum, whereupon a smoothing
dimension seepsalong the cracks, evolving into a nomadic attractor that will have no
territorial affiliation, only lines connecting points together onto the cartography of
desire.--Multi-directional, sweeping and continually reabsorbing-into-the rhizomatic
flight, the bifurcation point is the maximum thrust into capitalism." The despoticState
collapsesunder it own homogeneousweight, and what remains is the decoding of all
4'
The 'anti-market' sustains
transcendence
regulative mechanismsof command and
.
its mutant flows through abstract models of commodity production.43
It is not at all that the stateknows nothing of speed;but it requires that
movement, even the fastest,ceaseto be the absolute state of a moving
body occupying a smooth space,to becomethe relative characteristic
of a "moved body" going from one point to another in a striated space.
In this sense, the state never ceasesto decompose, recompose, and
transform movement, or to regulate speed (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.386).
"If it can help it, the State does not dissociateitself from a process of capture of flows of all
kinds, populations, commodities or commerce,money orcapital, etc. There is stillaneed for fixedpaths
in well-defined directions, which restrict speed,regulate circulation, relativize movementýand measure
in detail the relative movements of subjects and objects' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, pp.385-386).
41'The capitalist State is the regulator of decodedflows as such, insofar as they are caught up in
the axiomatic of capital [ ...] Once again, this axiomatic is not the invention of capitalism, since it is
identical with capital itself On the contrary, capitalism is its offspring, its result' (Deleuze & Guattari,
AO, p.252).
'2'Homogeneousspaceis in no way a smoothspace;on the contrary, it is the form of striated space.
The spaceof pillars. It is striated by the fall of bodies,the verticals of gravity, the distribution of matter
into parallel layers, the lamellar and laminar movement of flows' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.370).
43'Death is felt rising from within and desire itself becomesthe death instinct, latency, but it also
passesover into these flows that carry the seedsof a new life [ ...] flows of property that is sold, flows
of money that circulates, flows of production and means of production making ready in the shadows,
flows of workers becoming deterritorialized [ ]' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.223).
...
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
78
In monitoring flows via transcendent codes, the State attempts to control
desiring-production from leaking out of the strata. However, the future (capitalism)
grasps the archaic remanentsof the State, and statutes of unity, to only invert the
apparatus of coding. The centralized architecture of authority, symbolizing
omnipotence,gives way to abstractcomponentsof deterritorialization that are always
wavering at the edge. The border lies betweenan actualized constitution of ideology,
that-controls'and limits integration of- heterogeneouspirticlesý,'and'the frehzy-tlfat'i§
prowling and meshing all flows within the machinic phylum. Speed annuls the
synthesisof social identity that attemptsto fill the crevice betweenthe machinic flows
"
integrated
of production and an
mode of order.
We must take quite literally the idea that man is a face drawn in the
sand between two tides: he is a composition appearing only between
two others, a classical past that never knew him, and a ftiture that will
no longer know him. There is no occasion either for rejoicing or for
weeping. Is it not commonplacenowadaysto say that the forms of man
have already entered into relation with the forces of information
technology [ ] which together create something other than man,
...
indivisible 'man-machine' systems?(Deleuze, F, p.75).
44'The violence of speed has become both location and the law, the world's destiny and its
destination' (Virilio, SP, p. 151).
The world-economy is the greatest possible vibrating surface, one which not only
it.
is
level,
but,
depth
It
the
the
or
manufactures
at a certain
conjuncture
accepts
huge
the
area,
of
over
a
which
creates
uniformity
prices
world-economy at all events
is
living
It
blood
distributes
throughout
organism.
a structure
a
as an arterial system
in itself
Femand Braudel
Chapter 1111:
The Stratification of the World-Economy
81
I
[...] We have seenthat the earth constantly carries out a movement of
deterritorialization on the spot, by which it goes beyond any territory:
it is deterritorializing and deterritorialized. It merges with the
movement of those who leave their territory en masse[ ...] Movements
of deterritorialization are inseparablefrom territories that open onto an
elsewhere;and the processof reterritorialization is inseparablefrom the
earth,which restoresterritories. Territory and earth are two components
with two zones of indiscemibility-deterritorialization [ ...] and
reterritorialization [ ...I (Deleuze & Guattari, JVIP,pp.85 & 86).
The -industrial age -defined -as the age-of insects.-.Jt's --even worsenowadays: you can't even tell in advancewhich stratum is going to
communicatewith each other, or in which direction. Above all, there
is no lesser, or higher or lower, organization; the substratum is an
integral part of the stratum, is bound up with it as the milieu in which
changeoccurs, and not an increasein organization.'
The concept of nomadic-meshwork structures argues that molar control is not
systemically controlling the economic sphere. This is an instance of mapping selforganizing systems. The self-organizing system is desiring-production that does not
designate substitutive wholes to the regulation of the market. As in the molar
apparatusof control, the Stateappropriatesa mechanismof reproduction to sustain an
identifiable level of power.' However, the State's function appearsto diminish with
the advent of de-socialization in capitalism: flows are mediated through the
implementations of axiomatics that produce solutions horizontally, as opposedto the
vertical transcendenceof the despot. Thus, the role of the molar apparatusof control
is made problematic by the modem State,and its relation to the worldwide axiomatic,
capitalism. To map the function between the territorial State and deterritorializing
'Gilbert Simondon, Lindividu ef sa genise physico-hiologique, pp. 139-141, cited in Deleuze &
Guattari, ATP, p.69.
2'Therc is no State which does not need an image of thought which will serve as its axiomatic
system or abstract machine, and to which it gives in return the strength to function' (Delcuze &
Guattari, AO, p.88).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
82
is
further
capitalism,
compoundedby the different assemblagesboth utilize to circulate
their intensities on the body without organs.3 The State, on the one hand, absorbsthe
earth as its object of unity, a transcendent alliance in the form of recoding or
subsuming multiplicities into a homogeneouswhole; while on the other, capitalism
operates from a highly developed abstraction that replaces recoding with
'
Wow,
'
'the
axiomatics-'materialized
commodif)ý. For capitalism to effectuate the
commodification-of the earth,-the modem State cannot substitute,the -abstractionof
axiornatics to a unifonned recoding apparatus.Unlike its predecessor,the 'despotic'
State,fused all surplus and labour into a reterritorialization of the earth, a transcendent
recoding. The modem State, in its desire to maintain an image of exleribriýV in the
ever-expansiveworld capitalist axiomatic, replaces transcendent overcodings with
models of realization to realign itself with the abstract flows of commodity
'
production. Marx's genealogy captures 'differentiated capital' by tracing the
developmentof town-form versus State-formmarkets; the State-form appropriatesthe
town-form through taxation, thereby absorbing it in accordance to the State.
'Hereafter, referred to as BwO.
'Deleuze and Guattari state that capitalism's appropriation of
private property is no longer
but
land
the
the
the
of
production
as
such,
of convertible
soil,
of
means
of
or
nor
even
ownership
abstractrights' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.454).
'The dynamics of exteriority will be discussedlater in the chapter.
6',Ibe immenserelative deterritorialization of world capitalism needsto be reterritorialized on the
modem national State [...] As Braudel shows, capitalism started out from city-towns, but thesepushed
deterritorialization so far that immanent modem Stateshad to temper their madness,to recapture and
invest them so asto carry out necessaryrcterritorializations in the form of new internal limits' (Deleuze
& Guattari, JV1P,p.98). Granted the above is rather compressed,but these ideas will be unfolded
throughout the chapter.
7Massumi speculateson the differential capital in postmodernity, a non-linear perspectiveon Marx's
analysis. He is quick to point out that the State-form's appropriation of the surplus generatedfrom the
town-form is not a contradiction in terms of generatingcapitalism itself, but the possibility of capital
'The
do
defline
dense
through
the
not
of
relation
points
capitalist
models
of
realization:
accumulation
a contradiction or an opposition, but a differential (more or less surplus value, or this kind or that, with
Chapter HI: The Stratification of the World-Economy
83
However, even between the archaic meansof recoding and the present globalization
of the world economic system, are economic bloc-forniations that are utilized
axiomatics to ward off schizo flows from dispersing into the global sphere of
dissipation.' For instance,incorporating regions into unified free trade zones regulate
vast amounts of surplus and production to remain within certain boundaries,thereby
allowing the commodification of labour within the apparatusof the State.The abstract
machine-is the mediator between the hydraulic flows of commodity -production that
assiststhe State to not only retain an image of itself, but at the same time corrodes
the mechanismsthat sustain it. ' Thus:
The abstract machine of overcoding ensures the homogenization of
different segments, their convertibility, their translatability, it regulates
the passages from one side to the other, and the prevailing force under
which this takes place. It does not depend on the State, but its
effectiveness depends on the State as the assemblage which realizes it
in a social field (for example, different monetary segments, different
kinds of money have rules of convertibility, between themselves and
with goods, which refer to a central bank as State apparatus) (Deleuze
& Parnet, DIA, p. 129).
Bloc-formations intertwining betweenthe abstractmachine of overcoding and
the schizo-flows that leak from the State,relay a mechanismthat perpetually impedes
flows from supersedingthe role the Statepremisesitself on. The lateral dispersion of
production, as opposed to the recoded, verticality of the despot, pressuresthe State
or without the possibility of capital accumulation). When the capitalist relation is actualized, the
particular content it receives displays an almost infinite variety of concrete forms' (Massumi, UG,
p.203).
'Bloc-formations are a paradigm caseof modelsof realization, by which the modem Stateoperates.
'Ile mediation is betweenthe abstractmachine of overcoding and mulation, and will be discussed
in relation to antisystemicmovementsin the next chapter.For the presentcontext, it is important to bear
in mind that there: '[ ] is no dualism between abstractovercoding machines and abstractmachines of
...
mutation: the latter find themselvessegmentariz4 organiz4 overcodedby the others,at the sametime
as they undermine them: both work- within each other at the heart of the assemblage' (Deleuze &
Parnet, DIA, p. 132).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
84
mechanism to perpetually strive to apportion ruptures within its own boundaries. The
'lateral pressure"' exerted on the social machine demands a reterritorialization,
not a
"
by
despotic
the
the
recoding, as evidenced
apex of
synthesis, but rather through
axiomatizing solutions to harbour economic cycles and trends within the vicinity of
the State's containment. The nineteenth century witnessed the British Empire's rise of
controlling liquid flows of capital to a hierarchical, hegemonic super-stratum, that once
in-motion; -captured the most -lucrative'trade territories for the assimilation, of goods. "
In the twentieth century, America has followed in the British example of hegemonic
command, though not through economic monopolization
through what Arrighi labels as the "'proletarianization"
of the globe, but rather
13
of nationalism' . 'The rise
"See Nazil Choucri and Robert C. North, Nations ill Conflict. National Growth and International
Violence, for a discussion of this concept.
"'[
] (I)n place of the territorial machine, there is a 'megamachine' of the State, a functional
...
pyramid that has the despotat its apex, an immobile motor, with the bureaucraticapparatusas its lateral
surface and its transmissiongear, and the villagers at its base, serving as its working parts' (Delcuze
& Guattari, A 0, p. 194).
"Admittedly, the rise of the British Empire in the nineteenth century is rather more complex than
what I have elucidated in this section. My intention is to have a general link to the nineteenth century
power Centre (London) that predominantly captured surplus-production for its expansion across the
globe, to the discussion concerning US hegemony. Refer to Arrighi's The Long Twentieth Century,
chapterIll, for more specific details concerningthe Empire in the nineteenthcentury. 'For the capitalist
world-economy asreconstitutedunder British hegemonyin the nineteenthcentury was asmuch a "world
empire" as it was a "world-economy" - an entirely new kind of world empire to be sure, but a world
empire none the less' (Arrighi, LTC, p.58).
"As Arrighi argues, US hegemony placed the
welfare of all the subjects ("high mass
consumption") above the absoluterights of property and the absolute rights of government. If British
hegemony had expanded the inner-state system in order to accommodatethe "democratization" of
nationalism, US hegemony carried the expansion further by selectively accommodating the
"proletarianization" of nationalism' (LTC, p.66). The ability of the US military mandateto supplant any
nation from attempting to override its position of nuclear domination also plays a role in Arrighi's
discussion of hegemonic powers. America has provided economic assistance,or mini-Marshall Plans,
to countriesin need,but this has always been included with military protection to thwart the expansion
of 'communism', or 'un-democratic', systems.Coupledwith nuclear-umbrellaprotection, the economic
homogeneity of the American core power has infiltrated peripheral zones since World War II: 'At the
height of its hegemony [ ] the US government substituted itself for the "free worldisV' regimes of
...
South Korea and South Vietnam in their respectivewar againstthe communist regimes of North Korea
and North Vietnam. At the same time, however, it actively encouraged the greatest wave of
decolonization the world had ever seen' (ibid, p.70). Since the focus of this study is to portray the
Chapter HI: The Stratification of the World-Economy
85
and maintenance of hegemony is a function of comparative advantage in leading
economic sectorsand political/military advantagein the control of international trade
and victory in world wars amongcore states' (Chase-Dunn& Podobnik, 'NWW, p.7).
However, Wallerstein arguesthat, as we draw close to the end of the millennium, the
US superiority is diminishing, as other forms of technological methods become
available. Thesemodelsplace the hierarchial military structureto other self-organizing
lattices;-such-as netwars and cyberwars." In, order to sustain-its economic"superiority
in the light of a dwindling hegemony, the United States has embarked on a
regionalising crusadeto combatthe post-industrializeddilemma that hascrushedmajor
15
in
the
city zones
country. A recent incentive for the United States to fortify
its
economic boundariesfrom other competing regions has been the introduction of The
contemporaryeconomic and geostrategicinterlink-,it is not possibleto discussthe historical role the US
military matrix held during the height of its hegemony in the cold war. Specifically, this section
concentrateson the current US agendathat is regionalising economic zones,particularly NAM
and
the imminent WIIFTA. This will be discussedshortly.
"Cyberwar is information-related conflict at the military level. The tactics involved consist of a
decentralized,decision-mak-ingprocess;andby redistributing information from the ground-up(or bottom
up) enablesthe tactical forces to self-organize as the situation demands.Me information revolution
implies the rise of cyberwar, in which neither massnor mobility will decide outcomes;instead,the side
that knows more, that can dispersethe fog of war yet enshroudan adversary in it, will enjoy decisive
advantages' (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 'CYC'). By de-hierarchizing decision-making, information is
transported within the immanent system to allow for efficient communication. Traditional forms of
combat have always relied on centralized control that would then navigate the next position for the
attack or defence. Cyberwar's contemporary objective is to incapacitatethe opponent's informational
sphere through electronic contamination. This varies from blocking radio communication to fluid
models, such as viral implants into the enemy's databasenetwork. 'This form of warfare may involve
diversetechnologies,notably for C31,for intelligencecollection, processing,and distribution, for tactical
communications,positionings, and idenfification-friend-or-foe (IFF), and for "smarV'wcaponssystems
[ I it may also involve electronically blinding, jamming, deceiving, overloading, and intruding into an
...
adversary's information and communicationscircuits' (ibid). This warfare dependsless on geography
than on the ability to navigate virtual obstacles into communication. Netwar is the geostrategic
resistance that converges with micro-economic systems on the periphery of the capitalist worldeconomy. Netwar and cyberwar will be fully elucidated in the following sections.
"To situate the complexity surrounding the hegemony of core powers, Los Angeles will be
discussedin the next chapter in relation to minoritarian assemblagesrealigning machinic processes
through die post-industrialized, hyper-capitalism in the city. 'These'anti-mark-et' systemswill present
a model that undermine molar organizations of the State.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
86
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Arrighi arguesthat the lifting of
tariffs that have traditionally isolated the three nations economically has led to a
unification, by allowing cheapsurplus labour to be garneredin Mexico, while America
"
for
(LTC,
Canada
354ft).
This is seen
and
are potential markets
p.
consumergoods
as a potential for reducing costs by allocating the production of goods to a peripheral
zone, thereby loosening the effects of high costs in the post-hegemonicState. This is
to:-'[.,. j shift the,-locus of production to -lower-wagezones (from city -to country,--or
from core to peripheral zone both within statesand within the world as a whole) []
(and) to redirect global flows of labor ("outward" from core towards periphery [ ]),
(Wallerstein, PJVE,,p.99).
Chase-Dunnand Podobnik's interpretation of NAFTA rests on the assumption that
tariff-free trade has been the outcome of a hierarchial leadershipin the United States.
As an attempt to salvagethe remaining remnantsof a hegemonic world power, they
suggest:
NAFTA is a contemporary functional equivalent of the bloc-formation
is
integration'
kind
'international
This
more a
economic
process.
of
consequenceof rivalry among core states than a harbinger of global
bloc-formation
be
integration
[
]
the
can
seen
as
process
of
economic
...
the functional equivalent of the colonial imperialism of past
fortify
to
their respective
core
powers
attempting
centuries-with rival
geopolitical positions by establishing dominance over the surplus
accumulation of 'their' parts of the globe (Chase-Dunn & Podobnik,
"More importantly, the influx of East Asian capitalism has played a significant role in the
arrangementand ratification of NAFrA. As the following notes argue, in particular, China's current
position in the capitalist world-economy, the US is extendingits peripheral boundariesto foreign sectors
(Mexico), in an attempt to: '[ ] incorporate more thoroughly and extensively reservesof cheap labor
...
closer at home' (ibid). Briefly: 'The real engine of growth in China today is the foreign-investedsector,
most of which is concentrated in southern China, mainly in Guangdong. Considered on its own,
Guangdongprovince is far and away the fastestgrowing economy in the world. Guangdong'sindustrial
output climbed by nearly 20 per cent per year from 1980 to 1990, and 27 per cent in 1991 (Smith,
'CRC', p.90).
Chapter 1111:
The Stratification of the World-Economy
'NWW', pp.II&
87
16).
Initially, the above excerpt would be valid for a diminishing, hegemonic superpower
to redefine its boundarieswithin a lucrative boundary, namely, a low-tax base, such
as Mexico. In essencethen, the authors' polemic rests upon the following question
with regardsto NAFTA's role in the coming century: is the emergenceof NAFTA an
attempt to curtail the collapse of a core power by despotically recoding neighboring
territories? And, -'doesthe sudden economic boom in Asia's special' economic zones
(SEZ) contribute to the authors' argument?17Chase-Dunnand Podobnik would agree
that North America's role in assertinga core block of trading partners would allow
for a concentratedposition globally, due to the emerging markets sprouting in Asia,
18
China.
By appropriating Mexico into the dominant economic power,
particularly
"China is the largestrecipient of foreign investment:$3.5 billion in direct foreign investment (DFI)
poured into China in 1991 and an overwhelming $I I billion in 1992 (Nicholas D. Kristoff, New York
Times, 15 June 1992). Furthermore: 'take any statistic and YVufind that China now affects the world
substantially: imports in 1994 were around $115 billion; inflows of foreign capital totalled $40 billion
in 1993; Hong Kong, which will become part of China in mid-1997, is the world's eighth largest
stockmark-et' (The Economist, 28 January 1995; emphasis added). Following the trajectories, as
delineatedin Table II, of nineteenyears in the world economy, affirms the immense growth pattern of
a nation that has doubled its purchasing power. Compared to the other nations listed, China has
surpassednot only its ability to attract foreign investmentbut has transplantedit directly into the SEZ.
'A major force in the surge of Chinese economicgrowth in the 1980shas been the increasein exports
(10.4 percent per year in 1980-87) as the Chinesebegan to imitate their neighbours, following Deng
Xiaoping's declaration that: "it is glorious to be rich"' (Castells, 'IENI', p.36). ]Furthermore,China's
present exports have increasedto around twenty per cent of its GNP, and when comparedwith Japan
(exports about twelve per cent of its GNP), the former's position is now being emulated by its
neighboring countries. Finally, China is now the fifteenth largest exporter as opposedto ranking 34th
in 1978 (Smith, 'CRC', pp.61-62). See also Lynn Pan, The New Chinese Revolution.
18However,the argumentfor China's ability to spectacularlysurpassthe World Bank's expectations
needsto be noted. The structure employed by Chineseeconomistsis in the proficiency of opening up
doors that had remained shut for decadesto any, and most foreign, competitive investments: 'Since
1979, foreign investors have pumped more than $30 billion into joint ventures and wholly foreignowned firms, and this foreign investment accountsfor a major, and in some industries, dominant share
of the new capital investment' (Smith, 'CRC', p.70). This relates back to chapter1, where the contrast
is developedin relation to social democracy and totalitarianism (with Chile as an example). The role
of axiomatics is crucial to understandingthe processof production in capital. China is a paradigm of
a modem day absolute limit. The political expansionsthat were necessaryto alleviate the economic
market, in order to encompassexternal investment,or the reduction in the number of axiomatics taking
root, have resulted from capitalism,
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
88
North America would sustain its economic influence globally. However, in equating
the present status of NAFTA as the 'functional equivalent' of past exploitations is
inadequate,since it dismissesthe integration of heterogeneousstructuresthat coexist
with multiplicities, that in turn, propel market dynamics further.
By engaging in a molar analysis of economic strategies of supply meeting
demand fails to incorporate a molecular, or at least a meshwork design model, that
would- allow, for- an infusion of different strata levels playing crucial roles--in the
development of social and economic history. To present a marxist theory, or neolate
classical economics, of
capital perpetuating the gulf between core structures and
peripheral regions, is still engagedin a linear mode of integration of commodities and
surplus labour. In other words, Braudel's perspective challenges the traditional
structures of capital by questioning the power relations that identify it with 'antimarkets', or Centre zones. Braudel arguesthat markets are molecular, whilst capital
parasites on markets in order to expand, thereby striving to form monopolies that
function to direct the flow of markets,that in turn, operatein a molar fashion. Marxist
theoriescannot accommodatethe non-linear dynamicsthat emergeout of 'anti-market'
processes.When the market has been subsumedwithin the apparatusof capture,then,
according to marxist thought, capital resortsto regulating the whole procedure from
historical
detail
fluxes
An
would
or
social
alternative
approach
as not
a molar axis.
forming out of a homogeneoussuper-stratum,but rather cartographicprocessesviewed
from the molecular axis. This would provide a more accuratepicture of a rhizomatic
institutions
interconnects
history
that
molar
and meshwork organizationswithin
social
Chapter HL The Stratification of the World-Economy
89
the machinic phylum." The machinic PI-ocesses
that act as sieves suggesta fluid form
of reintegration of capitalist flows that allow for divergent systems. Deleuze and
Guattari's suggestionof capital being one big independentState is occurring through
a global attractor where commodity flows are being lured into this one phylum of
exchange. Axiomatics are being pushed to deliver a further intensification of
abstraction (naked labour, independent capital), that in turn delivers an enormous
Machinic surplus:
The role of the State in this regard, within the capitalist axiomatic, is
the more manifest in that what it absorbsis not sliced from the surplus
value of the firms, but added to their surplus value by bringing the
capitalist economy closer to full output with the given limits, and by
widening these limits in turn [ ...] The role of a politico-militaryeconomic complex is the more manifest in that it guarantees the
extraction of human surplus labour on the periphery and in the
appropriatedzones of the center [ ...] (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.235).
Meshworks track the flows generating on the BwO to trace the current economicmilitary society that allows for trade regionalization, such as NAFTA. It is important
to chart these flows in order to generatelines of flight that can steer the system to
another bifurcation point. To posit North America's single position as an attempt to
cling on to its homogeneity is misleading, for the purpose of core blocks forming for
mutual trade is an isomorphic transition leading to an expansive global-economy,
rather than an isolationist movement to protect boundaries by recoding others
economically. To place such emphasison NAFTA, as a model of regional exploitation
from their pat-is of the globe, implies a homogeneousimperialism that infiltrates third"For instance,to counter Chase-Dunnand Podobnik-'scritique of the presentstatusof NAFrA lies
in their inability to incorporate the varied levels of the phylum that allow for a heterogeneousspaceof
interaction. By preconceiving a unified systemwithin the politico-military-cconomic complex, they do
not map the genealogyof the economic spherethat led to such a trade pact. Instead, they arguethat the
processof engulfing Mexico is situated within the historical narrative of exploitation of surplus labour.
By not taking into account the futural dynamics of late capital, their critique confines axiomatics to
another form of despotic recoding.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
90
world zones.Rather, regional consolidationsshould be conceived as global attractors
occurring at this stage. Since Chase-Dunnand Podobnik's view is restricted to only
three countries at present,their theory cannot accommodatethe extensionof NAFTA.
Building on the recently completed NAFTA between the US, Mexico, and Canada,
The Western Hemisphere Free Trade Agreement ()VHFTA)
will
be even more
20
joining
dimensions
by
]
Americas
'[
Whatever
two
the
together
ambitious
or
.
...
has
beginning,
from
this
today,
the
capitalism
mobilized
may-have
assumed
quantities
a force of deterritorialization infinitely surpassingthe deterritorialization.proper to the
State' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.453).
Chase-Dunnand Podobnik presupposea governmental molar structure that is
looking to realign itself as it competeswith other regions, particularly with the Asian
influx of cheap labour 2' The same problem is encounteredwith the analysis of an
.
"
instability
forecasting.
By
the
that
of
will alleviate
anticipated market price
instance
interaction,
for
homogeneous
the
the
sphere
process
within
of
analyzing
a
State or each agent acquiring perfect knowledge within the market, is levelling a
"Proponents predict that the US, the dominantindustrial power, would benefit most from increased
exports of about $36bn a year [ ...]A free trade agreementlinking all of the western hemisphere [ ...]
would build on rcgionalising trendsalready in place, notably NAFTA, the Mercosur and Andean Group
agreementsand other sub-regional agreements'(Morris, 'Problems Widen with Trade Pacts', p.5).
"To achieve this perspective, China allocated special areas,such as the SEZ, to experiment with
deregulation of the labour force. Even though the United States Clinton administration is putting
factrcmains
'humanize'the
Chinese
the
to
that through
the
working
population,
on
government
pressure
privatization of the rural counties in the Guangdong'sPearl River delta: '[ ...] China's 18 million rural
force,
23
the
workor around 93 million workers (on averageoneof
rural
per
cent
enterprisesemploy
third of rural per capita income [ ...I )' (Smith, 'CRC', p.86). Close to a 100 million peasantshave found
work- in the SEZ, that would otherwise have been enslavedwithin a feudal type of imprisonment or
starvedin the rural areas.'From 1979 through 1991 foreign investorspumped some $20 billion in direct
foreign investment (DFI) into China. Forty per cent of this has gone into Guangdongwhich, together
with Shanghaiand Fujian, accountsfor about 60 per cent of all DFI. Foreign investmenthas grown by
34 per cent per year since the mid 1980s' (ibid, p.91).
22Rcferto cbapter I regarding non-linear measuresof forecasting in the economy.
Chapter HL The Stratification of the World-Economy
91
myopic discourse,since the world-economy is not a closedsystemfunctioning towards
a teleological equilibrium. Rather on closer examination, meshwork structures
incorporate the diverse, multifaceted elements of interactions or flows that act as
sieves to filter complex behaviourial patterns resulting from self-organizing
23
SySteMS.
The-premise'ýofthe axiomatic states,that,the,processof deterritorialization-fulfills its
own immanencewithin the socius, and realigns itself horizontally across the global
zone without saturating the system of interaction. By enlarging its limits, the social
axiomatic: '[ ...] functions well only by grinding, spluttering, and starting up again-all
this implies social organs of decisions, administration, reaction, inscription [ ]'
(Deleuze& Guattari, AO, p.251). Yet, acrossthe boundariesof assimilation there are
always modes of resistancethat attempt to either sabotageor moderatethe speedby
which the overcoding through axiomatics is taking place. Axiornatics operatewithin
the apparatusof the molar, as well as within the molecular, plane of the BwO, thereby
continuously reconfiguring the machinery within
a meshwork network. By
into
Third
the
the Centre, the expansive utilization of cheap
world
regionalising
labour, under the heading of 'free worker', is one of the two flows that capitalism is
'From a political perspective, the realization of NAFIFA has led to antisystemic movements of
resistance,particularly so with the Chiapas resistanceheaded by the enigmatic Marcos, that clearly
implies a tactical obstacleto the presentreintegrationof North America- This is probably the beginning:
'[ ] of a long series of social protests which will be carried out in opposition to the regional
...
restructuring implied by the NAFTA trade agreements'(Chase-Diinn& Podobnik-,'NWW', p. 16). This
chapter will concentratespecifically on economicmovementsof resistance,as opposedto the political
'protests' that are presently occurring.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
92
born frOM;24 the other flow is the decoding of money-capital, which propels the
system to bifurcate into more complex meshwork structures. 'By substituting money
for the very notion of a code, it [capitalism] has created an axiomatic of abstract
quantities that keeps moving further and further in the direction of the
deterritorialization of the socius' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.33). This is contrasted
to the indulgent paranoiac machine that results from the despotic State. The bi-polar
distinction of -the -BwO. namely ,repulsive ,versus attractive flows; is - difficult to
distinguish completely since both aspectsare manifestedin the recoding of the despot,
as well as in the axiomatization of the capitalist. For instance,NAFTA presentsus
with an attemptedrecoding of its territory through privatized exchange,by engulfing
neighbouring zones on the BwO (an instanceof axiornatization), while also decoding
its own despotic image through the acquisition of cheaper productivity and surplus
labour.
H
Molar applications and molecular systems are virtually impossible to locate in
capitalism as separateand distinct modes of operation. As we have discussed,the
despot recodes the legislative, juridical and economic flows to a vertical structure,
diverse
between
the
elements consists of a central
whereby any communication
processingunit that delivers the law from an abstraction. Moreover, the birth of the
State formation 'in a single stroke' complicates the problem, since it is difficult to
linear
historical,
narrative of the State apparatusthat would allow us to
produce an
"The inclusion of all nations in the international debt economy and the creation of "peripheral"
areasof underdevelopmentin the very heart of the Western world's largest capitals have blurred the
boundariesbetweenthe "Erst" and "Third" Worlds' (Massumi, UG, p. 137). The eclipsing of thesezones
will be fully explored in the next chapter.
Chapter III: The Stratification of the World-Economy
93
(or
function
in
(The
its
application)
organization
capitalism.
molar
ascertain modem
can only isolate coded elements through notions of Unity, Plurality and Totality: a
tracing on the body without organs). Another approachwould be to seek the model
is.
definition
State
the
that
actually
of
what
with
would provide us
a
of contact
However, to seek such a definition is hindered by the very role the State performs,
State
Since
the
to
transcendent
operates
super-stratum.
all
elements
a
recoding
namely,
by a double,articulation of decoding and recoding, how is it possible to articulate the
definition of the State,if all that is available is a binary-opposition oscillating between
elementsof intensity and a transcendentmediator?
In attempting to define the central unit in the contemporary capitalist world"
impossible.
The
it
is
find
that
capitalist
realistically
untenable and
economy, we
labour
in
flows
is
the
and
of
commodity
a
system
which
world-economic sphere
in
far
larger
located
]
'[
than that of any political authority,
zone
a
production are: ...
decisions
to
the
hence
totally
these
of
political
set
responsive
processesare not
and
hegemonic
to
those
of
a
state
of any stateý-even
26
(Wallerstein, PTYE,p.105). The
task is made difficult by the functioning of capitalism itself. The capitalist process is
from
heterogeneous
micropolitical movementsthat
elementsrising
a combination of
is
This
into
bifurcate
homogeneous
the surface of
to
the
other
attractors.
strata
push
"I'lic difficulty stems from the system depending:'[.. ] on the levels of activity of its various subIf
levels
in
the
the
we try to
of
some
sub-units
affect
one
another.
activity
wWch
on
manner
units, and
"fix" all this activity by trying to define the entire state of the system at one time [ ...] we immediately
lose appreciation of the evolution of these activity levels over time. Conversely, if it is the activity
levels in which we are interested,we need to look for patterns over time' (Eiser, ACCM, p. 192; cited
in Plant, 'On the Matrix: Cyberferninist simulations', p.6).
'The importance of the world economy lies within this context, namely, in its ability to create a
homogeneousuniformity independentof the State,even though, as Wallerstein notes, it surpassesany
immanent
'it
dictates
is
it
that
As
Braudel
this
system:
an
states,
world-economy
political stratification.
is a structure in itself'.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
94
desire: a line of flight, or singularity, that decodesthe apparatusof capture(or models
of realization). However, the functioning and implementation of axiomatics into our
modem arena isolates naked labour further. Modem day capital, executed by
axiomatics, presentsthe cavity between capitalism and schizophrenia. The question
that ariseswithin this context is the following: how important are molar applications
and molecular systems to the operation of the capitalist world-economy? One
important-site by-which to -answer-this question, is by investigating,the globalization
process that has engulfed our contemporary world. Traditional modes of discourse
have relied exclusively on linear methods to diagnose the complexity capitalism
inflicts; this resorts to an historical narrative aligning modes of contact superficially.
The emergenceof an ubiquitous, totalizing system, such as capitalism, captures all
models of interaction and discoursewithin its production. 'The only universal history
is the history of contingency [ ] The schizophrenicvoyage is the only kind there is'
...
(Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.224). 27
With the coupling of naked labour and money-capital, molar aggregation
increasinglybecomesconcentratedin macropolifics. Macropolitics is a molar apparatus
that processesflows by implementing a bureaucraticarborification. (rhis is contrasted
to nomadic-meshworks). In other words, homogeneouscomponents realign flows
intensity
by
into
that
segment
a
uniform
recoding
rigid
captures
within a particular,
"
functions
One
hierarchy.
the
of
of macropolitics is to sustain the
a centralized
'By examining singularities as a passagewayinto the developmentof the State,we: 'Always lookfor the molecular, or even submolecular,particle with which we are allied' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p. 11). The following sectionswill explore this line of thought.
'The molar control structuresof the Stateare the arborescentorchestrationsthat producehigh-level
beliefs to maintain and perpetuate a homogeneousstasis. An arborescent central processing unit
accomplishesthis task by demarcatingzones of intensity to particular pathways. Reminiscentof Kalka,
a whole bureaucraticmachinery is set up to meditate intensities via flux and code on the body without
Chapter HI: The Stratification of the World-Economy
95
identity of the State by placing segmented,partial objects into zones of unity; these
overlap from homogeneouswholes to subaggregateddivisions within the unified image
of the State:
The modem political system is a global whole, unified and unifying,
but is so becauseit implies a constellation of juxtaposed, imbricated,
orderedsubsystems;the analysis of decision making brings to light all
kinds of compar-tmentalizations
and partial processesthat interconnect,
but not without gaps and displacements(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.210).
Without a transcendent unit to consolidate processes(or flows) to a hierarchy in
capitalism, the role of macropolitics becomes essential in defining the State.
Macropolitics acts like a sponge constantly trying to soak up the spillages that seep
through the 'gaps and displacements' of the hierarchy. These movementsto the edge
of uniformity locate nomadic-meshworks,or antisysternicmovements, traversing the
BwO's molar axis. By demarcating intensity, that perpetually exudes into lines of
flight, political and social history finds macropolitics into two domains or regions. As
Deleuze and Guattari indicate, the defining characteristicsof the molar segmentarity,
namely, the flows that escape, 'minuscule at first, then swelling', are the blocformations that divide the East and West spheres;for they are: '[ ] perpetually being
...
by
undermined a molecular segmentationcausing a zigzag crack, making it difficult
for them to keep their own segmentsin line. It is as if a line of flight, perhapsonly
a trickle to begin with, leaked between the segments,escaping their centralization,
eluding their totalization' (ibid, p.216).
By merging the discussion regarding the hegemonic status Britain and the
organs. 'Arborescent systemsare hierarchical systemswith centersof significance and subjectification,
central automataEke organizedmemories [ ...] an elementonly receivesinformation from a higher unit,
and only receives a subjective affection along preestablishedpaths' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 16).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
96
United States possessedfor the last two centuries, the East can be considered the
29The
(East
for
the
two
and West)
zone
molar
aggregates
peripheral
core powers.
suppressflows from unhinging into schizophrenia,and are defined more by the 'tiny
trickles' that rupture segmentsinto a lingering deterritorialization than by their molar
impositions. This is constantly driving the cycle of the world-economy to reconstruct
its dynamics. On the one hand, NAFTA is a reterritorialization, and yet, at the same
time; - the- states-involved- are deterritorializing (axioniatizing-production- forAhe
is
double-bind
The
the process that
of complementary reterritorialization
market).
bifurcations
The
that occur within
the
the
produces
gaps at
moment of phasechange.
the system" allow nomadic-meshwork structures to emerge within the overall
is
flow
This
a pattern of a two-fold processthat, on the one
of capitalism.
circulatory
intensity
(commodity
fluctuations
decodes
of
of continuous quantities
side,
intensity
takes
the
of
or
recoding,
other side, a recapturing,
production), while on
from
function
the
that
The
to
escape
up
elements
soak
models of realization
place.
Centre
be
Surplus-production
the
the
that
of
within
matrix
cannot axiomatized
strata.
finds itself in Third World sectors, a zone where antisystemic movements converge
"
becomings
becomings.
By
the
trajectories
of molecular
charting
with minoritarian
that circumvent the Centres of control found in the molar organization of the State,
is
decoding
(regionalising
Centre's
territories)
the
change
phase
present
capitalism's
intermediary
'[
]
Antisystemic
the
act:
as
crucial
social
movements
control apparatus.
...
'This of courseis not the caseas we reach the millennium, for China's rapid redevelopmentfrom
had
East.
has
West
'state-capitalism'
the
the
to
of
surpassed
any
notion
communism
'The socius deterritorializing with a complementaryreterritorialization.
"Refer to chaptersI and IV for a discussionof peripheral zones.
Chapter III: The Stratification of the World-Economy
97
32
(Wallerstein,
PTVE,
Bifurcations allow for gaps
104).
of global systemic change'
P.
and seepages to expand on the terrain of the BwO, thereby forcing the system to
interact in heterogeneous ways. The importance of the East and West dichotomy stems
from the hegemonicsystem extending its homogeneity in all directions of the globe.
As Deleuze and Guattari elaborateon this point, they suggesta careful analysis since
homogeneityneedsto be distinguishedfrom isomorphismwhen detailing the expansive
world.:.system:
To the extent that capitalism constitutes an axiomatic (production for
the market), all States and all social formations tend to become
isomorphic in their capacity as models of realization: there is but one
centeredworld market, the capitalist one, in which even the so-called
socialist countries participate. Worldwide organization thus ceasesto
pass"between" heterogeneousformationssince it assuresthe isomorphy
of those formations. But it would be wrong to confuse isomorphy with
homogeneity. Eor one thing, isomorphy allows, and even incites, a
great heterogeneity among States (democratic, totalitarian, and,
especially, "socialist" States are notfacades). For another thing, the
international capitalist axiomatic effectively assuresthe isomorphy of
the diverse formations only where the domestic market is developing
and expanding, in other words, in "the center". (Deleuze & Guattari,
ATP, p.436; emphasisadded).
Hi
Delanda's research on the function of hierarchies (molar constructs) and 'self(molecular
fluxes)
is
or
essential to the above
consistent aggregates'
rhizomatic
discussion. Borrowing from Deleuze and Guattari, he maintains that either doctrine
cannot sustaina full explanation of the behaviourthat occurs betweenprocessesin the
capitalist market. Rhizomes are elementsof strata that are:
defined not so much
by the locus of control, as by the nature of the elementsthat are connectedtogether'
"Wallerstein. proceedsto discussthe relevanceof the two antisystemicmovementsthat have taken
place since the nineteenthcentury: the social movementand the national movement.Within the context
of this chapter, we argue for economic movements of resistance that are based on commodity
production, and not a form of socialism.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
98
(Delanda, 'TGM'). On the other hand, the homogeneouscomponent of hierarchies is
premised on the foundation of a nucleus that binds all the ingredients into consistent
strata. Within this modeling of meshworking, 'goal-oriented organization' is evident
in both cases,for as Delanda suggests,the molar organization of cities interlink and
produce diversity, even in areasthat at first appearhomogeneous:
[ ] cities are also the home of government,commercial, religious and
...
in
hierarchies,
which decision-making is centralized, and the
other
defined
decisions
through
well,
of
-travel
chains of-command.-At
-effects
every level of this chain, that is, at every rank, the inhuman
componentsare very homogeneous:the very processof rising through
the ranks performs a sorting operation which results in more or less
uniform behaviour within eachlevel. Indeed, the correct functioning of
a command chain assumesthis uniformity and predictability. And yet,
here as elsewhere, when we actually study a given hierarchical
bound
find
to
we
mixtures of meshwork elements, even
structure
are
if only in small proportions (Delanda, 'HN4H').
The BwO (or the machinic phylum) is the sifting mechanismrelaying between
the two processesto engineerdifference,that in turn, allows the social stratum to stack
levels of class (or strata) on the social body. As the layers are packed on the body of
capital, there are some formations that resist deterritorialization. These layers harden
to erupt a State apparatus, thereby, devising mechanisms of repression (through
is
forms
The
BwO
to
that
the
the socius that
sedimentation
on
coding) retain unity.
dictates from a theological and judicial domain, whereby all surplus is directed to
preservethe super-stratum(despot).
The organism is not at all the body, the BwO; rather, it is a stratum on
the BwO, in other words, a phenomenonof accumulation, coagulation,
in
that,
order to extract useful labor from the BwO,
and sedimentation
imposes upon it forms, functions, bonds, dominant and hierarchized
organizations, organized transcendences[ ...] the BwO is the glacial
foldings,
the
sedimentations,
where
alluvions,
and
reality
coagulations,
recoilings that compose an organism-and also a signification and a
subject-occur (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 159).
The strata territorialize liquid massesby decelerating (or hardening) flows into a
Chapter 1111:
The Stratification of the World-Economy
99
recoding of desire. By charting the sieves, or abstract machines, of self-organizing
mechanismsthat propel the BwO to bifurcate into strata, surface images appear to
presentthe State with an exteriority. Once this is linked with the processof thought,
the recoding of the mass is finalized." The double articulation presiding over the
social stratum is (or occupies)the segmented,striated expanse(the State),and also the
exteriority (thought") that produces the (external) facade; the 'double-headed'
construct is at once a relay-mechanism-that is perpetually engagedin- an-exchangeof
maintaining the other. 'They are the principle elements of a State apparatus [...]
distribut[ing] binary distinctions, and form[ing] a milieu of interiority. It is a double
articulation that makes the State apparatusinto a stratum (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.352). And yet, with the historical (or linear) extension to exteriority, the State
engagesin the destruction of its own image. However much the State desires to
exteriorize reason for its own purposes,thought is always beyond the reach of the
State. By exteriorizing thought to justify its teleology," the State relinquishes it to
smooth space,a meshwork pattern that occupies:'[ ...] without counting, and for which
there is no possiblemethod,no conceivablereproduction,but only relays, intermezzos,
resurgences'(ibid, p.377). However much the accumulatedstacks of class (or caste)
flows
there
are
solidified,
are
nonetheless
structures
of matter that cannot be captured
"But
confining ourselves to the image, it appears that it is not simply a metaphor when we are told
of an imperium of truth and a republic of spirits. It is the necessary condition for the constitution of
thought as principle, or as a form of interiority, as a stratum' (Dclcuze & Guattari, ibid, p. 375).
'Massumi's
analysis of the transcendent process utilized to partition the body in cellular models
of repression is unsurpassed: 'Openings must be cut into its perception to provide entryways for
generality; it must be coaxed into acquiescence or consonance with society's overall autonomic desire
for stable equilibrium; it must be kneaded into shape, to make it physically able to fulfill the productive,
reproductive, and destructive duties it will be assigned in the central molar domains of Work-, Family,
War, its desire must be turned to glory; it must be marked [ ]' (UG, p. 113).
...
"'The
State gives thought a form of interiority,
universality [ ...I' (ibid, p. 375).
and thought gives that interiority
a form of
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
100
16
'something
coded,
always escapes'.
and
To elucidate the current dynamics of power Centres and peripheral zones, it is
important to engagein contemporary modes of warfare that antisystemic, economic
movements of resistance" are utilizing against the mandate of the State. Moreover,
it is essentialto consider how the gulf between power Centres and peripheral zones
is
being
sustained,and yet,-at the-sameýtime,-how marginalized-group4ormationsarise
to combat inequalities within the market compass.Thesemodels of autonomy present
a relay into meshwork structuring, that once in motion, do not necessarilyrely on the
desire
to
their
accommodate
of capital and social mobility. The
nation-state
been
is
have
Braudel's
that
to
the
work
portray
particular attractors
significance of
impede
flows
formation
immanent
by
State
the
to
the
of 'market' systems
saturated
from realizing their decentralized position. By tracing the role 'market' had in the
history of decenteredcommunities provides a possibility for determining the peripheral
is
in
'anti-market'
'anti-market'
The
the
model.
construct
contemporary,
zones
between
by
the producer and the
as
a
mediator
a
middleman
acting
presented
consumer.By 'fixing' prices from the onset, the 'anti-market' engagesin a striated
in
in
level
demand
turn
the economy.
the
which
controls
of
supply
and
pricing system,
By limiting supply, the producer can dictate price policy vertically, as opposedto the
36'Accordingto Deleuze and Guattari, all social formations are DEFINED BY WHAT ESCAPES
THEM-the "lines of escape"or becomingsrunning through them-not by their contradictions. In other
words, they are defted by how they try to contain escape(their apparatusesof capture)' (Massumi, UG,
p.204).
37Or economic micro-systems.
Chapter III: The Stratification of the World-Economy
101
market determining the energetic forces that would createthe price." As Deleuze and
Guattari suggest,the horizontal price configuration hasbeenwitnessedin decentralized
communities, or nomad space. The fluid dynamics by which communities allocate
resourcesindependentlyof middlemen, or by-passingthe model of supply and demand
leads
Delanda to stress that only in markets do:
cartels,
[ ] we have any idea of what the dynamics of price formation are. In
...
other words, it is only in peasant and small town markets that
decentralizeddecision-making,leadsto prices setting themselvesup-in
a way that we can understand.In any other type of market economists
simply assume that supply and demand connect to each other in a
functional way, but they do not give us any specific dynamics through
which this connection is effected (Delanda, 'TGM').
What relation do 'peasant and small town markets' have with current
developments in the capitalist market? Moreover, is there a similarity between
subversive activity aligning itself with a fluid price structure that resembles
decentralizedexchangein primitive communities?By tracing recent developmentsin
minoritarian group formations, is there a present tendency for nomad-meshwork
by-pass
in
to
structures
conventionality traditional methods of interaction within the
supply and demand ratio? Finally, how are these processesviewed by the molar
apparatusthat continuously reaxiornatizesminoritarian becomings? The concept of
nomadic-meshworksystems,or synergetics,suggests:'[ ...]a relationship betweenthe
individual
decisions
and the macro-level of dynamical collective
micro-level of
processesof society [ ...] (and) is appropriatefor integrating the interactions of several
sectors of a society [ ...] such as the relationship between the economy [...] and
3'Braudel diagnosesthis medium through: '[ ] the market economy, with its many horizontal
...
cornmunicationsbetweenthe different markets [ ...] here a degreeof automatic coordinationusually links
supply, demand and prices. Then alongside, or rather above this layer, comes the zone of the antimarket, where the great predatorsroam and the law of the jungle operates.This - today as in the past,
before and after the industrial revolution - is the real home of capitalism' (Braudel, CC, pp.229-30;
emphasisadded).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
102
processes of migration' (Mainzer, TCCDM, p. 274).
The thrust of minoritarian assemblagespush further into the liquidation of what
the capitalist market has set through monopolies or oligopolies. Braudel's thesis rests
on the proposition that the 'market' has never been inclined towards the Centre zone
be
have
been
to
allowed
never
of capitalist production, since prices of commodities
placed in a 'free' market enterprise.By distinguishing the three zones of contact of
the -capitalist process-,Braudel, suggeststhat, the, core zone 'cbntr6lled'thd--flbWs' bf
hegemonic
(European)
Centre
the
the
thereby
commodities and production,
allowing
dictate
to
the role of peripheral segments.These segmentswere
capacity control and
"
into
homogeneous
craters of surplus-production. Aligned with Deleuze and
placed
Guattari's development of the capitalist decoding, Braudel, however, refines his
cperspectiveof the world' into three arrangements:
Every world-economy is a sort of jigsaw puzzle, a juxtaposition of
least
levels.
but
different
On
interconnected,
the
ground,
at
at
zones
three different areasor categoriescan be distinguished: a narrow core,
The
fairly
developed
centre or core
middle
zone
and
a
vast
periphery.
a
diversified.
The
is
that
next
most
advanced
and
contains everything
zone possessesonly some of thesebenefits, although it has some share
in them [ ] The huge periphery, with its scattered population,
...
by
backwardness,
the
archaism,
and
exploitation
contrary
representson
"
(Braudel,
CCC,
39).
p.
others
The function of the 'market' is the processwhereby deterritorialization fails to capture
(recoding
the
or axiomatization) that
complementary-reterritorialization
and absorb
"As Deleuze and Guattari state in A ThousandPlateaus, this formula is the: '[ ] modem version
...
in
The
formula,
the
the
conditions.
archaic
empires
under
(Efferent
already
obtained
which
oldest
of
back
flows,
it
decoded
flows
that
turned
the
the
the
more
simulated
empire
ovcrcoded
archaic
more
flows
decoded
The
it
it
forced
the
to
more
enter into a central axiomatic, the more
change.
against and
they tend to escapeto the periphery, to presentproblems that the axiomatic is incapable of resolving
or controlling (even by adding special axioms to the periphery)' (p.468).
'Furthermore, the core zone is the intensive gradient for the production of the 'anti-market', while
the periphery is the sector for 'market' dynamics. The latter is achieved through the acceleration of
following
be
in
This
lowering
the
chapter.
will
with
prices.
cxplorcd
production coupled
Chapter III: The Stratification of the World-Economy
103
allows for striated expansion on the BwO. The schizo-flows that escape recoding are
the borderless elements. They deterritorialize the mechanisms that provide capital with
its metric space of molar control. Accordingly, these totalities encompass a direction
that
intersects
with
'anti-market'
commerce
by
subverting
homogeneity.
'Schizophrenia or desiring-production is the boundary between the molar organization
and the molecular multiplicity of desire; this limit of deterritorialization must now pass
into the interior-of the molar organization
(Deleuze & Guattari,''AO, -p'. 102). The
interior of the molar organization deterritorializes its image perpetually; desiring to
engineer its complement, namely reterritorialization,
it sustains the exteriority
of
empowerment. However, the striated space that holds commodities within a core
territory
is displaced or uprooted, realigning
molar structures (monopolies
oligopolies) into the crevice of schizo-deterritorialization.
or
Smooth space is the closest
simulation of the BwO, and distance is not regulated through a centralized agency of
resonance, but through points that waver between chaos and bifurcation. Thus:
Smooth space is precisely the space of the smallest deviation: therefore
it has no homogeneity, except between infinitely proximate points, and
the linking of proximities is effected independently of any determined
path. It is a space of contact, of small tactile or manual actions of
content L...] (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.371).
The stratum that launches the State in a single sti-oke is undermined not only in the
capitalist synthesis through axiomatization, but also in movements that continually
subvert the operations of the 'anti-market'
process. The latter are utilizations
meshwork strategies that combat the established domain of the State.
IV
Mongols of the thirteenth century were almost always outnumberedby
their opponents,yet they conquered,and held for over a century, the
largest continental empire ever seen.The key to Mongol successwas
their absolute dominance of battlefield information (ArquilIa &
of
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
Ronfeldt, 'CyC').
104
41
The distinction between cyberwar and netwar is essentialin this section, since
these two paradigm shifts have succinctly depicted the future of warfare betweenthe
molar Stateand geopolitical movementsthat resist. Manual Delanda's Mar in the Age
of Intelligent Machines (TVAIAI) processesthe above reported excerpt in order to
develop ideasof the warfare machinery intersectingthe machinic phylum." However,
the significance of the above passageconsistsin the convergenceý
of the nomadic'war
machine and economic micro-systemsthat antisysternically deterritorialize the molar
mechanismsof repression.Even though this convergenceof the nomadic war machine
and economic micro-systems connectsto the machinic,phylum, it is, however, from
the other side of the continuum of Delanda's discussion. Delanda's historical
in
is
Age
Intelligent
TFar
Machines,
the
in
the
arsenal,
exposition of
military
of
appropriated by the State to centralize nomadic warfare discharges that would,
"
deterritorialize
latter,
However,
the
the
the
molar
position
of
system.
otherwise,
"The combatemployedby the Mongols consistedof 'hordes' that relied exclusively on information
regarding the enemy. With their ability to consolidate small numbers of soldiers, they were able to
thwart and break down the fortressesof the enemy.Specifically, infiltrating linear information networks
they quickly adaptedto the positions the enemy kept. The non-linear dynamics of cyberwar that the
Mongols engagedin, consistedof 'arrow riders' that were the precursors to the modem day satellite
network."'Arrow riders" enabled field generalsto keep high command, often thousandsof miles from
the theater of war, informed as to all developmentswithin four or five days of their occurrence.For
forces,
field
between
the Mongols also employed a sophisticatedsemaphoresystem that
communication
allowed for swift tactical shifts as circumstancesrequired' (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, TYC'). Within the
implementations
basic
I
that
the
this
suggest
required for netwar have already been
of
chapter,
context
in place since the highly developedMongol warfare. However, the importance of the Mongols' warfare
is to show how economic micro-systems,with their contemporary interactions, have assimilated such
tactics to impede the homogeneity of the State.
"There have been six monumental instancesof the machinic phylum crossing 'right through the
middle' of the war machine. SeeDelanda's IVAIAf for the particulars surrounding the intersection, and
for the Mongols under Genghis Khan (pp.64 & 11,23,64, respectively).
'For instance, Delanda's discussion on the development of radar takes as its starting point the
is
demarcation
fortifying
boundaries
This
be
State's
the
taken
the
to
enemy.
of
against
of
problem
0
territorial sectorsto buffer, or to implement, a fortress againstnomadic infiltration: 'The development
of radar resembles the evolution of fortress design in that it relied on the application of scientific
Chapter 1111:
The Stratification of the World-Economy
105
namely, meshworksor netwars, are not exposedin contemporarywarfare in Delanda's
text. As Deleuze and Guattari explicitly assert: '[ ] the state has no war machine of
...
its own; it can only appropriateone in the form of a military institution [ ]' (Deleuze
...
& Guattari, ATP, p.355). What is essentialto distinguish in this context is Delanda's
discussion of the war machine as envisioned by the military complex, and the nonstate actors that metamorphosethe smooth spaceof the nomad war machine.Delanda
provides* us-'with "'an' interesting 'moledulaf
assemblagesconverged within a State apparatusto form the post-modem, military
"
that
zones
engulf our world. In other words, logistics provide the State with the
necessaryapplication to implement netwar as an exteriority of the molar organization.
Therefore, cyberwar becomesthe facadethat enablesthe State formation to constitute
the war machine as exteriority." The medium of logistics is the combination of
various elements of the 'agricultural, economic and industrial resources' (Delanda,
TVAIM, p. 105) that navigate and manage a centralized control unit that disperses
physical and infonnational aspectsof the Statemilitary machine:
[ ] other self-sustaining feedback loops were establishedbetween the
...
emerging military and industrial complexes [ ...] as armies became
instruments of the State, they helped to bring internal cohesion and
order, which in turn produced a marked increase in agricultural and
industrial production. This surplus of taxable wealth could then be
geometric thinking to the problem of maintaining a constant sweeping beam bearing on the enemy, a
"beam" of bullets in the case of fortifications, as well as a beam of radio waves in the case of the
dernaterializedwall' (Delanda, IVAIM, p.51).
'Of particular interest is the role RAND Corporation provided in the development of war games
in today's contemporaryarmory: 'In the latest RAND Corporation design the SAM and IVAN automata
simulate armageddonsin which politicians and diplomats (not to mention other humans) have been
taken out of the strategic decision-mak-ingloop' (Delanda, TVAIM,p. 168).
45cltis not enough to affirm that the war machine is external to the apparatus.It is necessaryto
reach the point of conceiving the war machine as itself a pure form of exteriority, whereas the State
apparatusconstitutes the form of interiority we habitually take as a model, or according to which we
are in the habit of thinking' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.354).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
106
tapped by the State to fuel the growth of its standing armies (ibid,
p.63).
Furthermore, the mutating history in TVai-in the Age of Intelligent Machines
delineatesthe weaponry developmentto only surrenderto the last human frontier. This
consistsof the US (hegemonic)deploymentof cybernetictechnology, namely, the C'I,
by the Pentagon.46Delanda only presents us with a telescopic component of the
machinic phylum, that being the conjugation that assists the sedentary State to
assimilate the 'subterranean' voyages of the nomad war machine. Delanda's thesis
rests on cybet-war as it is envisioned presently by the State military. Granted this is
an outcome, according to Delanda, of the State machinery having to recode nomadic
warriors from antiquity to the presentmodel of warfare (as a form of exteriority). Yet,
the ambitious text never quite graspsthe momentum behind the State's interminable
implement
innovate
to
voyage
and
continuously
modes of warfare. What is the molar
it
Is
to
not the 'infinite' spacesthat exist betweenthe
organization attempting combat?
transcendentmodel of empowermentand the image that it portrays? Is there not a gap,
a discontinuous repartition of blocks, with spacesbetween each one' (Deleuze
'See chapter2, 'Expertise', (Delanda, WAIM pp.167ff. 'Autonomous weaponsare only one of the
applications of AI announcedin a 1984 Pentagondocument entitled "Strategic Computing" [ ...] these
applicationssignal a new role for the military engineer:not only doeshe have to connectscienceto the
war machine, he also has to transfer the expertise of individual scientists to a "knowledge base," the
reservoir of know-how and heurisitics necessary for robotic warriors to reason like their human
counterparts' (p. 161). Delanda's engagementis restricted, as in the above passage,to decentralized
cyberwar, as forwarded by the Pentagon.However, what is at stake for a full analysis of the State war
machine is not so much what the US government is implementing as a means to combat netwar, but
rather, what methods are being exercisedby non-stateactorsthat push and launch methods for the State
to retain its image. This in turn pushes the State to develop highly researchedweaponry that will
perpetually sustain die cxteriority of the molar apparatus.In fact, the State: '[ ...] can only regulate
piecesthat revolve around it at distancefrom it and from each other. It is an astronomical construction.'
(Deleuze & Guattari, K, p.72). Tactics, such as decentralizing information to implanting viral devices
into the enemy's database,are at the core for the future of State cyberwar. As The Economist's latest
'Defense Technology' survey speculates:'If you cannotsubvert the enemy's information flow, you can
information war; destroying information systems
ested
of
perhapsdestroy it. This is another sug
mode
=9
with weapons of pure information, such as computer viruses. Again, information warfare seems to
provide impressive powers, allowing victory without a shot fired in anger' (10-16 June 1995).
Chapter HI: The Stratification of the World-Economy
107
& Guattari, K, p.72), that the State is eternally encountering,the nomadic-meshwork
intensities
following
is
'infinite'
By
the
that
that
the
crevice?
not addressing
structure
into
investigation
define
the relationship
the
our
ultimately
process of cyberwar,
between power Centers and peripheral zones remains incomplete:
Politics on the grand scale can never administer its molar segments
without also dealing with micro-injections or infiltrations that work in
its favor or present an obstacle to it; indeed, the larger the molar
aggregates,the greater the molecularization of the agenciesthey put
into play -(Deleuze& -Guattari,'A TP, p.204).
Netwar takes as its premisenon-stateactorssubverting the interior molar organization
how
demonstrates
Age
Intelligent
Machines
Delanda's
Mar
State.
the
in
the
the
of
of
in
bifurcating
that
turn
the
through
phylum,
systems
within
military complex emerges
leads to the presenthomogeneous(molar or industrial) State war machine. However,
to build on Delanda's text we need to diagram present models of netwai- that
from
Mongols
follow
the
to present
structures
nomadic-meshwork
comprehensively
day economic micro-warfare. Both aspects of the phylum are portrayed in this
diagram, for as Deleuze and Guattari state:
[ ] the phylum simultaneously has two different modes of liaison: it
...
is always connected to nomad space, whereas it conjugates with
sedentary space. On the side of the nomadic assemblagesand war
its
it
is
kind
gaps, detours, subterranean
of rhizome, with
a
machines,
On
holes,
the other side, the
traits,
etc.
openings,
passages,stems,
State
apparatuseseffect a capture of the
and
sedentary assemblages
into
form
traits
the
or a code, make the
expression
a
of
phylum, put
holes resonate together, plug the lines of flight, subordinate the
technological operation to the work model, impose upon the
(Deleuze
&
conjunctions
connections a whole regime of arborescent
Guattari, ATP, p.415).
Tracing the machinic phylum's pi-obe head through antisystemic movements of
flows
insofar,
State,
the
defines
the
the
are
of
propellers
as
rhizomatic
resistance
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
108
commodity production that slip through recoding." Cyberwar is the totality of the
molar organization combating netwar. Netwar is the inevitable processthat subverts
the apparatus of control. This links us back to the discussion surrounding the
economy, and the model neo-classical economistshave provided for answering the
"
question of equilibrium. By placing a systemic (molar) ratio of supply meeting
demand has led to fallacies governing the market process. By enclosing the
-,the--systemis
organization-within- a transcendentmechanismof vertical dominance,
relinquished to narrativesthat harbour all flows within a systemic model of operation.
Braudel has already mapped the development of the 'anti-market' by giving an
account of how the process of military technology utilized by nomadic-meshwork
structuresconvergedin the micro-economic sphere.Delanda's analysis only provides
an account of how the 'anti-market' economy and the military warfare process
intersected.The role of totalities, as representedby Delanda's discussion,of the State
compartmentalizingmolecular aggregateswithin the compoundsof a molar synthesis,
asks finally, how is the State to be defined if all that is portrayed is the molar
organization of the State military as it attemptsto recode gaps and fissures within its
49
apparatuS? Jfat- in the Age of Intelligent Machines engages in the molar
configuration of the State apparatus,and yet by-passessubversivenetwars that define
'See Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.217ff.
'Refer to chapter I.
"Modem technology, such as radar and radio communications,is skillfully explained within the
context of tracing die historical intensities that led to bifurcations within the machinic phylum:
'Computerized radar, for example, is best understoodby placing it in die context of the history of
defensetechnology, going back at least to the Middle Ages. In this context, the electromagneticcurtains
of radar may be seen as a modern-day mutation of the old fortress walls of earth and stone' (Delanda,
WAIM, p.5). However, the elements involved for such bifurcations are only observed from the State
apparatus,and overlook precisely what is neededto understand why the sedentary nation needs to
appropriate the war machine. Nomadic meshworks are the clue as to why the State comes about in a
single stroke, and begins the obsessivejourney to recode all flows through transcendence.
Chapter HI: The Stratification of the World-Economy
109
what the State continuously is preparing for, namely, antisysternic movements of
"
resistance. Without engaging in a heterogeneous,molecular systemthat presentsthe
Statewith its image of totality, namely, 'stems, opening, traits', Delanda's discussion
presents the sedentary organization as the only totality that converges with the
nomadic war image.
We believe only in totalities that are peripheral. And if we discover
such a totality alongside various separateparts, it is a whole of these
parts-but-doesnot totalize them;'it is-a unity of all -of these-particular-,
parts but does not unify them; rather, it is addedto them as a new part
fabricated separately(Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.42).
As with the Mongols' example,military dispersionthrough non-linear communications
aided the recod.ing of large sectorsof territory. The 'Mongol military praxis' contested
traditional models of warfare with highly charged sequencesof non-linear, selforganizing attacks that left the enemy helplessto defend itself. Delanda's logistics are
different
from
the
strata levels of the machinic phylum, for example, stoneoperating
made weapons to the human factor being corroded out of the loop by advanced
computertechnology. If the gulf separatingthe sedentaryorganization (cyberwar) and
nomadic-meshworkstructures(netwar) that bifurcate within the gaps and fissures the
former cannot recode or reaxiomatize, then the following questionsneed to be posed
to Delanda's exposition:
Could it be that it is at the moment the war machine ceasesto exist,
conqueredby the State, that it displays to the utmost its irreducibility,
'The following excerpt from A ThousandPlateaus situatesDelanda's text, by portraying the fmal
outcome of the State's consumption of the war machine: 'War, it must be said, is only the abominable
residue of the war machine, either afler it has allowed itself to be appropriatedby the State apparatus,
or even worse, has constructeditself a State apparatuscapableonly of destruction. When this happens,
the war machine no longer draws mutant lines of flight, but a pure, cold fine of abolition' (p.230). The
question of why the State desires to segment the war machine is not taken up by Delanda's
investigation.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
110
that it scatters into thinking, loving, dying, or creating machines that
have at their disposal vital or revolutionary powers capable of
challenging the conquering State? Is the war machine already
overtaken, condemned, appropriated as part of the same process
whereby it takes on new forms, undergoesa metamorphosis,affirms its
irreducibility and exteriority, and deploysthat milieu of pure exteriority
that the occidental. man of the State, or the occidental thinker,
continually reducesto somethingother than itselP (Deleuze& Guattari,
ATP, p.356).
Jfai- in the Age ofIntelligent Machines articulatesmodels of antisystemicmovements
_'By-di;ikrarfiffimg
through ndtWAr'.
of resistance-the-'nomadwAr maýchifie'appropriates
a model of totalized meshwork structuresproducedby the molar organization, that in
turn privileges the State's image of exteriority (cyberwar), allows Delanda to answer
the questions posed by Deleuze and Guattari in a limited manner. It is a distinction
betweenhigh-level, homogeneouscategoriesthat emulate or simulate patternsof lowlevel intensified insurgency. This is always a question of tracking the phylum head,
or the line of flight in Capitalism and Schizophrenia. By seeking levels of
simultaneousoppositions that appear on the same plane of the BwO would open up
5'
new possibilities of contact. However, Delanda only addressesone aspect of the
BwO, namely, the sedentaryspaceof the State.This placesnetwar to be 'condemned,
appropriatedas part of the sameprocess' that is envisionedas cyberwar. Netwar is the
determining elementportraying the State's battle against antisystemic movements.In
other words, the reader is left to surmise the functioning of the politico-military
complex (the State) that entwines with the economic socius. This is independent of
what the molar organization is attempting to thwart through its homogeneous
""Me
outside appears simultaneously in two directions: huge worldwide machines branched out
over the entire ecumenon at a given moment, which enjoy a large measure of autonomy in relation to
the States [ ] but also the local mechanisms of bands, margins, minorities, which continue to affmn
...
the rights of segmentary societies in opposition to the organs of State power' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p. 360).
Chapter 1111:
The Stratification of the World-Economy
recodings.
Coupled with infonnation technology, the revolution of integrating cyberwar
into the context of contemporarywarfare, or deterrence(postfascism'ý, has interlaced
both aspectsof the machinic phylum into two contesting oppositions. For on the one
hand:
the information revolution, in both its technological and nontechnological aspects,sets in motion forces that challenge the design
"
institutions.
disrupts
hierarchies
the
-around----of many
and
erodes
-It
which institutions are normally designed.It diffuses and redistributes
power, often to the benefit of what may be consideredweaker, smaller
actors. It crossesborders, and redraws [ ...] boundaries [ ...] It expands
the spatial and temporal horizons that actors should take into account
(Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 'CYC').
On the other hand, netwar applies to the dissemination of the tactics incorporated in
decode
deterritorialize
the molar organization of striated space, that
to
or
cyberwar
hinders movement on the BwO. Furthermore, netwar's close proximity to the nomad
war machine presents a convergence,in contemporary terms, of a technologically
advancedcommunication lattice, and micro-economic systemsthat by-passmodels of
interaction within the State apparatus.Netwars are: '[ ] societal struggles most often
...
associatedwith low intensity conflict by non-state actors. Netwar representsa new
entry on the spectrum of conflict that spanseconomic, political, and social, as well as
"This is an interesting term found towards the end of '1227: Treatise on Nomadology-Ibe War
Machine', A ThousandPlateaus. Postfascismis a term, in my opinion, to designatethe current role of
cyberwar in the worldwide war machine. As Deleuze and Guattari state,postfascismis a war machine
that: '[ ...] takes peace as its object directly [ ...] The war machine reforms a smooth space that now
claims to control, to surround the entire earth. Total war itself is surpassed,toward a form of peace
more terrifying still' (ATP, p.421). The parallel between cyberwar and postfascism is precisely in the
ability for the dominant, molar organization to wipe out any threats that may impede its hegemonic
position. And, yet, no shot is fired! The terrifying deterrentthrough which peaceis sustained(see The
Economist, 'Defense Technology' survey, 10-16 June 1995).
'Of particular interest in this context would be the molar State.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
112
"
forms
is
(ibid).
"war"'
This
type
of
engagement
a nomadic-meshwork
military
of
structure that eliminates the need for striated zones produced by the State apparatus.
Coupled with smooth space, netwar tunes into gaps which the molar configuration
fails to absorbin the overhauling of recOding.By intersectingon smooth space,netwar
is a function of the nomad war machine through the generation of thrust that
engendersmultiplicities instead of homogeneousattributes. Multiplicities are base
interconnections-that by-pass all territorialities--of the State, and tlfcF-fecddirfg§t1fat.
futural
devised
Netwars
to
the
were
sustain power.
are
aspect of the nomad war
machine, since opposition is not directed towards a recoded passage,but rather the
decoding of the capitalist, world market, or the de-axiomatization of the 'anti-market'.
Netwar interactions are nomadic-meshworkstructures that resist recoding, since the
elementsthat intertwine are not transcendent.To trace netwar in relation to the nomad
war machine, it is important to bear in mind that the latter, or 'primitive', war
lineal,
State.
is
distinct
from
tenitorial
the
the
of
segmentation
machine's composition
Ratherthe convergencewith numerical, decentredintensitiesfacilitate a de-hierarchical
formula for movement.In other words, rhizomatic assemblagescoalescethe rhythmic
movement of flows, thereby surpassingthe molar model of transcendence;in turn, the
harbour
horizontal
that
of
plane
synergetics
encompasses
a
primitive war machine
immanenceas the thrust of multiplicity, allowing for a fusion betweenheterogeneous,
"
is
Netwar
the abstract axiomatization that pushes the molar
meshwork elements.
'This working definition correspondsto Wallerstein's discussion of 'antisystemic movements of
resistance'; a form of warfare not based on traditional State conceptions of logistics, but rather,
economic and political liquidations of the molar segmentation.
"The usageof 'primitive' is designedto designatea distinction betweenwhat Delcuze and Guattari
term the nomad war machine, and what this chapterhas shown in light of modem technology (netwar).
Granted,the two terms are interchangeable,but the slight differentiations between modem technology,
for instance, bridging vast distances of space into an instant, electronic communication, and the
Chapter III: The Stratification of the World-Economy
113
apparatus to continuously expand. This soaks up the spillages resulting from
"
by
deterritorializing
labour
further.
As witnessed
minoritarian assemblages
naked
by the nomad war machine, the State's signification of exteriority needsto be further
internalized by pushing forth a reterritorialized image of itself" The importance of
following Biblical-exodus narrative Deleuze and Guattari provide, need to be separated:
leaving
the Egyptian Statebehind, launching into the desert,he [Moses] begins by forming a war machine, on
the inspiration,of the old past of the-nomadic Hebrews [ ] This -is the-machine,of the Just, -already a
..
war machine, but one that does not yet have war as it object' (Deleuze & Guattari, A TP, p.417). Not
only distanceis at stake in netwar, but the force of by-passing the molar organization globally, as the
capitalist economicspherecontinuously expands,is the core of what schizoplu-eniais dispersingthrough
absolute decoding. The level of intensity as pure speedis the only demarcationof netwar, as opposed
to the above reported excerpt that relies on a relative deterritorialization through an exodus of a mass.
Schizophrenia pervades the entire social field through absolute deterritorialization. Obviously, the
similarities still preside over the two forms of the nomad war machine: for example,not integrating the
war machine as a model for absolutewar, and not needing an image by which to recode a transcendent
cxteriority.
'For example, the present 'anarcho-capitalism' developing in China's special economic zones
presentsus with a vivid account of a molar apparatusproducing a 'State-capitalist' system, while on
the other hand, the absolute limit teases out its inhibitions by placing labour as the most
dcterritorialized; insofar as it is: 'without foundation or meaning, it neurotically succumbsto a process
which deprives working people of knowledge [ ...] deterritorialized production signifies that work and
life are no Ionger separate;society is collapsed into the logic and processesof capitalist development'
(Guattari & Negri, CLU, pp.21 & 22). To briefly quote some data gathered from the SEZ regarding
working conditions should enlighten the predicament of China's economy, as not only being at the
forefront in export and foreign investment, but should also exemplify the deterritorializing force that
is accumulatingin the employmentsector: '[ ] no less an authority than BusinessWeekreports that the
...
12,000 workers of a Shokou assembly operation of Kadar Enterprises Ltd-, Hong Kong's largest toy
maker, typically work 14-hour days-often sevendays a week-for wages aroundUS$21 a month. Most
of these employees are women from 17 to 25 years of age. They sleep six to a room in company
dormitories (and) [ ] Chinese investigators found that in 40 out of 200 businessesinvestigated in
..
Shenzhenemployed girls as young as ten and twelve years old, who worked 15-hour days for $10 a
month [ ...] (Smith, 'CRC', p.95). The mechanismsoperatingin China's labour force incorporateMarx's
vision as the future of labour, a work force that is naked and independent and yet, harbours no
regulatory power allowing access to a better work reformation. Coupled with the instruments of
technology in the factories, the labour power employed to maintain the high threshold of production
succumbs to its own degeneration; insofar as China's position on the summit of economic
deterritorialization dependson deregulating its work force. 'It is the flow of naked labour that makes
the people, just as it is the flow of Capital that makes the land and its industrial base.It is in the form
of the nation-state,with all its possible variations, that the state becomesthe model of realization for
the capitalist axiomatic' (Dclcuze & Guattari, ATP, p.456).
"'Ile State-form, as a form of interiority, has a tendency to reproduce itself, remaining identical
to itself acrossits variations and easily recognizablewithin the limits of its poles, always seekingpublic
recognition (there is no masked State). But the war machine's form of exteriority is such that it exists
only in its own metamorphoses;it exists in an industrial innovation as well as in a technological
invention, in a commercial circuit as well as in a religious creation, in all flows and currents that only
secondarily allow themselvesto be appropriatedby the State' (Dclcuze & Guattari, ATP, p.360).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
114
the 'anti-market' is to portray the element of.
[ ] packs, bands, (that) are groups of the rhizome type, as opposedto
...
the arborescenttype that centers around organs of power (Deleuze &
Guattari, ATP, p.358).
V
'One does not represent, one engendersand traverses' (Deleuze &
Guattari, ATP, p.364).
On the one side labour time, on the other circulation time. And the
whole of the movement-appearsas unity-as labour time -and-circulation--time, of production and circulation. This unity itself is motion, process.
Capital appearsas this unity-in-process of production and circulation,
a unity which can be regardedboth as the totality of the processof its
production, as well as the specific completion of one turnover of the
capital, one movement returning into itself (Marx, G, p.620).
The commodification of labour, or the plane of absolute deterritorialization,
convergenceswith a highly abstract process engulfed within the confines of the
capitalist 'anti-market'. The nomad war machine is the first to be appropriated
systemically into a striated zone of labour-time, in turn, assuringsurplus labour to be
fed back into the reproduction of capitalist expansion. Of course, the State had to
appropriatethe nomad machine first, otherwise, how could it evolve its over-arching
and repressive legislative transcendence.The limitations of Mar in the Age of
Intelligent Machines are apparent in the primary conquest of the nomad-meshwork
organization, since the birth of the State military, as well as the economic cantimarket', is from coding intensities" to serve the State model. The State apparatus
"An intensity, for example,is not composedof addableand displaceablemagnitudes:a temperature
is not the sum of two smaller temperatures,a speedis not the sum of two smaller speeds.Since each
intensity is itself a difference, it divides according to an order in which eachterm of the division differs
in nature from the others' (DeIeuze& Guattari, A TP, p.483). Intensive magnitude is differentiated from
an extensive quantity, a number that is revealed by successiveaddition. Magnitude is an irreducible
intrinsic whole; a whole as a deviation from zero degree.This study designatesintensities that traverse
the various stratified domains of the world-economy. Intensities function as machinic tags, remaining
elastically connected to singular names. By designating an intensity, we are indicating a
deterritorialization with a complementaryreterritorialization, a mapping of the strata, as opposedto a
Chapter III: The Stratification of the World-Economy
115
desiring-production
in
recodes
order to assurehomogeneity and striation on the BwO.
The cutting and dividing of labour results in severing locality for infinite distance, as
the means to implement control. To sustain the amount of least contact between
nomad localities, the.molar organ tightens and constricts the BwO, thereby
J
flows within particular conduits via models of realization." By continually weaving
and interconnecting all levels of interaction, the State subordinatesthe nomad war
machine-into domestication.,-'In striated space, lines Or trajectbfieý 'tehd-'tci' b6
subordinatedto points: one goes from one point to another. In the smooth, it is the
opposite: the points are subordinated to the trajectory' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.478).
tracing. To be in contact with this territory is necessary, since intensities operate outside the realm of
signification, a double pincer or the judgement of God. The boundary formations that constitute the
dimension of movement, is an invention of the strata demarcating vertical structures of confinement.
This study also maps a trajectory of difference by plotting a line of escape. The importance of
difference fies in the featureless, arithmetic units that assemble packs into multiplicities. The movement
of territorialization and deterritorialization is irreducible to absolute code-a capturing by the superstratum. (The super-stratum is never subject to processes of coding and territorialization-it
arrives in
a single stroke. Ile super-stratum is composed of a complementary action of reterritorialization. and
recoding-a (re)capturing of intensive breaks, splits and spillages). Furthermore, the singularity that is
distributed is never completely exhausted by any inscribing system. The vector that is functioning is
a continuity of the nomad war machine in Capitalisni and Schizophrenia. The pragmatics lie in the
molecular dimension that is not metrically overcoded by the super-stratum. In other words, molecular
becoming presents us with a terrain of distribution that is not segmented, divided or partitioned through
for
distribution
is
It
the
the
of multiplicities to take place. Whether this
capacity
centre.
a power
potential for an immanent trajectory is reterritorialized through the apparatus of overcoding-a
centralized cartography of space--it nevertheless allocates a resource for smooth space, a mutant flow
of desire. However, by juxtaposing elements that prolong and capture a decoding of the strata, the
trajectory proceeds by deterritorialization and reterritorialization. This is not to suggest that this study
is an insulated project of desire, rather, it presents the potentiality for stimulating the strata into zones
of becoming: a vector transforming striated grids of molarization into a smooth space of heterogeneity.
Chapter IV specifically deals with these issues.
"Refer to DcIeuze & Guattari, ATP, regarding striated homogeneity: 'The more regular the
intersection, the tighter the striation, the more homogeneousthe space tends to become; it is for this
reasonthat from the beginning homogeneity did not seemto us to be a characteristic of smooth space,
but on the contrary, the extremeresult of striation, or the limit-form of a spacestriated every where and
in all directions' (p.488).
The centre of gravity of world commerce, Italy in the Middle Ages, England in
[
]
half
American
Thanks
North
to
the
the
times,
peninsula
now
southern
of
modem
...
California gold and the tireless energy of the Yankees, both coasts of the Pacific
Ocean will soon be as populous, as open to trade and as industrialized as the coast
from Boston to New Orleans is now. And then the Pacific Ocean will have the same
in
in
had
Middle
has
Mediterranean
Atlantic
the
the
the
and
antiquity
now and
role as
Ages-that of the great water highway of world commerce; and the Atlantic will
decline to the status of an inland sea [...]
Marx and Engels
California sits on the cusp of an epochal change in the geography of capitalism in
which its place is no longer secure.
Richard Walker, 'California RagesAgainst the Dying of the Light'
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
119
1
The strata are continually being shakenby phenomenaof cracking and
rupture [ ...] everywhere there arise simultaneous accelerations and
blockages, comparative speeds, differences in deterritorialization
creating relative fields of reterritorialization (Deleuze& Guattari, ATP,
p.55).
This societywhich eliminatesgeographicaldistancereproducesdistance
internally as spectacularseparation(Debord, SS, §167).
This chaptercritically appropriatesthe collaborative philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and
Mix
Guattari to argue that the general tendency of capitalism is towards the
disintegration of high-level, reterritorialized control structures(for instance,the nationstate).I argue further that this disintegration doesnot entail a movementtowards total
chaos or anarchy. I suggestthat capital generatesits own guidance mechanisms,but
flexibly
low-level,
deterritorialized
to changing
that
and
respond
ones
act at a
conditions. This project is made problematic because the canon of philosophical
discourse itself operatesas a high-level control structure. In Marx, the development
of capital is controlled by a secularizedHegelian dialectic that determinesthe outcome
of capital in socialism. Deleuze and Guattari specifically addressthe need for new
in
instruments
Marx
to
critiques
of
understand
capitalism,
and
produce
philosophical
their central text, Capitalism and Schizophrenia (volume 1). 1 defend Deleuze and
Guattari's suggestionthat traditional socialist politics fails to addressthe difficulties
in
in
AntiSituated
1968
France,
by
the
post-May
uprising
capitalism.
modem
posed
Oedipus was an attempt to combat the established regimes of thought that had
continuously reduced politics to a high-level control (a fascism). Tactics, such as
'speaking for the people', rigidified politics into molar oppositions betweenparticular
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
120
contents of control! Capitalism and Schizophreniamoved beyond this stalemateby
navigating through the formation of capitalism and how its impact in politics aided
reterritofialized mechanismsof repression(the State apparatusrecoding, or marking,
by placing a serniotic value on forms of discourse).The end result is a philosophy of
desire outside the established domain of discourse. By abrogating presupposed
structures (for example, the unconsciousbeing a theatre of representation),Deleuze
And*Guattari-endeavourto elucidate'a'schizoanalysis:a project'that "Affikms'processes
of multiplicity. Without being subjectedto molar constructions(political affiliations),
multiplicity fractures divisions by allowing a fusion within the immanence of late
2
capital. Reminiscent of Spinoza and Nietzsche, multiplicity and immanenceward off
'In particular,the conversation
betweenDelcuzeandFoueault on the role of intellectuals
and
(power)
is
'This
thispoint:
politics
exemplifies
a struggleagainst
power,a struggleaimedatrevealing
It is notto "awakenconsciousness"
andundermining
powerwhereit is mostinvisibleandinsidious.
thatwe struggle[...] butto sappower,to takepower;it is anactivityconducted
thosewho
alongside
'11",p.208).
strugglefor power[...IA "theory"is theregionalsystemof thisstruggle'(Foucault,
'Granted Deleuze and Guattari are careful about late capital's role in liberating flows that intersect
on the body without organs. Of particular interest in this context is the role the State plays in its
securing of homogeneity. This, of course, is placed in Anti-Oedipus as the State's 'antiproduction'.
('Antiproduction' can be seenin the State's manifestationof the New Deal, as diagnosedin chapter 1).
As they explain: 'The State, its police, and its army form a gigantic enterprise of antiproduction, but
at the heart of production itself, and conditioning this production. Here we discover a new determination
of the properly capitalist field of immanence:not only the interplay of the relations and differential
coefficients of decoded flows, not only the nature of the limits that capitalism reproduceson an ever
wider scale as interior limits, but the presenceof antiproduction within production itself' (A0, p.235).
Capitalism (or Braudel's 'anti-market') is production/circulation in accordancewith the requirements
ofprofit; therefore,capitalismmust function by exclusion ofnon-profit making enterprises,for example,
it must operateby meansof an efficient and rigorous form of control. We have seenDelanda's attempt
to diagnose such developmentsto ascertainthe role the State played in the build-up of the politicomilitary State (see Delanda, IVAIM. And Massumi presents us with capital's fragmentation within
economic zones: '[ ..] it has not usheredin an age of universal wealth and well-being and never will.
All it can do is displace its own limits. The Emits of capitalism used to be external boundariesfalling
between its formation and non- or precapitalist ones:between molarity and molecularity, the capitalist
classand the proletariat, the "First World" and the "Third World, " resourcedepletion and technological
progress' (UG, p. 137). This chapter will show the repressivemechanismsof capitalist development
through Braudel and Deleuze and Guattari, but will offer insights into new models of interaction
(nomadic-meshwork,structures)that allow for possibilities to arise within the axiomatized abstraction
resulting from the 'anti-market'. This in turn pushesthe system to bifurcate into other combinations,
whereby Third world peripheral zones can realign themselvesonto subversive activities in the Centre.
'And the Statesof the center deal not only with the Third World, each of them has not only an external
Third World, but there are internal Third Worlds that rise up within them and work them from the
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
121
edifices, such as the apparatusof capture.
This chapter has two themes that intertwine between the molecular and the
molar. On the one hand, a molecular approach to the dynamics of self-organizing
it
State,
is
is
the
the
the
as
other,
molar analysis of
systems explicated, while on
mediates intensities through a centralized agency that perpetually strives to solidify
flows that continually exposethemselveson the body without organs. The rupturing'
diagrams-the-attempt by molar --apparatusesof control to- mandate'movements by
drives.
However
deterritorializations'
much the
such
coding
all
and
capturing relative
State strives to implement blockages, there is always a movement to the edge, an
initiate
intensities
fragmenting
by
itself
form
to
to
codes
new alliances
over-spilling of
to traverse on the body without organs. 'One travels by intensity; displacementsand
deterritorialization
intensive
depend
figures
thresholds
of
nomadic
on
spatial
these deterritorializations:
Yet,
simultaneously define complementary, sedentary
ATP,
(Deleuze
&
Guattari,
p.54), that are always producing
reterritorializations'
is
formation
through
the
stratification
of
capital,
with
and
capture;
apparatusesof
'
function
through the mode of coding, aswas
The
cannot
capitalist process
axiomatics.
'
its
disjunctive
Being
in
the
result, capitalism
offspring,
synthesis.
evident the molar
in
feed
to
problems without
the
of
axiomatics
quantitative element
utilizes
inside. It could even be said in certain respects that the periphery and the center exchange
determinations:a deterritorialization of the center, a decoding of the center in relation to national and
territorial aggregates,causethe peripheral formation to become true centers of investments,while the
&
Guattari,
ATP,
468-469).
(Deleuze
formations
pp.
peripheralize'
central
3See Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.55.
'This is contrastedto absolute deterritorialization.
-'SeeDeleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.57.
'See Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.252.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
122
presupposinga predefined solution. This eliminates the hierarchy of the despot; in
other words, capital collapses the structure of predefined solutions to problems that
navigated the gulf in despotism.
The fluidity by which the capitalist process operatesis not controlled from a
molar agency,or institution; rather the internal mechanismsare continuously behaving
to regeneratethemselves.' As was depictedwith the functioning of the body without
organs,with its couplings of repulsive and attractive flows forming a,basigfrom-which
the machinic phylum is directed, the samemechanismsguide capital in its voyage to
exert itself into the realm of schizophrenia.In other words, capital is an extremely
responsive system that continually readjusts to varying stimuli, not only from
economic bursts or perplexities within the State apparatusof capture, but also from
in
barriers.
incentives
As
John
Holland
or
global scale
states 'The Global Economy
ý'
Adaptive
Process',
capitalism is continually reinforced by niches that are
as an
perpetually arising from new technological advances,that in turn, aid and assist the
development of the market. However, such growth is not always on a rising curve,
since adaptation for the system is always on the verge of overspilling that could lead
to catastrophe.'Niches are continually createdby new technologies and the very act
of filling a niche provides new niches [ ...] Becausethe niches are various, and new
from
far
(or
the
economy
operates
optimum
created,
global
are
continually
niches
improvements
indeed,
in
Said
way,
are
always
possible
and,
occur
attractor).
another
7See,for example,Deleuze & Guattari, A TP, p.453: '[ I capitalism forms with a general axioniatic
...
of decodedfloivs. A new direshold of deterritorialization'.
"The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself. It is that capital and its self-expansion
appear as the starting point and the closing point [ ...I' (Marx, CHI, p.245).
9See The Economy as an Evolving Complex System, ed- Phifip Anderson, el aL
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
123
regularly' (Holland, 'GEAT, pp.117-118).For instance,such advancesthat have led
to the destratification of enclosedspacehave been due to multinationals since World
War H." This acceleratedprocesshas abolishedterritorial localities, identity, or origin
of products and services. Coupled with the inversion of the labour force further aids
the necessarytransformations for capital to continually reabsorbitself to expansion."
Probing further into non-linear adaptive systems, attractors,allure commodities to
commingle into -adaptive strategies for survival. The profit margin'increment is
conditional upon the 'right' attractors that will accessthe necessarybifurcations. As
Delanda suggests,the economy has traditionally been viewed as a linear tracking
model, composing a supply meeting demand.This passageto a state of equilibrium
is essentiallyflawed, since the pre-conditionsto necessitatesuch a systemwould entail
having a perfect competitive model among all those participating, and the ability to
access all information governing the conditions of the market, so that one can
'oMultinationals envelopea veneer on smooth spacein order to deregulatethe State apparatusthat
once had a recoding processin striated space: "Me multinationals fabricate a kind of deterritorialized
smooth spacein which points of occupation as well as pole of exchangebecome quite independentof
the classical paths to striation' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.492). Moreover, the development and
implementation of technology into our modem arenadeterritorializes naked labour further. Executing
the use of technology allows capitalism to function on a 'generalized decoding of flows', as 'the new
massivedeterritorialization', for technology is the cavity betweencapitalism and schizophrenia.In other
words, the technological revolution that has taken place since World War 11,has aided an overhauling
of the basic mechanismsof production: 'The human being is no longer a component of the machine
but a worker, a user [ ] subjected to the machine and no longer enslavedby the machine' (Deleuze
...
& Guattari, ATP, p.457).
"Deleuze and Guattari posit two reasons:'[ ] labor appearsonly with the constitution of a surplus,
...
there is no labor that is not devoted to stockpiling [and] [ ] labor performs a generalizedoperation of
..
striation of space-time,a subjection of free action, a nullification of smooth spaces[ ...]' (Deleuze &
Guattari, ATP, pp.490-491). In order to incorporateand integrate flows of exchangeon the global scale,
the work force needs to become abstracted from any constraints that hinder production. Being
componentsof the machine, labour, as Marx notes, is: '[ ..] not only the category, labour, but labour
in reality has becomethe means of creating wealth in general, and has ceasedto be organically linked
with particular individuals in any specific form [ ...I The category 'labour', 'labour as such' labour pure
and simple, becomestrue in practice' (Marx, G, pp.104-105).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
124
"
fullest
in
to
the
maximize
gain. Since the market does not operatein such a manner,
a molecular approach dehierarchizes institutional momentum that has traditionally
viewed economicsas instigating a linear courseto optimize the highest accumulation.
By localizing planesof immanence,self-organizingsystemsintegrateflows to amplify
conditions surrounding the emergence.As Delanda argues, this process does not
guaranteea surplus to be reintegratedback into the system for the following:
[.-.] presenceof nonlinear effects [ ] in investment:and-finance,to the ...
multiplicity of delays, bottlenecks, surplusesand shortagesstemming
from the limited rationality of economic agents-means that real
markets must be able to cope with life far from equilibrium, and
indeed, to create special buffering structures [ ] for this purpose. In
...
short, to the extent that markets emerge and operate spontaneously,
they are incapable of achieving optimal equilibria on their own
(Delanda, 'NOL', p. 157).
Delanda continues in the same fashion by concluding that: 'Other kinds of human
organizations,on the other hand-the State, sedentaryarmies, large corporations-are
more capable of goal-directed optimization [ ...I' (ibid). Delanda places too much
emphasison this structural analysis.The counter-argumentto this position would stem
from allocating multinational corporations as the new State legislating axioms to
maintain a curve on self-organizing systems.Such measuresare in the form of labour
laws, commodity exchanges,and the reinvestment of surplus derived from the first
two. With the advent of corporations permeating their flexible capital, the only
blockage to a self-organizing system would be the State. Granted, corporations
themselvesare hierarchical, model systems,but that does not necessarily imply that
a cluster of companiescannot produce a self-organized propellant that excels in the
world economy. The discussion of the emergent effect coincides within this
12See Delanda, 'NOL', p. 156.
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
125
framework. The emergenteffeCt13that was discussedin relation to the body without
organs is essential to the discussion on economic attractors. As Delanda's 'Virtual
Environments and the Emergence of Synthetic Reason' expounds upon stabilizing
attractors, the emergent effect is a localized property of the population taken as a
whole, and: '[ ...] not displayed by its individual membersin isolation'. This property
14
to
pertains any population group, but for the purposes of this chapter, it will be
restrictedto the abovediscussion.Emergentproperties are spontaneous-developments,
that when 'isolated' or 'destined' to a bifurcation, move to a particular point attractor
that stabilizes the system. Any corporation that is not being inhibited by State
intervention will bifurcate to produce as much surplus as possible, to only be
is
into
In
that
the
words,
structure
not
other
a corporate
system again.
reinvested
in
imposed
by
by
State,
the
attractors
order
will saturatepositive
solidified
sanctions
to producethe most prosperousmeansfor it to generateitself again. 'Only dissipative,
nonlinear systems generate the full spectrum of dynamical forms of stabilization
(attractors) and of diversification (bifurcations)' (ibid).
Moreover, these emergent effects traced on a molar axis have been depicted
in phase space. Through the use of modem computerized screening, images of
emergence on the molecular scale have spontaneously materialized to produce a
coagulation of attraction. 'Today, emergent properties are perfectly legitimate
dynamical outcomesfor populations stabilizedby attractors.A population of molecules
in certain chemical reactions, for instance,can suddenly and spontaneouslybegin to
pulsate in perfect synchrony, constituting a veritable "chemical clock". A population
"or, emerkentproperties.
14
For example, cells, animals and humans.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
126
of insects(termites,for instance)can spontaneouslybecomea "nest-building machine",
when their activities are stabilized nonlinearly' (Delanda, 'VEESR'). The above
excerpt posits the economy as not functioning by a mediating, or transcendentparty,
but rather as an adaptive non-linear network. Coupled with the appearanceof niches
to fuse multiplicities within the economy, adaptive non-linear networks are the
'building blocks' that are: '[ ] recombined and revised continually as the system
...
system adapts' (Holland, 'GEAT, p. 1-17).,--,
accurnulates'experienceý-the
---
As Delanda suggests, 'we' need to search and tap into the Earth's 'probe
heads', a project set up by Deleuze and Guattari in A ThousandPlateaus, to map:
the attractors that define our local destinies and the bifurcations that could allow us
to modify thesedestinies' (Delanda, 'NOL', p. 161)". This suggestionleadsus to posit
that there should be a 'policy' allowing self-organizationwithin the economic market,
lurk
in
least,
be
the
there
should
a
mediator
negotiation,
or
at
must
always
yet
by
it
'right'
the
that
the
to
which
attractor
can
attains
process
ensure
shadows
bifurcate. Such arbitrations would in theory allow capital to sway from the
capocalyptic' vision of schizophrenia in Anti-Oedipus, but such a circumventing
idea
is.
distorts
the
what
capital
very
of
manoeuver
Capital can be given an image-in fact, it must have one in order to
is
[
]a
body
it
is
imageless
It
without
organs
a
as
such.
act-but
...
is
immediately
of
which
relations,
a
selection
network of virtual
level,
wherever one of capitalism's working
actualized at ground
images (organs) goes. These imagesare convergences(componentsof
passage)(Massumi, UG, p. 129).
Capital and its functioning are one and the same mechanism. As with the body
"Furthermore, Delanda also discusseshis ecological argument in order to 'save' the earth from
destruction: '[ ] from the hints of the machinic phylum that have recently become visible to us [ ...I
...
seem to indicate there may be ways of evading our currently doomed environmental destiny' (ibid,
p. 161).
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisysternic Movements of Resistance
127
without organs,capitalism's miraculating conversioninverts a production for a relative
itself
in
fixed
(Deleuze
]
'[
the
as
capital'
machine
surplus value: ... while embodying
& Guattari, AO, p. 10). 'Capital is indeed the body without organs of the capitalist, or
has
being'
(ibid).
The
the
of
consisted of
maturation
capital
rather of
capitalist
formatted
thus
a
within
allowing
a point attractor,
particular multiplicities stabilizing
body
Capital:
the
through
the
to
without
organs.
of
oscillations
process subsist
produces-surplus-value, just as the body without organs reproducesitself, -puts forth
(ibid).
farthest
branches
to
the
the
universe'
out
comers
of
shoots, and
Meshwork elementsare found in the mixture of the two formations, namely,
the molar and the molecular, in their intricate couplings that determine the 'destiny'
filtering
hydraulic
forces
integrate
Meshworks
the
the
of
system
as
a
of
system.
merging on the grid of striation. Braudel's geohistory representsspecific switchesthat
bifurcated from one stable element to anotherto form the developmentof capitalism.
By tracing the historical processes,Braudel examines particular attractors16that in
turn determine the outcome of capitalism. 'Bifurcations are featuresof any system in
interactions
is,
in
dynamics
that
there
the
which
are
strong
are non-linear,
which
between variables' (Delanda, 'MAM).
By employing complexity theory to the
formation of the market, Braudel engagesin the same movement that Deleuze and
Guattari implement in their distinction of the molar and the molecular.
The singularities (or abstract machines) bifurcating at certain indeterminate
thresholds organize on the body without organs,pushing the system to self-organize.
The molecular waves force sub-particles to coagulate and immerse themselvesinto
order, since at:
16Attractorsareflows that continuously configure the system as a permutation, a multiplicity.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
128
[ ] at the edgeof order and chaos[thesecomponents] [ ] never quite
...
...
lock into place, yet never quite dissolve into turbulence, either. These
information,
both
the
that
to
are
systems
stable enough store
and
are
yet evanescentenoughto transmit it. Theseare the systemsthat can be
organized to perform complex computations,to react to the world, to
be spontaneous,adaptive, and alive [ ] (Waldrop, C, p.293; cited in
...
Plant, 'The Virtual Complexity of Culture', p.9).
Emergent properties 17are vital to the understanding of complex systems, since they
materialize without the intervention of a centrally governed apparatusthat controls the
been
in-synthetic'Al
Ernergent
properties'have
simulated
outcome:
programming.'and
are currently being investigated for their role in non-linear economic dynamics. As
Delanda remarks:
[...] before the 1960's it was virtually impossible to imagine the
emergenceof order without a central agency behind it, today we are
familiar with a growing body of knowledge about the spontaneous
generationof order structuresin inorganic as well as organic (and even
social) processes(Delanda, 'HMH').
As with the body without organs,emergentproperties are in a switching relay
in direct proximity. The body without organs is a massive conveyor between the
paranoiac machine (repulsive)" and the miraculating machine (attractor) that
continuously configures the intensity" as a permutation, a multiplicity permitted by
the system. Emergent properties inscribe upon smooth spaceto 'destine' the system
into convergencewith other flows of intensity.20However, spaceis over-codedby an
for:
apparatus of capture,
the State needs to subordinate hydraulic force to
"Emergent properties are: '[ ] properties of die population as a whole, not displayed by its
...
individual membersin isolation' (Delanda, 'VEESR', p.7). As Us chapterwill demonstrate,geopolitical
movements are encompassedwithin the framework of synergistic properties.
"or repellors.
"'or organism.
"Intensity
is itself difference. '[ ] it divides according to an order in which each term of the
...
division differs in nature from others' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 483).
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
129
conduits, pipes, embankments, which prevent turbulence, which constrain movement
to go from one point to another, and space itself to be striated and measured, which
makes the fluid depend on the solid [ ...]' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.363). The
despot, with all its regimented apparatuses to code smooth space into segmented molar
operations, is processed into hierarchical tiers. The securing of fluidity into dams and
channels through a centralized agency devises a complete over-hauling of smooth
space into a governing socius.- The 'homogeneity of captured space is- -the-State
apparatusin conformity with what definesits: '[ ...] goals and paths,conduits, channels
[and] organs [ ]' (ibid, p.374)." These power centres are points whereby flows
...
interconnect and are converted into segments in the socius. They are molecular
converters engaged in exchanging impulses into solidified signs of capture." Even
though the socius is understood as a unity, there are several centres which resonate
through the chamberof the State. This in turn diffuses the centralized apparatusas the
focal point of intersection, for: 'The State in not a point taking all the others upon
itself, but a resonancechamber for them all' (ibid, p.224).
Each power center is also molecular and exercises its power on a
micrological fabric in which it exists only as diffuse, dispersed,geared
down, miniaturized, perpetually displaced,acting by fine segmentation,
23
in
detail
in
details
detail
(ibid,
224).
working
and
of
p.
The Stateapparatus'rigid segmentaritydisplays its lines of capturethrough the
abstract machine of overcoding, that produces binary circuitries of exchange and
"As Deleuze and Guattari state, it is an entire organon (ibid).
'See Dcleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.226.
'This is reminiscent of Foucault's notion of spacethat is: J ] capable of juxtaposing in a single
...
real place several spaces,several sites that are in themselvesincompatible [but] function in relation to
all the spacethat remains'.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
130
resonance.Furthermore, with the abstract machine's usage of axiomatics there are
biftircations and point attractors, but within the State apparatus there are only
assemblagesof. '[ ...] reterritorialization effectuating the overcoding machine with
given limits and under given conditions' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.223).
Increasingly the State becomesto identify itself with the abstract machine, thereby
into
further
a totalitarian machine. From the other perspective of the
solidifying
continuum is the -abstract-machine of mutation, that disperses:quAntum'-flows to
migrate to lines of flight, propelling diversity and assuringthe connection-creationof
floWS.
24
However, blockages and seals negotiated by the molar segments
(molecular)
flows
from
deterritorializing.
The
geopolitical
simultaneously cease
diagramming
lines:
'[
]
the
fransduction
translation
molar
and
movement serves as
by fissuresand cracks, and at other times lines of flight [ I drawn toward black holes,
...
flow connections [ I replaced by limitative conjunctions, and quanta emissions [...]
...
into
(ibid,
p.224).
center-points'
converted
11
To formulate a micropolitics within the Centre of the homogeneousState, it
is important to investigate antisystemic movements of resistance in contemporary
by
interactions;
and placing an urban spaceunder a microscope,the relationship
urban
between micropolitics and minoritarian becomings converges within a geopolitical
figure,
by
'minority
)
is
(L.
A.
Angeles
the
Los
the
as
universal
or
which
a
site
matrix.
becoming-everybody/everything'(Deleuze& Guattari, ATP, p.470) is generated.Why
Los Angeles? The concentrationlevelled at the current configuration of Los Angeles
has exemplified not only the economic turbulence of the west coast, but the
'See Dcleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.223.
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
131
devastatingconsequencesresulting from institutionalized power structuresengagedin
the monitoring of massesthat do not fit into the equation of the right wing.2' Los
Angeles is not only a paradigm caseof a peripheral zone in the Centre (state), but also
portrays the future trend for cities within the world-economy.
A global perspectivemay be useful. Los Angeles in 2019 will be the
core of a metro-galaxy of 22-24 million people in Southern and Baja
California. Together with Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, and
Shanghai[we would also include Shenzhen,in the Guangdongprovince
20--of China],- it will comprise anew evolutionary form: -mega-ncities-of
30 million inhabitants. It is important to emphasizethat we are not
familiar
larger
type, but an
talking
of
an
old,
merely
about
specimens
absolutely original, and unexpected,phyla of life (Davis, 'UC, p.20).
Geopolitics is the medium by which antisystemicmovementsor micropolitical
lines of flight subvert institutionalized modes of discourse. These molecular
approachesdecodesuch apparatusesof policy to circumvent regionally impoverished
economic sectors by sprouting emergent properties and realigning subversive activity
instance
is
This
the
of molecular movementschallenging
an
apex
of
capitalism.
onto
the current configuration of Third Worlds in relation to the Centre. These movements
in
by
diagramming
'ghettos'
be
'masses'
the core
the
that
populate
will
examined
in
Quartz:
Yhe
City
Mike
Davis
the
states
of
capitalist
world-economy;
as
zone of
'The specific genius of the Crips has been their ability to insert themselves into a
leading circuit of international trade. Through "crack" they have discovereda vocation
for the ghetto in L. A. 's new "world city" economy' (p.309). Molecular movementsare
the flows that define power structures in so far as leakagesand spillages tell a story
of the State's apparatusof capture:
[]
by
by
defined
them
more
what
escapes
or
much
power centersare
25The above sentence is paraphrased in chapter V in order to connect the context of Los Angeles
to this chapter.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
132
their impotence than by their zone of power. In short, the molecular,
or microeconomics,micropolitics, is defined not by the smallnessof its
elementsbut by the nature of its "mass"
something always escapes
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.217).
Antisystemic movementsof resistanceveer the systemor socius to bifurcate at certain
indeterminatethresholds,thereby supersedingestablishedcoding apparatusesinto new
be
development
'Urban
cannot
explained by the free will of single
combinations.
persons [ ...]' but is instead: '[ ...] the result of nonlinear interactions' (Mainzer,
TCCDM, p. 10; cited in Plant, 'The Virtual Complexity of Culture', p. 13) that specify
"
bifurcations.
Moreover, meshworksare becoming increasingly important to
regional
the role self-organizing systems have in determining the 'destiny' of the system.
Meshworks incorporatediverseelementsin specifying possibilities the systemis going
27
to take within a given milieu. This is contrastedto hierarchieswhose componentsare
16Mainzer's theoretical concept of non-linear, urban interaction needs to be taken with extreme
caution. In Thinking in Contpkxity, he suggeststhat the models incorporated into complex systems do
follow a meshwork framework-,but his optimism in synergetic flows does not allow for an objective
perspectiveon the actual birth and developmentof a city (seeMainzer, TCCDM, p.206fl). For instance,
the micro-fascism that interweaved into the birth of Los Angeles, portrays a molar display of
partitioning geographicalsectorsto certain race groups, as an attempt to sustain homogeneity.The city
consisted of a handful of individuals that demarcatedurban space to ensure Whites did not have to
associatewith minorities. To briefly quote somesourcesregarding the uniform evolution of Los Angeles
will clarify both perspectives: 'The emergenceof suburban Southern California as a 'metrosea' of
fragmented and insular local sovercignties-often depicted in urbanist literature as an 'accident' of
unplannedgrowth-was in fact the result of deliberateshaping' (Davis, CQ, p. 164). And: 'Contrary to
popular opinion, Los Angeles is a tightly plannedand plotted urban environment, especiallywith regard
to the social and spatial divisions of labour necessaryto sustain its pre-eminent industrialization and
consumerism' (Soja, PG, p.238). This chaptertakesas its premisethe homogeneity of Los Angeles, and
will examine meshwork-systemsinteracting with abstractcapitalism to obstruct the perpetuation of an
'insular' apparatusof capture.It is a decoding of an already ovcrcoded assemblageunder the guise of
the State.Since the State's role in overcoding processesis itself a liability in the world-wide axiomatic
of capitalism, meshwork-systems totalize on this subversive commodity exchange, and force social
interactions to bifurcate to heterogeneous'destinies'.
"All
milieus are territorially encompassedby vibratory rhythnis and chaos. Rhythm is the
intensity
between
heterogeneous
in-between
lattice
the
milieus,
and
coordinating
communicating
space-times'(ATP, p.313); while chaosis the dissipativeintruder within the system. (Both are elements
ofmeshwork-structures).Functioning in-betweenthesetwo intensities,milieus are the sievesintegrating
meshworkheterogeneityto repetition (or a coderepeating),a territorialization within a given space-time.
The concept of milieu is elaboratedextensively in '1837: Of the Refrain': 'Every milieu is vibratory
[ Ia block of space-timeconstitutedby the periodic repetition of the component [ ] [the notion of the]
...
...
milieu servesas the basis for another, or converselyis 'establishedatop another milieu, dissipatesin it
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
133
hinged by homogeneous sectors, while meshwork structures: '[ ] articulate
...
heterogeneouscomponents as such, without homogenizing' (Delanda, 'BNH').
By
fusing both molar hierarchiesand non-linear molecular systemsin the following pages,
will illuminate micropolitics, or economic-micro systems, as operating between a
reassertionof decoded space. These transmutationsverge on a bifurcation, thereby
forcing deterritorialization, with a complementary reterritorialization, by displacing
"
figures
intensive
spatial
on-thresholds:
The difference between macrohistory and microhistory has nothing to
do with the length of the durationsenvisioned,long or short, but rather
concernsdistinct systems of reference,depending on whether it is an
overcoded segmentedline that is under consideration or the mutant
quantum flow (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.221).
To understandthe function of micropolitics as a non-unified, non-hierarchial process,
it is first necessaryto dissectthe historical fragmentsthat led to such a diverse system
in
interaction.
However,
examining such a movement of the reterritorialization of
of
space,and the processof segmenting,placing barriers and obstacles,is:
entering
a labyrinth of micro-history-a dark chronicle of the tractlands' (Davis, CQ, p. 160) of
L. A. 's housing. The genealogy motivating this narrative will situate the role
has
in
interactions
in
L. A., as well as providing a glimpse
contemporary
geopolitics
into other models of emergentpatterns,that expedite the disassemblingof the fabric
of the Statethrough the multiplicity arising from capital. Absolute deterritorialization
is the reservoir by which capitalism perpetuatesitself:
or is constituted in it' (ATP, p.313). Within the context of this chapter, the functions pertaining to
rhythm and chaos composethe molecular composition of meshwork-s.
28SceDelcuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 54.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
134
Both in each individual country and internationally, capital presses
outwards from the centrer-in other words, its historic
birthplaces-towards the edge.It constantlytries to extend itself to new
domains,to convert new sectorsof simple reproduction of commodities
into spheresof capitalist production of commodities
(Mandel, LC,
p.47).
One particular interesting period in this emergenthistory occurred a hundred years
influx
into
in
founded
The
A.
1781.
L.
the core city not only
was
population
after
placed Los Angeles as a basin for trade and industrialization, but sparkedthe active
process for urbanized clusters that were to participate in the segregatedmodels of
had
increase
Soja
As
Edward
the
significant
remarks,
population
separation.
for
in
the
the
would
urbanization:
role
city
play
consequences
The rapid population growth which occurred between 1880 and 1920,
when Los Angeles County expandedfrom 35,000 to nearly a million,
was thus shaped primarily by the social and spatial relations of the
Corporate City [ ] After 1920, the city never again experienced an
...
intercensuspopulation growth rate greater than the rest of the country
(Soja, PG, p. 194).
The motivating model of the reterritorializing processthat occurred in the L. A. City
during the 1920s,was to exclude and minimize any movement of the Black and other
into
Racial
tension coupled with
territory.
predefined
an
already
minority populace
fear led to the homogenizationof spaceby segmentingand rendering signpostswithin
2'
the
the patchwork of
City. The intricate grid of the urban core organized itself
infiltrated
from
being
by
homogeneity
the
the
to
the
preserve
crusade
around
did:
but
'[
]
they
since
not
rather
movements,
complement
convergenceof minority
...
thwart and break through the great worldwide organization' (Deleuze& Guattari, A TP,
'This led well into the 1940s,as in the following: 'One of the largest urban industrial zonesin the
Black
from
downtown,
through
segregated
and
cutting
rigidly
areas
of
stretched
southward
world still
has
during
1930s
1940s'
(Soja,
White
the
there
ten
thousands
and
of
whom
migrated
workers,
of
poor
PG, p. 186).
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
135
"
Specifically, this organization consistedof Homeowners' Associationsset up
216).
p.
by concernedcitizens organized to protect their regions from being decodedby the
influx of Blacks:
Homeowners' associationsfirst appearedon the political scene in the
late 1920s as instruments of white mobilization against attempts by
Blacks to buy homes outside the ghetto [ ] white homeownersbanded
...
together as 'protective associations'to create racially specified 'block
restrictions'. In this fashion 95 percent of the city's housing stock in
the 1920swas effectively put off limits to Blacks and Asians (Davis,
CQ, p. 16,1):
These Anti-African Housing Associations, as they becameto be known, represented
an enclosure that encompasseda reterritorialization of space. By controlling the
development of land to particular classes, manifesting the criteria of colour, religion
instated
Association
Homeowners'
the
a coding system that
affiliation,
and political
had solutions built into the system as its base. The coding apparatuswas a direct
imposition of the solution insofar as it was fulfilling a direct task set up by an
function
demand
is
This
the
that the
to
which
sets
up
opposed
axiomatic
authority.
3'
is
to
market
resolve. As Mike Davis points out, these 'restrictive covenants', or
exclusionary codes in Los Angeles:
[ ] established the national legal precedent for zoning districts
...
exclusively for upscale, single-family residences[...] their overriding
homogeneity
[
]
Private
to
was
ensure
social
and
racial
purpose
...
restrictions, for example, normally included such provisions as
for
home
costs
construction, and exclusion of all
minimum required
non-Caucasians(and sometimesnon-Christianaswell) from occupancy,
'Specifically, racism is explicated in the production of transcendent identity structures.*It is
essentialto the formation of not only identity but also political apparatuses.See Deleuze & Guattari,
AO, p.85ff. Also see chapterV regarding the transcendentidentity of race.
3'Refer to chapter I concerning the differencesbetween coding versus axiomatizing. For a further
discussionon the role of axiomatics, refer to Dcleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy?: 'In contrast
with the ancientempiresthat carried out transcendentovercodings,capitalism functions as an immanent
axiomatic of decodedflows (of money, labor, products). In an axiomatic, models do not refer back-to
transcendence[ ...]' (p. 106).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
136
except as domestic servants (Davis, Q0, p.161).
As Deleuze and Guattari state: 'Desire is never an undifferentiated instinctual
energy, but itself results from a highly developed, engineered setup rich in
interactions; a whole supple segmentarity that processes molecular energies and
desire
fascist
determination'
(Deleuze
& Guattari, ATP, p.215).
gives
a
potentially
Flows that instigate movements of not only reterritorialization, as with the
Homeowners' Association,-but also the movement to deterritorialize,-by 'fragmenting
arborescentroots and propelling the flows to migrate onto other surfaces, are the
32
beliefs and desire of every interaction. The determination that led to the allocation
land
housing,
the
to
within
economy
of
places control,
of
particular molar aggregates
or as Deleuze and Guattari suggest,fascism, to: '[ ...] its molecular or micropolitical
is
body
[
]'
(ibid,
for
it
215). The
a
mass
movement:
a
cancerous
p.
power,
...
'individual' as an autonomous component is displaced in the massification of the
molar coupling. The machine, evidenced by the political apparatus of the
Homeowners' Association, takes us back to our earlier discussionon coding. Systems
that replace archaic codes with a universal: '[ ...] overcoding, and the lost territories
in
[
]
[takes]
place
an
overcoded
geometrical
space'
with a specific reterritorialization
...
(ibid, p.213). As Deleuze and Guattari specify, segmentation is the outcome of an
(to
that
recodes systemically
only decode) a geo-terrain.
abstract machine
'Geographical areascan only harbor a sort of chaos, or, at best, extrinsic harmonies
between
(ibid,
temporary
equilibriums
populations'
p.48). The
of an ecological order,
temporalization that arises between population packs is the nomadic, splintering
"I'licy are the two aspectsof every assemblage.For a further discussion, refer to Dcleuze &
Guattari, ATP, p.219.
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
137
portrait of intensities,that however much are harbouredby a molar disjunction, always
break and emergewith other zonesto once again be assimilated by other formations.
All that is representedis a cartography of emerging and dissipating intensities that
perpetually converge and egress.The rhizomatic is:
understood increasingly in terms of populations, packs and
colonies, collectivities and multiplicities; and degreesof development
in terms of speed,rates,coefficients, and differential relations (Deleuze
& Guattari, ATP, p.48).
Mapping areas by overcoding temporalizes or sedatesspace onto a homogeneous
spreadby withdrawing intensities (that would otherwise traverse on the body without
organs) from its field. The spatial as absolute deterritorialization is displaced by
emerging into variedly fused patterns of interaction. But with the intervention of
is
in
behaviour
overcoding such
accordanceto an authorial model that supplicates
33
movementto a vertical empowerment. The grid then of 1920sLos Angeles portrays
the co-existence of not only the territorial synthesis, but also the overcoding of the
its
with
second,
privatized Jim Crow laws prohibiting movements within the city's
social boundariesby:
[ ] distributing bodies in space,allocating eachindividual to a cellular
...
partition, creating a functional space out of this analytic spatial
ideal:
became
both
In
the
this
end
arrangement.
spatial matrix
real and
a hierarchical organization of cellular space and a purely ideal order
that was imposed upon its forms (Boyer, DRC, pp.70-71; cited in
Davis, 'UC', p.9).
The repressivemechanismsof spatial control, and the partitioning of group segments
in the Los Angeles basin, sustained its empowennent throughout this century.
Stratification via zoning laws permeatedthe developmentof the city and also assisted
in the exclusion of Blacks by territorializing their movementswithin the confines of
"nius the despot.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
gheftoS'34
138
that reapedhigh-unemployment,poverty stricken welfare parents,andviolent
"
battling
for
According to the 1980
turf.
themselves
neighborhoods
amongst
spaceor
Census: '[
] Los Angeles County was nearly 13 percent black, but 53 of its 82 cities
...
had Black populations of I per cent or less' (Davis, CQ, p. 168).36Furthermore, the
intense migration that occurred to the 'edge-cities' in the post Watts riots of 1965
further assistedthe confinement of Blacks within the central core of Los Angeles. As
new jobs -and corporations-settled- into- the -new fringes of -the ýCalifornia-suburban
dream, federally assisted programmes diminished year by year." Indeed, such
movementsof reterritorialization by an empoweredrace entailed major shifts of power
ignoring
led
the troubled and
that
to
structures and control
governmental agencies
problematic regions of the core city. For instance,federal contributions to city budgets
declined from 18% in 1977 to an overall low of 2% in 1985.38
'For a closer examination of the developmentof ghettoizedsectorsthrough cellular spaceenclosed
within city limits, and the apparatusof overcodingterritorial divisions, seeSonenshein,p.27ff- 'Housing
restrictions were instrumentalin creating the first Black ghetto in Los Angeles'; and Boyer's illustration
of urban planning that composedtightly knit groups within disciplinary space in the US: 'Zoning, the
division of the American city into a structure of cells, hierarchically controlled and rearranged,was a
technical solution meant to secure an orderly and stable development of the urban land market.
Promoting a disciplinary order, with its values of efficiency and ftinctionality already etched out in the
planning mentality by 1914. The core purpose of zoning was to remove and separateconflicting lands
uses and dysfunctional districts that might impede or destroy solid investmentsin land' (DRC, p. 153).
"For an in-depth analysis of the Los Angeles economic impoverishment in the segregatedsectors,
is
'Who
Killed
Los
Part
Two:
The
Verdict
Given'. Also, see City of
Mike
Davis's
Angeles?
to
refer
QuarLz,p.296ff- 'The absoluteincome gap betweenBlack and white Angelenos dramatically widened.
Median incomesin SouthcentralL. A. declined by almost a tenth, and Black unemploymentskyrocketed
from 12 per cent to 20 per cent (30 per cent in Watts)'.
'The following presentsanotherperspectiveon the inflirx of Blacks into Los Angeles, even though
their movementwas largely confined to certain urban topographieswithin Los Angeles: 'While in 1940
Blacks had comprised 3.1 percent of the population, they constituted 8.7 percent in 1950 and 13.5
percent in 1960' (Sonenshein, p.29). By being: '[ ...] strongly inhospitable to minority political
representation'(ibid, p.31), the political homogeneityin Los Angeles virtually deniedBlacks any access
to governmental change.
37In 1970 for example,78.3% of the Metropolitan Core of L. A. consistedof Whites, as opposedto
37.2% in 1990 (U. S. Bureau of the Census,Population, 1970 and 1990).
'U. S Bureau of Census,City GovernmentFinances, 1977-78 and 1984-85, respectively.
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
139
[ ] (A)lmost the entire white working-class of the older southeast
...
industrial belt-some 250,000 people-moved to the job-rich suburban
fringe during 1970s and early 1980s [ ] African-Americans, by
...
contrast, have been trapped in place in Los Angeles [ ...] the
suburbanization of Black Los Angeles primarily represent[s] the
territorial expansionof the traditional Southcentralghetto into adjacent,
but separately incorporated cities [ ] when this quotient of 'ghetto
...
shift' is deducted from 1990 censusfigures, what remains of Black
suburbanizationin Southern California is a mono-trend movement to
blue-collar suburbs [ ] (Davis, 'WKLAP, p. 16).
...
***
The emergenceof postmodernacceleratedcapital placed Los Angeles in the forefront
of technologically based industries as it tried to shake off its industrial sector as a
"'
manufacturing city. Not only does Los Angeles present a geographicalpivot for the
increasingly restructuredfinance, capital and the internationalization of commerce,but
it is the hub for the Pacific Rim's transactionsin North America 40However much
.
investment and finance poured into the L. A. region, the decoding apparatusof the
been
had
from
blind
1920s,
the
to
the
that
obstructed
areas,
capitalist processappeared
from labour market liquidation. The trend to divide and separatewithin a manifest
destiny of spacevia hierarchial power is the stratification or the mutating of niches,
enclaves, zones of impoverishment to seal or ward off any mechanisms of
for
advancement the Black and minority classes.In this process the convergenceof
capital's impulses emerged into dissident eruptions forcing their way through the
hierarchy to only be squashedand downtrodden once again." 'The administration of
"For a further discussion on L. A. 's conversion to an intensive capitalist process, refer to Edward
W. Soja's Postmodern Geogrqphies. ý The Reassertion ofSpace in Critical Social Theory (PG), p. 20011.
"As Edward Soja suggests:'Positioned increasingly as a "capital of capital" in the Pacific Basin,
Los Angeles has been surging toward the ranks of the three other capitals of global capital, New York-,
London, and Tokyo (its Pacific Rim cohort)' (Soja, PG, p.210).
"As in the Watts rebellion of 1965, the empoweredStateset a laborious and sometimesviolent grid
of mandating any misconduct that attemptedto bring down the city-state apparatus.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
140
a great molar security has as its correlate a whole micro-managementof petty fears,
a permanent molecular insecurity [ ...]' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, pp. 215-216).
Recall the excerpt by Mike Davis in The City of Quartz regarding economic
micro-systems, and the ability for crack to have found its presence in L.A. 's new
'world city' economy, presents us with a relay into the functioning of meshwork
interplays within economic and political boundariesthat enshrinethe nation-state,and
what defines it: namely, movements of resistance.The relation to space within the
format
deterritorializes
A.
's
further-within the confines
L.
of
precinct
post-industrial
of what capitalism sets as its limit. The thrust behind Anti-Oedipus' discourse lies
precisely in the fragmentation of capital, as it dissolves under its own expansion,
thereby driving itself into what Deleuze and Guattari call schizophrenia. By
investigating these meshwork movementsinto capitalism's limit we can diagram the
convergenceof economic micro systemsthat decodethe striated spaceof the nation"
legislative
modes of operation.
state's
With crack finding its way into the global economy, the marginalized groups
in the L. A. city are placed in a 'hyper' terrain that the State cannot penetrate.The
"The following polemical questionneedsto be asked:is the nation-statereally the enemyany more
for Deleuze and Guattari's Capitalism and Schizophrenia?Utially, yes, since models of control that
for
instituted
or
exacerbated
are
of
concern;
example, monopolies advocatedby the
are maintained,
State. Braudel sug ests such monopolies were the precursors to capitalism. However, on a closer
119
examination, we find schizophreniais not so much the enemy of the State,but rather of the monopoly,
determining
from
by
Homogeneous
sectors
prices
and
commodification
capitalism.
evidenced
as
advanceencouragethe developmentof monopoliesto preside over exchanges.This movement towards
axiornatized flows of commodification (monopohes/capital)polarizes schizo-movementsand capital
formations. To answerthe above question then, it is necessaryto teaseout the link that binds the State
and monopolies together, and to examinethe role of late capital in relation to the State.As Deleuze and
Guattari suggest, capitalism: j ] liberates the flows of desire, but under the social conditions that
...
define its Emit and the possibility of its own dissolution, so that it is constantly opposing with all its
drives
it
that
toward this limit. At capitalism's limit the
the
strength
movement
exasperated
deterritorialized socius gives way to the body without organs,and the decodedflows throw themselves
into desiring-production' (Delcuze & Guattari, AO, pp.139-140). With meshwork structures we find
systems moving from homogeneousmonopolies to heterogeneousconsortiums that communicate on
molecular intensities. This will be discussedshortly.
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
141
bordered districts, areasthat were already marginalized in the 1920s, fail to capture
and thwart the drug trade, since the businesshas converged with capital. However
territorial the sellers may get with each other over specified regions within the L. A.
confines, it nevertheless portrays a mechanism for antisystemic movements of
resistance,resulting in a profitable and economically viable trade. Compared with
privatized Jim Crow laws that the molar apparatusmobilized through private property,
---
there is -also-a patchwork displacementof segmentationthat results in,the drug trade...--..-ý
On the one hand, there is a reactionmy territory, and on the other, is the rewiring of
capital that dissipatesthe strategy of the despotic market in racism. There are two
components to territory: a segmentarity and d circulation of flows.
The contemporary cocaine trade is a stunning example of what some
political economists [...] are now calling 'flexible accumulation', on a
hemispheric scale. The rules of the game are to combine maximum
financial control with flexible and interchangeable deployment of
landscapes
(Davis, CQ,
across
variable
national
producers and sellers
p.310).
With the public sector's role for employmentof the African-American classdevastated
by intense cut-backs," the 'hype' surrounding the glamour of cocaine salestakes on
frontiers
takes shape.Space
element,
as
experimentation
with
new
market
a subversive
decodesnot as a reterritorialized form of segregation,but as a new market of sales in
which to traversecommerce.ft is an economicmicro-movementplunging forward into
more abstract meansof production.
43'Fifly-thousand public-sector jobs, most of them gained since Tom Bradley's election in 1973,
constitute the economic bedrock of Black Los Angeles' (Davis, 'WKLAii' p.44). This, however, has
diminished recently due to the post-cold war recession.Furthermore, this 'bedrock-' of opportunity
divided the community internally, for on the one band, the civil workers that found stable employment
rose to the middle income strata,while on the other, the unemployed (or occasionalworkers) stagnated
within Los Angeles: '[ ...] the Black community became more internally polarized as public-sector
craftwork-ers,clericals and professionalssuccessfullyentrenchedthemselveswithin the city, county and
federal bureaucracies'(Davis, CQ, p.302).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
142
Peddling the imported, high-profit rock stuff to a bipolar market of
final consumers, including rich Westsiders as well as poor street
people, the Crips have become as much lumpen capitalists as outlaw
44
(Davis,
CQ,
3
10).
proletarians
p.
As Anfi-Oedipus expounds on the deterritorialized socius resulting from capitalism,
there is on the one hand, a decoding, while on the other, an axiomatizing, abstract
"
former.
The gang-related
to
the
quantitative machinery striving
catch up with
peddling is not an incorporated, hierarchial structure," rather trafficking is the
decoding of striated, reterritorialized spacethat hindered movement from the 1920s,
within the L. A. Ramparts Division's territory." 'Capitalist production has unified
space, which is no longer bounded by external societies' (Debord, SS, § 165).
Specifically, it is not a decoding of flows that defines capitalism, rather the: '[ ]
generalized decoding of flows, the new massive deterritorialization' (Deleuze &
Guattari, AO, p.224), assiststhe mode of production to cross into new zones giving
rise to micro-economical, anti-national desire. Being the pre-cursors to Clinton's
ambitious plans to further NAFTA by incorporating the two Americas in a free trade
pact, the traffickers are already engaged in the free trade agreement, since by
The significance of the Crips (and Bloods) trafficking in the drug trade stems from a 1989
investigationby the GeneralAccounting Office, estimatingthat together,they controlled:
fully onethird of America's crack market' (The Economist, 17 December 1994).
"These are the two sides of the same coin-decoding and axiomatization-within the capitalist
apparatus.Consequently schizophrenia is displaced to the exterior limit of capitalism-the absolute
limit-by which the schizo processesare allowed to flow, but only in accordancewith the axiomatic
abstractingcodes along the way; for instance,only under the regulated control sequencesinstituted by
capital. In the 'Apparatus of Capture' (ATP), Delcuze and Guattari wam that the decodingmechanisms
of capital detcnitorializes the socius only through the intercessionof axioniatics. And finally, in AntiOedipus: '[ ] schizophrenia is not the identity of capitalism, but on the contrary its difference, its
...
divergence,and its death' (p.246).
'6'Aff of which is to say that the Southcentralgangsare definitely in the drug business,but as small
businessmennot crime corporations
(Davis, CQ, p.313).
"This is referring more to the curfew laws instigated by the LAPD RampartsDivision, see Mike
Davis's City of Quartz, p.284ff.
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
substituting:
143
money for the very notion of a code, it has createdan axiomatic of
abstract quantities that keeps moving further and further in the direction of the
deterritorialization of the socius' (ibid, p.33).
Between 1985 to 1987 (the real take-off years for crack) the 'cash
surplus' in the Los Angyles branch of the Federal Reserve system
increased 2,300 per cent to $3.8 billion-a sure index, according to
federal experts,of the volume of illicit coke dollars (Davis, CQ, p.312).
The latest survey by The Economist details wholesale prices of cocaine have been
fluctuating around $16,000-20,000a kilo, a significant decreasefrom $50,000-60,000
in the early 1980s. The reasonsfor this are varied, but the supply meeting demand
ratio seemsto have balanced due to co-opei-ativeor cocaine exchangenegotiations
betweenthe Colombians and the distributors in the US. Once again, the gang-related
trafficking, nor the Columbian commodifies-styleexporters' association are cartels by
any means, since a: '[ ...] cartel is a coalition of producers acting together to restrict
"
drive
the
the
up
supply and
prices of
product'. As The Economist suggests: '[ ]
although there is evidenceof co-ordination among different cocaineproducers,and of
control by certain specialists over aspects of the business such as transport and
is
little evidence that certain traffickers [ ] ever tried to restrict
there
smuggling,
...
supply, and none that they succeeded'(p.25). The enterpriseis more of a consortium
that has membersvoluntarily engagein particular businessventures if they so desire,
latest
for
implementing
have
been
by
the
technology
they
refinement,
and
able to
distribute large quantities within the US, particularly L. A., thereby bringing down the
'The data gatheredhere concerning the cocaine exchangeis from The Econonfist,24 December-6
0
January 1995, pp.23-26, unless otherwise stated.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
144
prices and keeping a constant supply of the substancefor their consumers." Los
Angeles has had the lowest cocaine price throughout the 90's when comparedto the
other large cities in the US, due to the competition between the distributors and
5'
sellers. It appears as if the risk involved in transporting the drug within the US
placesthe heaviestburden on the distributors, since it is estimatedto increasethe price
"
by
'[
between
farm
]
200
(p.
24).
Thus
times:
the
the
the
product
coca
of
and
street'
...
"'Sergio Uribe, a consultantto the United Nations and author of Colombia's forthcoming national
anti-drug plan, saysthat growers have introduced new high-yielding Peruvian varieties. And using new
methods(involving gasoline and powered cement),it is possible to extract more usablematerial during
the first stage of processing' (p.26). Furthermore, as the Colombian officials fought to stamp out
refinement factories by seizing the 'precursor' chemicals utilized to produce cocaine, the cocaine
exchangeinitiated: 'chemical recycling into their laboratories' (The Economist, 13 February 1993). In
sum, these co-opet-alivesfor the past fifteen years have increased their yields by threefold, thereby
allowing averagewholesale prices to drop by 75% (p.24).
'017orinstance, the price of a kilogram averagedbetween $12,000-28,000 in 1991 compared to
S14,000-29,000in New York, and $15,000-20,000to $17,000-22,000in 1994, respectively (p.25).
"The Drug Enforcement Agency calculatedthat in 1990: j I the cost of raw coca amount(ed) to
...
less than 1% of the retail price of refined cocaine in the United States' (The Economist, 13 February
1993). As this chapter will discuss shortly, the Government's strategy to block the flow of cocaine,
coupled with the statistics surrounding the production and refinement of coca, implies a meshwork
structuring that by-passeshomogeneouscontrol. For example, in 1992 the United Statesdispersed$2
billion to curtail the advancesof cocaine distribution in North America. They had hoped to interdict the
flow by attempting to: '[ ] seize, or to help other countriesto seize' such narcotics. As The Economist
...
suggests:'For all the drama, interdiction has had little impact on the supply of cocaine.'Me suppliers
*
distribution,
large
down
the chain of
stocks, all
maintain
ready to be drawn upon if supply is disrupted
[ ] and, accordingto the GeneralAccounting Office, smugglers' profits are so high that they can easily
...
absorb occasional losses' (ibid). Initially, the intensity by which the distribution network functions is
reminiscent of Marx's analysis of capital, and the ever-expansiveinfiltration (or the axiomatization) of
market forces, always nearing schizophrenia: 'Thus, while capital must on one side strive to tear down
every spatial barrier to intercourse, i. e., to exchange,and conquer the whole earth for its market, it
strives on the other side to annibilate this spacewith time, i. e., to reduce to a minimum the time spent
in motion from one place to another.The more developedthe capital, therefore, the more extensive the
market over which it circulates,which forms the spatial orbit of its circulation, the more does it strive
simultaneouslyfor an evengreater extensionof the market and for greater annihilation of spaceby time'
(G, p.539). Yet, the 'anti-market', or the abstract machine of stratification, acting within a given
meshwork-milieu, provides other possibilities to track the phylum head of abstractcapital. This, in turn,
leads to new, non-linear interpretations of the 'microphysical fabric' escaping the zones of central
power. Ile centralpower is the State'srole in mandatingmonopolies,while the non-linear multiplicities
consist of the segmentsof drug trafficking. Marx's excerpt regarding the molar organization's desire
to seek, or to conquer, spatial boundariesdepicts only one side of the continuum. One could argue that
drug flows are not non-linear multiplicities, but are insteadrigidified cartels, aligning trafficking to the
(ibid,
samelevel as Marx's capital ('capital by its very nature derives beyond every spatial barrier
p.524)). This will be discussedshortly.
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
145
Clinton's vaunted WestemHemisphei-eFive Rade Agi-eemetilis operating profitably,
and independently of the government between the US and the South American
countries, that now includes Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, as well as, Bolivia and
52
Columbia (p.25). The only limit levelled againstthe expansion of the drug trade in
South America has beena political anti-drug war costing the United States$50 billion
since the Bush administration. As the figures imply: '[ ...] Latin America's illegal drug
industry is booming' (p. 23) 13Taking, into consideration the Andean Pact-consisting
.
of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, as well as the Mercosur
52For example, Venezuela has shipped 500 tons of cocaine worldwide, while Bolivia is now: '[ ]
...
the world's second-biggest producer of refined cocaine, which provides $700 million in export revenue
and jobs for 20% of the working population' (The Economist, 29 August and 12 December 1992,
respectively). Meshwork structures incorporate heterogeneous formations, thereby providing potential
sources by which to realign regions to late capital: 'If capitalism is the exterior limit of all societies,
this is because capitalism for its part has no exterior limit, but only an interior limit that is capital itself
and that it does not encounter, but reproduces by always displacing0 it' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, pp. 230-
231).
"Mr. Bush had planned to cut the amount of cocainereaching his shoresby 10% in two years, and
a further 50% in ten years. Enacted by the United States,The Andean Initiative consistedof economic
and military aid designedto impede the influx of cocainereaching US shores.Targeted specifically at
Bolivia, Peru and Columbia, the Initiative attackedthe processingunits that refined the substance.In
addition to striking at the crops, peasantswere tempted with converting their fertile land to legitimate
production, such as fruit or coffee. Since these markets have been traditionally controlled by
monopolistic enterprises(the fulcrum of the'anti-mark-et'), the chancesof a successfulyield turning into
a tangible profit was vezy unlikely for the peasants.The peasantfarmers cunningly turned in their land
for rewards (for example, the Bolivian government pays $2,000 per hectare (2.5 acres) of coca
surrendered),to use the eradicationgrants to purchasericher soil for coca cultivation. As The Economist
is quick to point out: 'Coca is hardier than most alternative crops. It does well on virgin land, taking
only one year to mature. It is then ready to be picked four or even six times a year. Crop substitution
will remain a failure unless it is made much more profitable. This is becauseof coca's main attraction
to growers: its capacity to bring in money' (13 February 1993). Moreover, a recent State Department
increased
by 8% in 1991. 'Since America's retail cocaine
the
that
of
coca
suggests
production
analysis
market may be worth anything between $30-150 billion a year, and the potential for coca production
in the Andes is practically unlimited, the chanceof cutting it always looks slim' (ibid). There are other
sources suggesting that the Cali Cartel ('a transnational marketing corporation'), one of the largest
commodities-style exporters' association in Central America, has estimated: 'assets of one trillion
dollars' (or, their turnover is believed to be $100 billion a year (Vie Economist, 21 December 1991)).
Furthermore,they argue that: 'The war on drugs is a counter-insurgency,a defensive strategymounted
againstthe tactics of subversion[ ...] cocainecreepingup the coast-linesof Central America and through
the veins of corporate America, followed by other, newer, more insidious flows. The deepest
subversiveshave already broken into the system(Plant & Land, 'Cyberpositive'). Mr. Bush's anti-drug
war has failed (The Economist, p.23). Colombian economists speculate that the consortium have
repatriated: j ...I at least $1.5-2.5 billion a year for the past decade' (ibid).
-
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
146
agreementfurther south,which includes Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguayand Brazil, the
realization of VaUTA
seems imminent, since most of the regions have already
consolidated(Chile is the noticeable exception) sub-agreementsallowing mutual free
trade. Theseovercodingsand reterritorializations (and decodings-deterritorializations)
denotethe simultaneity of the two processesportraying the two movementswithin the
does
bring
'The
the other system to a halt: the flow
rigid system
not
phylum:
continuesbeneaththe line, forever mutant [ ..]' (Deleuze& Guattariý,A TP, p.22 1).This
is the role of the historian/philosopher to find the lines intersecting, as well as
diverging, on the body without organs." The deterritorializing fluxes bring about the
accumulative overhauling of
reterritorialization
the system, thereby forming
the basis for
(ibid, p.220). Tracking the phylum head of abstract capital situates
intensive rhizomatic connectionsthat bridge other meshwork milieus together."
By simulating the patterns of the strata in Los Angeles, tools for exploration
from
in
interplay
be
developed
to
to
the
the
the
mid-1980s
present
a
map out
can
dynamics
important
]a
be
'[
It
to
theory
the
create: ...
of
meshwork structure. would
functions'
by
interdependent
their
together
producers
meshed
of networks of smaller
"Philosophy is a geophilosophy in precisely the same way that history is a geohistory from
Braudel's point of view' (Deleuze & GuattariyIVIP, p.95). To further the above excerpt from What is
Philosophy?, the following describes the political and geophilosophical method of investigating the
complementarity that (co)cxists on each strata belt. The fossilization that testifies to an escaped
assemblageon the different levels of the strata: '[ ...] designate(s) the "period!' of coexistence or
simultaneity of thesetwo movements(decoding-deterritorializationand overcoding-reterritorialization).
For the duration of this period, one distinguishesbetween the molecular aspect and the molar aspect:
on the one hand, massesorflows, with their mutations, quanta of deterritorialization, connections,and
accelerations; on the other hand, classes or segnients, with their binary organization, resonance,
conjunction or accumulation, and line of overcoding favoring one line over the others' (Delcuze &
Guattari, ATP, p.221). Deleuze and Guattari allocate this 'task' of 'designation' to the historian (here
they are thinking of Braudel) and to geophilosophers.
"'The rhizome pertains to a map that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always
detachable,connectable,reversible, modifiable and has multiple entry-waysand exits and its own lines
of flight' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.21).
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
(Delanda, 'MAIM').
147
Being autonomous from a centralized agency" illuminates the
emergent properties that have led up to the infusion between segregatedeconomic
sectors,and the materializing of regional trade within the limits of capital. Population
groups bifurcating within the socius are, as Delanda suggests,deterministic, since the
dynamics involved are governed by an attractor: '[ ] the population in question
...
[would] be strongly bound to behave in a particular way' (Delanda, 'VEESR')
However, this is not to imply that other possibilities for the system do-not-existjsince,
,[]
populations have "choices" between different "local destinies" that enable
transitions from one stable state to another state by an external shock' (ibid). Even
though there are other possibilities for the population to 'destine' to another point
if
however
is
he
dubious,
Mike
Davis
that
the estimate of.
out
since
points
attractor,
[ ] 10,000gang membersmaking their livelihood from the drug trade
...
is anywherenear correct, then crack really is the employer of last resort
in the ghetto's devastatedEastside-the equivalent of several large auto
"
hundred
(Davis,
CQ,
MacDonalds
314).
p.
plants or several
Experimentation is the locus for movement on the molecular plane." By dismantling
in
form,
in
State,
the
the
the segregation
as
of
only
molar
not
centralized structures
'Furthermore, the disassembling of gang related, internal conflicts, confirmed by the 'unity
decision,
five
Rodney
King
to
the
took
that
supports the above claim.
months
prior
place
movement'
See Mike Davis's 'Who Killed Los Angeles?: The Verdict', p.34ff.
"Furthermore, a 1992 survey by the National Institute of Justice discovered approximately: j ]
...
5,000 gangswith 250,000 members in America's 79 biggest cities; there are probably many more that
do not make it into the police figure' (The Econondst, 17 December 1994). This is not to suggest all
gangs are in the drug trafficking consortium, but rather the potential for such a 'market' system is
available for post-industrialized cities, such as, South Central Los Angeles.
"This is how it should be done: Lodge yourself on a stratum, experiment with the opportunities
it offers, find an advantageousplace on it, find potential movementsof deterritorialization, possible fines
of flight, experiencethem, produce flow conjunctionshere and there, try out continuums of intensities
segmentby segment,have a small plot of new land at all times [ ...I We are in a social formation; first
seehow it is stratified for us and in us and at the place where we are; then descendfrom the strata to
the deeperassemblagewithin which we arc held; gently tip the assemblage,mak-ingit passover to the
side of the plane of consistency' (Dclcuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 161).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
148
of housing and terrain, geopolitical movementsarise on the molecular level, where the
possibilities for group-formationsemerge.Speculatingon the consequencesof the drug
trade surrounding South Central Los Angeles, and its incorporated cities, a
transformation from a grid of segmentedspace to a commodified arena has arisen,
where: '[ ...] traditional gang topography is being radically redrawn by the emergence
of a myriad of micro-gangs,more interestedin drug salesterritories than neighborhood
turf in-the -old-fashioned-sense' -(Davis, CQ, p.316).'9 The, grid, is- continuously -
"Mike
Davis's discourse on socio-economic systcms-interacting within gang topographies-is
restricted to molar configurations, as opposed to the perpetual field of interaction that defines such
movements. (71be 'perpetual interaction', or meshwork structure, is between the State and the nomad,
see Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 360. ) Dclcuze and Guattari provide instances of various mechanisms
introduced in packs (or gangs) to prevent stabilization, or institutionalization, of power. One such
example is the BogotA street children cited by Jacques Meunier, where he: '[ ...] emphasizes the degree
to which the fate of the ex-gang member is jeopardized: not only for health reasons, but because he
finds it hard to integrate himself into the criminal underworld, a society too hierarchical, too centralized,
too centered on organs of power for him to fit into' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, note 13, p. 553). While
Davis fails to take into consideration the internal, micro dynamics of gang behaviour, Delcuze and
Guattari tend to navigate between the molar and molecular processes of interaction; however, both
approaches, or interpretations, falter regarding gang formation. Granted, the limited studies that are
available also fail to provide an accurate picture surrounding the patterns of gangs, trafficking and the
war machine; but as this chapter argues, antisystemic movement provide the groundwork by which such
formations arise within a socio-economic lattice. Recent studies or texts on the organization of gangs
do not account for such questions as the following: is there a role for a homogeneous leader, as in a
despotic regime, in gangs? Furthcrmorc, is the hierarchy top-down, or does it arise from a meshwork
integration? And, finally, is the trafficking of drugs a monopoly, and if so, does it resemble a Statemonopoly (or 'anti-mark-et')? A clue to such inquiries is explored in an exemplary text by an ex-Los
Angeles gang member, Sanyika Shak-ur, ak-aMonster Kody Scott, where he stresses the heterogeneous
banging
falls
flows:
'[
]
interplay
interactions
schizo
short
within
of
of
gang
a
meshwork
appropriation
...
being
formally
founded
institution
the
level
that
the
on
premise
of
of,
say,
was
organization
an
of
of
him,
has
duty
No
individual
is
to
there
assigned
a
specific
no
compartmentalization.
structured, so
banger
finds
himself
be
by
Therefore,
his
the
superior.
serious
often
monitored
a
can
efficiency
where
handling several "jobs" in the course of his career. At any given time I was the minister of information,
declaring
included
walls,
writing
on
who we were and who we wanted
as
such
responsibilities
which
to kill, and verbalizing our intent at gangland supremacy on street comers, on buses, in school yards,
and at parties; minister of defense, which entailed organizing and overseeing general troop movement
and maintaining a highly visible, military able contingency of soldiers who, at a moment's notice, could
be relied upon for rapid deployment anywhere in the city; teacher of war tactics, which I guess, would
fall under the heading of instructor, and combat solider and on-the-job trainer' (Shakur, M, p. 78). The
by
fluid,
Monster
Kody
Scott:
the
eates
narrative
a
mass movement
nomad war machine pui
This
is
Pamet's
discussion
by
Deleuze
into
taken
generally
up
and
one
another.
andfeeding
accelerating
on becoming-the movement of mass as a molecular assemblagc7-bifiircating within a given society
deterritorialization',
flight.
its
fluxes
is
in
The
'points
deterritorialization,
of
of
everything
already
where
diagram speed as the determining intensity on the molecular plane: 'being a gang-gangs live through
the worst dangers; forming judges, courts, schools, families and conjugalities again. But what is good
in a gang, in principle, is that each goes about his own business while encountering others, each brings
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
149
deterritorialized with only the intervention of axiomatics stratifying along the border
of the body without organs. By: '[ ...] enlisting in the crypto-Keynesian youth
employmentprogram [ ...]' (ibid, p.309)' in Los Angeles,the African-Ameri canshave
fabricated a smooth space of integrating capital:
It is as though, at the outcome of the striation that capitalism was able
to carry to an unequaled point of perfection, circulating capital
necessarilyrecreated,reconstituted,a sort of smooth spacein which the
destiny of human beings is recast.The multinationals fabricate a kind
-of,deterritorialized smooth space-'inwhich the points of occupation-as
well as poles of exchange become quite independentof the classical
paths to striation [ ...I the essentialthing is [...] the distinction between
striated capital and smooth capital, and the way in which the former
gives rise to the latter through complexesthat cut acrossterritories and
States [ ] (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.492).
...
The emergent complexity in tracing the 'probe head' in geohistory is not a
theorizing nor a transcendent analysis, rather it is situated within the properties
materializing towards planetary capital, the closest simulation of the body without
organs. In other words, there is no central controlling agency producing the positive
in his loot and a becoming is sketchedout-a block startsmoving-which no longer belongs to anyone,
but is "between" everyone [ ]' (Deleuze & Parnet,DIA, p.9).
...
'Mike Davis unfortunately makes the error of labeling the cocaine-exchangeas a 'cartel' (Davis,
CQ, p.309), leading him to dismiss the intensive grid of global capital emanating from regionalized
Moreover, his socialized disposition cries out for a heavier financed,
economies, such as WMA.
governmentalintervention to createjobs ('Southcentral L. A. has beenbetrayed by virtually every level
of government'), at a time when the Stateis collapsingunder the pressureto deregulateeconomies,begs
the question: do you want a dozen military-contracted factories churning out anti-ballistic missiles in
order for the impoverished to have 'a modicum of dignity'? For example: 'the post-Cold War erosion
of manufacturing employment has been sudden and extreme. One-fifth of the industrial
work-force=ncarly200,000workers, including 85,000union members-have lost theirjobs, with countless
more sackings and shutdowns yet to come [...I Blacks and Latinos, less than 20 per cent of the
aerospacework-force,constitute an extraordinaiy 53 per cent of the layoffs so far' (Davis, 'WKLAii'
p.46). The Economist places this predicament on a national scale, whereby: 'California remains the
fourth most defense-dependent
statein America, after Alaska, Hawaii and Virginia. Lastyearitgot2l%
of the S123 billion paid out by the Defense Department.But that was a 15% decline, in real terms,
since 1989' (13 November 1993).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
150
feedback." The abstract machine is the innovator and selector, producing a geological
stratification arising from the sedimented and filtered properties, forming the basis for
an: '[ ...] independent, worldwide axiomatic that is like a single City, megalopolis, or
"megamachine" of which the States are parts, or neighborhoods' (Deleuze & Guattari
ATP, pp.434-435). If there is stratification within the strata, then there is a code, and
every time there is stratification, there is a singularity bifurcating. Every time there is
a State coding; such as in the-privatized Jim Crow laws in-L. A. 's housing,-then-there
is always a spilling to the edge, as evidenced by the drug trade." Moreover, these
intermediary statesalways have a machinic relationship to the most abstractzone of
the machinic,phylum.63With 100,000Black youths curTentlyin Los Angeles, Davis's
socialist perspectiveassertsthat the presentstyle of the consortium enterprise is: [...]
the only alternative to the dissolution of a community fabric heroically built up over
generationsof resistanceto racist white America' (Davis, CQ, p.77). The importance
lies precisely in the molecular fabric tracking the particular levels of the social
"This needs to be taken with caution. Even though meshwork-structures are contrary to what
transcendentheories claim, they neverthelesspresenta polemic of their own, namely, the quantitative
element of axiomatics. Axioms infiltrate through the molar, as well as the molecular, like a virus,
recoding the connective processesfrom the bottom-up. Rather than a relief within capitalism, axioms
can be more threateningbecausecontrol has already been invaded by economic and psychoanalytical
abstraction.This diffuses and insinuatesitself by dispersing and existing everywhere-only that which
is in accordancewith the axiomatic is allowed to exist. 'Monetary flows are perfectly schizophrenic
realities, but they exist and function only within the immanent axiomatic that exorcisesand repels this
reality. The language of a banker, a general, an industrialist, a middle or high-level manager, or a
government minister is a perfectly schizophrenic language,but that functions only statistically within
the flattening axiomatic of connections that puts it in the service of the capitalist order' (Deleuze &
Guattari, AO, p.246). Whilst the above reported passageportrays an 'anti-mark-et' perspective on
economics,this chapter has dealt with systemsthat allow price developmentsto take place within the
'market', thereby disallowing homogeneousmechanismsof repression to take place.
0
CO
"Or, as Soja remarks: 'There is thus always room for resistance,rejection, and redirection in the
nonethelessstructured field of urban locales, creatingan active politics of spatially, struggles for place,
space,and position within the regionalized and nodal urban landscape' (PG, p.235).
"Capital
is no longer the invisible center which directs the mode of production: its accumulation
spreads it all the way to the periphery in the form of tangible objects. The entire expanse of society is
its Portrait' (Debord, SS, §50).
Chapter IV: Geopolitics: Antisystemic Movements of Resistance
151
phylum; a seeking of the diverse strata levels that unhinge heterogeneityto spreadon
the molar apparatusof the body without organs.It is always a combination of the two
intersecting
in
processes
capital: a geophilosophyand a geopolitics.
In Kafka's writing, this kind of deterritorialization of languageis obvious. That is, his
work is located on an edge, a border, at the limit of a huge aggregatein order to
deterritorialize, a way of fighting, a kind of "en-sobering", of making sober, an active
hadn't
it,
in
fact,
language.
but
So,
I
to
thought
sobriety
of
about
return
one could
make an equation by saying that whenever a marginality, a minority, becomesactive,
takes the word power (puissancede verbe), transforms itself into becoming, and not
it,
identical
its
but
in
to
with
condition,
active, processional
merely submitting
becoming, it engenders a singular trajectory that is necessarily deterritorializing
because,precisely, it's a minority that begins to subvert a majority, a consensus,a
great aggregate.As long as a minority, a cloud, is on a border, a limit, an exteriority
is
it's
that
something
rejected, something that is, by definition,
of a great whole,
marginalized.
Mix Guattari, interview (1985)
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
154
I
There is no mother tongue, only a power takeover by a dominant
languagewithin a political multiplicity (Deleuze& Guattari, ATP, p.7).
Motion has been my closest companion,from room to room, houseto
house,streetto street,neighborhoodto neighborhood,school to school,
jail to jail, cell to cell-from one man-madehell to another (Shakur, M,
p. 103).
A tablet, a parchment,or stratum that is overcoded,decoded,and once again, recoded
is an apl3fication of inscription, a:processof stratification,,that binds multiplicities to
a homogeneousapparatusof capture (the State). The Unity of the despot allocates
blockages and compartments to divide multiplicities into cellular partitions, an
difference
between
This
the
an
of
reterritorialization.
activates
absolute
operation
layers of the strata, thereby assuring a division between heterogeneouselements, a
conversion to homogeneity. By assembling a mutually comprehensive, stable
from
heterogeneous
the
withdrawal
machinic
systems,
strata
are
a
machinery out of
intensity. There is nothing in the composition of the strata that will shield it from
other influences, other than the processof stratification. Even though the strata tend
to be distributed by free intensities, the achievement of the layers of the strata lie
difference
in
in
territorialization,
nature and
whereby an absolute
precisely coding and
is
Reminiscent
Franz
Kafka's
homogenization
thresholds
of
without
achieved.
a
intensity
homogeneity
through a central processing
the
the
of
stratum
processes
stories,
unit-a vast bureaucracythat inscribesthe Law on tablets,parchmentsor strata,but the
having
Through
depend
the apparatusof writing, the
escaped.
on
something
strata
State perfectly coincides with the despot's inscription. Writing demonstratesthe new,
despot's
defined
An
the
stratification.
with
a
strategy,
event
massively rigorous and
written word is the absolute explosion that overcodesany language it comes across.
Chapter V: Palimpsest: Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
155
The weight of stratification produceseffects: a record keeping, a meticulous recoding
through machinic expertise. The despot always has a distributed sphere by which
spatiality ceasesto be immanent. Thus, we can say that the despot is a threshold in
which something immenseslides into history in a single stroke, a temporality beyond
'
is
is
looming
horizon.
that
the
response;and yet, also a mega-singularity
always
on
It is the capacity for global power. Of particular interest is the binary opposition that
links -multiplicities ýto a uniformly stable relay that rises up to-the super-stratum.The
individualization of mass through a constructedsystem of Unity is the function of
binary oppositions, whereby: '(t)he fluxes are tidied away, controlled and overencoded by means of the writing machine' (Guattari, MR, p. 122). Deleuze and
Guattari's Capitalism and Schizophi-eniais a pragmatics specializing in the mapping
form
higher
intensities
deterritorialize,
but
to
that
also
reterritorialize
of
not only
layers on the strata.2 By composing a map, as opposedto a tracing, of particular strata
levels, certain geographical assemblages converge to bifurcate the existing
homogeneity into multiplicities. Deleuze and Guattari provide various descriptions of
this process,most notably, packs, mass and gangs. A map is a singular, functional
element that addressesthe molar organization of confinement or stratification. The
'A critique of transcendentstratification becomesa schizoanalysisof the super-stratum.The superstratum is, on the one hand, an objective movement at the heart of application, and on the other, the
in
if
it
is
from a disconnectedregion, an
impositional
that
appears
a
single
stroke,
as
sphere
super
ulterior realm. This is the basic condition for the super-stratum,insofar as it acquires a norm through
which identity arrives from somewhereelse, a Unity. The super-stratumpredicatesbehavior that is not
immanent to its functioning, a transcendence,whereby the mapping of the strata will resolve the
incongruity that is always lingering on the periphery ofproduction. Somethingwill always escape:'That
is why bands in general [ ] are metamorphosesof a war machine formally distinct from all State
...
apparatusesor their equivalents, which are instead what structure centralized societies' (Deleuze &
Guattari, ATP, p.358).
'For an extended discussion relating to the process of deterritorialization with a complementary
reterritorialization, seeDeleuzeandGuattari, ATP-.'Deterritorialization must be thought of as aperfectly
has
is
has
degrees
(epistrata),
threshold
that
always
relative,
and
reterritorialization
and
positive power
has its flipside or complement' (p.54).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
156
strata demarcate zones of intensity, a process of differentiating space, whereby
overcoding locks intensive processesinto regimented,periodic loops within the circuit
of the strata.In other words, intensitiesthat deterritorialize are reterritorialized into the
space of signification, an overcoding into the strata of globalization or
universalization.Stratification, or the lateral dispersionof intensities into homogeneous
wholes, is the circuit that binds the layers together. This always takes place with a
deterritorialization coupled with a complementaryretenitorialization:
An organism that is deterritorialized in relation to the exterior
necessarilyreterritorializes on its interior milieus [...] Every voyage is
intensive, and occurs in relation to thresholds of intensity between
which it evolves or that it crosses. One travels by intensity;
displacementsand spatial figures depend on intensive thresholds of
(and
different
deterritorialization
thus
on
relations) that
nomadic
simultaneously define complementary, sedentary reterritorializations
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.54).
Thus the relative deferritorialization's supplemovementto destratification, a cracking
is
defined
belts,
the
territorialized
with a complementary reterritorialization.
of
rigid,
By critically juxtaposing relative deterritorializationto the elementsof minor literature,
this essay situates the current political and literary voices emerging out of South
Central Los Angeles. Despite its subscription to a signed subjectivity, Monster: The
Autobiography ofan LA Gang Member generatesa collective assemblagethat decodes
the stratification of language into minoritarian politics of desire? This is the
functioning elementof becoming.Written from a California maximum security prison,
Monster's portrayal of mass movementswithin the grid of Los Angeles illuminates
the destratification of molecular becomingsthat are recapturedby the State apparatus
between
deterritorialization
The
that
oscillates
and
movement
of recoding.
'Throughout this chapter,the title of the autobiographyis occasionallyshortenedto Monster in order
to designatethe minor collectivity Shak-urgeneratesthrough the writing-machine.
Chapter V: Palimpsest:Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
157
reterritorialization allows for a mapping of becoming, even though population packs
are in constant flux: 'The two factors [code and territoriality] neverthelesshave the
same "subject" in a stratum: it is populations that are deterritorialized and
reterritorialized, and also coded and decoded' (Deleuze & Guattafi, ATP, p.54).
Shakur's Monstey-presents the possibility of mapping heterogeneous multiplicities that
homogeneous
discusses
This
the
through
power
centres.
chapter
stratified
are
heterogeneous;ecological niches that the strata uniformly attempt to-recodein-relation
to Shakur's minor literature.4 The processby which the strata solidify multiplicities
is addressed,as well as the function of the minor in South Central Los Angeles. This
locates not only the political turbulence of the west coast, but the consequences
resulting from institutionalized power structuresengagedin the monitoring of masses
'
into
do
fit
the
the equation of
that
molar organization. With the influx of a
not
4Refer to Deleuze and Guattari, ATP, 'November 20,1923: Postulates of Linguistics', for an
examination of minor literature in connection to a major language: 'Minor languagesare characterized
not by overload and poverty in relation to a standardor major language,but by sobriety and variation
that are like a minor treatmentof the standardlanguage,a becoming-minor of the major language.The
problem is not the distinction between major and minor language; it is one of a becoming. It is a
question not of reterritoriali zing oneself on a dialect or a patois but of deterritorializing the major
language' (p.104).
5By this I am not only suggestingthe current cybernetic technologies that are being implemented
to reterritorialize the 'public' and 'private' space into a unified stratification of surveillance in Los
Angeles (seeDavis, 'UC'); but also the State of California's claim to be the leader in prison systems:
'Since the early 1980s, California has made prison-construction its main form of infrastructural
investment, spending over $5 billion on 19 new prisons, and has raised the number of people
incarceratedfrom 23,000 in 1980 to 125,000 today [ ] Vacaville (near Sacramento)is now home to
...
the world's largestprison, a title soon to be taken away by planned expansionof SanQuentin. A federal
court has just ruled that Pelican Bay, the state's "model" high-security prison, violates constitutional
protections against inhumane torments' (Walker, 'CAL', p.60). Though this chapter does not present
an in-depth study of architectural space,it is interesting, however, to note the similarities between the
developmentof the American city, particularly Los Angeles, and the structure of prisons narrated by
Shak-ur.For instance, the architects of zoning exemplify the allocation of land uses to predefined
solutions of homogeneity: 'Zoning, the division of the American city into a structure of cells,
bierarchical1ycontrolled and rearranged,was a technical solution meant to securean orderly and stable
developmentof the urban land market. Promoting a disciplinary order, with its values of efficiency and
functionality already etched out in the planning mentality by 1914, the core purpose of zoning was to
destroy
dysfunctional
districts
impede
lands
that
or
solid
uses
and
might
and
separate
corifficting
remove
investmentsin land' (Boyer, DRC, p. 153).And, Shak-ur'sconfinementwithin the Youth Training School
(Y. T. S.) in 1981: 'A maximum-security prison, it comprised three units, each divided into quarters.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
158
periphery into the core area of Los Angeles, the current role of urban politics and
minor literatures unleash desire into the circuit of the city. The machinic process of
becoming a peripheral minoritarian is unparalleled in Shakur's autobiography, as in
the following:
The term "institutional security" is so far-reaching that whenever there
is nothing to lock a prisoner down or harasshim for, staff, correction
officers, and most any figure of authority in any institution will pull out
this ambiguous term. It is precisely this wording that has me locked
--deep-withitythe bowels of Pelican Bay today. I am-a threat;--and'proud-of it. If I wasn't a threat, I'd be doing something wrong (Shakur, M,
p.221).
An American who locks you in a cage, counts you to make sure you
haven't escaped,holds a weapon on you, and, in many instances,
in
fact
Add
that
the
to
this
us
grew
up
an eighty
most
of
you.
shoots
percentNew Afrikan community policed-or occupied-by an eighty-five
in
is
force
American
to
that
clearly
antagonistic
any
male
pig
percent
the community, displaying this antagonismat every opportunity by any
imagination
force
brute
they
the
and
sadistic
necessary
with
all
means
can muster (ibid, pp.223-224).
H
In '1227: Treatise on Nomadology: -The War Machine', in A Thousand Plateaus
(pp.351-423) Deleuze and Guattari forward a cartography of sedentary space that
appropriatesthe rhythmic movementsof autonomouspacks, a nomadic war machine.
Deleuze and Guattari juxtapose not only a geological compassdirected towards the
super-stratumthat envelopesrhizomatic movementsto a topography of overcoding,
Each quarter was subdivided into halves, and each half was again divided into banks, or tiers. Every
door
had
his
Each
to
of solid steel with a small glass
own
cell.
cell
a
sliding
was
assigned
prisoner
window for observationby staff' (Shak-ur,M, p.204). Shakur furthers this with detailed descriptions of
the function of the three units-each consisting of four 'companies' alphabetically arranged-designed
to reorientate the inniates for society. The importance of the above stems from how stratification is
devised and implemented, whether it be through zoning laws, judicial confinement or transcendent
apparatusesofracism; andthe construction of a molecularwriting-machine within the despoticoperation
die
de
Genet
Sade
From
Marquis
fractures
to
inscription
through
that
molar
systems
of
suppression.
of
George Jackson and, presently, Sanyika Shakur, the highly reterritorialized forms of incarceration
dissipate
that
the strategiesof the mechanismsof capture:
writing-machines
with
molecular
converge
'Language is a map, not a tracing' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.77).
Chapter V: Palimpsest:Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
159
but also position a genealogical optic by which the State apparatusemerges.These
two processes of appropriation-deterritorialization and reterritorialization-are
inextricably entwined, since the application of overcoding can be traced on both
aspectsof the molar and molecular lattice, or planes of strata. To composea study of
the strata, a stratigraphy, would enable a lateral tracing of the layers upon layers of
sedimentationthat have stackedto form a super-stratum,or most notably, the despot.
The belts or,-Iayers-ofthe strata are -intensitiesthat have been-capturedby the-superz
lateral
intensity
The
that gets
application
of
overcoding.
stratum-an
movement of
imprisoned to form another belt on the strata is overcoding by the super-stratum.In
other words, intensity that escapes through the fissures of stratification is
reterritorialized by being folded back on itself The super-stratum perennially
orchestratesthe appropriation of intensities by this avenue of conversion. The result
is the stratification of heterogeneousmultiplicities imprisoned within a homogeneous,
arborescentsuper-stratum.This is an instanceof high-level control, a:
phenomena
of centering, unification, totalization, integration, hierarchization, and finalization'
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.41): the despot.The processof overcoding also acts as
a memory system by which the super-stratumcan navigate the direction of particular
homogeneouswholes. The myriad layers that constitute the stratum are captured
intensities that form a zone of articulation, a memory or an inscription. The storage
machine of
memory operates within
a relative
stasis, a homogeneous
binds
intensity
The
that
to a stratification of memory
mechanism
reterritorialization.
eliminatesthe machinic drift and variation that assemblesa pack. 'The memory blocks
desire, make mere carbon copies of it, fixes it within strata, cuts it off from all its
connections' (Deleuze & Guattari, K, p.4). The strata imprison intensities through a
Axiornatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
double operation that
couples deterritorialization with
160
a
complementary
reterritorialization. The complementarity is a double bind that has the opposite
dynamic of deterritorialization. By exciting intensities to spill out of the strata,
complementary reterritorializations capture flows and lock the machinic assemblage
of desireinto suppression.Deleuze and Guattari provide numerousdescriptionsfor this
overcoding, such as a lobster and God.
----
Howis it possibleto re-influence the-stratawith machinic potential-a point of
convergencebetween behaviour that has become frozen and code that has become
rigidly stratified? It is to construct a machine,a map, a diagram or a practice instead
of discourse,to dismantle the homogeneousstasisthrough an intensively continuous
variation. However, will this movement connect the strata to a process,whereby a
diagrammatic drift will link to destratification of code and flux, and in turn, will
bifurcate intensities to other heterogeneouselements?The site in which to answerthis
lies precisely in the function of minor literature: '[ ]a becoming that includes the
...
maximum of difference as a difference of intensity, the crossing of a barrier, a rising
or a falling, a bending or an erecting, an accenton the word' (Deleuze & Guattari, K,
p.22). It is always a question of becoming: geographical assemblagesattracting a
language,
immediacy,
deterritorializing
and the 'collective assemblageof
geopolitical
'
enunciation'. A map of becoming can be sketchedas a molecular intensity rupturing,
do
flight
How
line
to
the machinic
that
zones
of
multiplicities.
connects
other
a
of
it
is
important
function?
To
this
to
answer
question,
assemblagesof packs and gangs
refer back to 'The Treatise on Nomadology', and the discussion on Numbering
Tor a further discussion concerning the three characteristicsof minor literature, see Deleuze and
Guattari, K, p. 1811.
Chapter V: Palimpsest: Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
161
Number, to initiate the assemblage of minor literature: 'All of thought is a becoming,
a double becoming, rather than the attribute of a Subject and the representation of a
Whole' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.380). The Numbering Number functions as a
collective assemblage of enunciation whereby the subject processes multiplicities. The
elements that bifurcate to form a multiplicity share the same properties as packs. There
is no subjectivity that can be counted, or isolated, within the multiplicity:
'The number
is no'longer a means of counting or measuring but of moving: it is -the'number itself
that moves through smooth space' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 389). The collective
assemblage of enunciation is correlated to Deleuze and Guattari's critique of the
analyst/patient dichotomy in psychoanalysis: a theatre in which subjects speak on their
behalf-a hallucinatory image of private speech.' Rather, the collective assemblage of
enunciation speaks/acts as an organ of the molecular:
a numerical,
intensive
'
divides
into
itself.
Since there is no difference between multiplicities
that
multiplicity
dividing into themselves and connecting up with other heterogeneous intensities, a
multiplicity
can only grow by changing in nature--a metamorphosis. Its nature is
defined by a threshold crossed at a singular point in its growth. A becoming. A
generic, numerical entity, such as a wolf, or a monster. What is it for a pack to be
7Refer to '1914: One or Several Wolves?' (Deleuze& Guattari, ATP), for a criticism surrounding
Freud's analysisof private speech:'There are no individual statements,there never are.Every statement
is the product of a machinic assemblage,in other words, of collective agentsof enunciation [ I' (p.37).
...
And, 'November 2,1923: Postulatesof Linguistics': "Mere is no individual enunciation. There is not
even a subject of enunciation' (p.79).
8Shakur'saccount of the war-machine composition and the molecular, numeric heterogeneity that
assemblesmultiplicities elucidates this process: '[ ...] we'd used numbers as codes of affiliation to
circumvent police repression. All Trays, including three-time sets such as the Playboy Gangsters,
Altadena Block Crips, and Marvin Gangsters,wore three golf-ball emblems on their hats. In contrast,
Neighborhood sets and two-time sets like the 5-Deuces,6-Deuces, and Raymond Avenue Crips wore
two golf-ballemblems on their hats' (Shakur,M, p. 165).Earlierinthe autobiography,Shakur designates
the geographicalmatrix from which collectivities emerge: 'A member of a gang might belong to the
West Side Crips, Eight Tray Gangsters,North Side Eigbty-third Street, or West Side Harvard Park
Brims, Sixty-second Street.These are noted by street and initials or abbreviations' (ibid, pp.78-79).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
162
divided, and yet, still compose an assemblage?Granted the pack is perpetually
partitioned and segregated, but the variation in its magnitude is always
heterogeneouslyintensive. 'There are only multiplicities of multiplicities forming a
single assemblage,operating in the sameassemblage:packs in massesand massesin
packs' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.34). Packs are liminal: a boundary, or a zone, that
is not categorically localizable. Their relationship to multiplicity is of a pragmatic
leverage'that esdapesfrom Unity, Totality --ora transcendentmodel -of -articulation:
This is a divergence from the molar apparatusthat counts from the outside. The
transcendent,homogenizedNumbered number is a numerical lineage that constitutes
line
flight.
As Deleuzeand
a
of
a complementaryreterritorialization-the recapturingof
Guattari suggest: '[ ] the use of the number as a numeral, as a statistical element, is
...
proper to the numbered number of the State, not to the numbering number' (ibid,
p. 390).
The molecular fragments stratified intensity and maximally populatesitself in
order to function. It is not a function of copying or tracing a map, rather rhizomes add
a map to a specific territory: '[ ...] the rhizome pertains to a map that must be
produced, constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible,
modifiable and has multiple entryways and exists and its own lines of flight' (ibid,
p.21). By adding changes in the territory, intensities bifurcate to form other
has
be
Guattari
Deleuze
Thus
that
to
treated as
and
affirm
multiplicity
assemblages.
a substantive,an intensive difference, as opposedto the category of Plurality, which
differences:
has
'A
neither subject nor object,
multiplicity
only provides quantitative
dimensions
increase
in
determinations,
that
cannot
number
magnitudes, and
only
without the multiplicity changing in nature [ ...]' (ibid, p.8). Speedand temperatureare
Chapter V: Palimpsest: Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
163
examples provided by Deleuze and Guattari to designate the distinction between
intensive versus quantitative intensity. Intensive difference, for instancespeed,is only
decomposableinto other speedsand is irreducible to molar difference. This is basic
to intensity since they never enter into relations of proportionality.
The
mutual
process of
deterritorialization with
a
complementary
reterritorialization, is a self excitation that departs from all reference to strata, or
reliable framework, down-loaded from the-super-stratum.Thus the Iine Of flight is a
clandestinemovement branching out of homogeneousrelations that posit application.
The heterogeneitythat drips through the cracks and fissures of the strata ceasesto be
in a complicity to categorical systems of Unity. The machinic assemblageis a
lingering, yet constant, camouflaged movement that interferes with the pattern of
codedprocesses:a micro-practice of becoming.It is a construction, or an engineering
tool, for exploring trajectoriesof destratification,a probing of edgesand potentialities.
The trajectory is the escaping ingredient back into space; a becoming-minor. A
convection that situates the mass movement to destratification. A catalyst for minor
literature. A war machine.
1111
It is an affair of cartography. They composeus, as they composeour
map (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.203).
"Who is Monster Kody?.J am Monster Kody a person, a young man,
...
know
is
black
No,
I
jMt
Monster
that
else?
not
of
man-Anything
a
...
..
Kody? A Crip, an Eight Tray, a Rollin' Sixty Killer a black
...
...
(Shakur,
black
"
BLACK
MAN...
M, pp.225Black
man,
man,
man...
226).
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member chronicles the first phase of
Shakur's life, by charting the early initiation rites into the gang world through to his
first killing in low-intensity warfare to being shot seventimes himself. It is during this
Axiornatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
164
period Shakur acquires the name Monster. At the age of thirteen Shakur is struck in
the face by a man he is trying to rob; the man attemptsto escapebut is 'tripped' by
Tray Ball, a fellow Crip, who then holds the victim while Shakur 'stomps' him for
twenty minutes: '[ ]I learnedthat the man had lapsedinto a coma and was disfigured
...
from my stomping. The police told bystandersthat the personresponsiblefor this was
'
(Shakur,
[
]'
At sixteen Shakur is
"monster".
M,
The
13).
a
name stuck ...
p.
imprisoned for the first time: 'Not a door, not a window, -but bars. Since then I have
had an indelible scar on my mind stamped"criminal"' (ibid, p. 138). Upon his release,
Shakur has numerous skirmishes in South Central Los Angeles with other gang sets,
as well as law enforcement agencies that eventually place him in the California Youth
Training School for four years. As Shakur portrays, each gang in the training school
mobilizes accordingto 'geopolitical' boundariesthat stretchfrom Northern to Southern
California. The dynamics by which each set recodesaccording to territory produces
larger conflictual groups designatedby 'lines of race'. To complicate matters more,
tribalism seversNew Afrikans into warring factions: 'Tribalism was most prevalent
into
(ibid,
began
Crips
Afrikans,
Bloods'
New
then
and
who
as
one
split
amongst
'Due to this chapter concentratingon Deleuzeand Guattari's minor literature in relation to Monster,
it will not be possible to discussthe molecular structure of the gang environment that envelopsyoung
Shak-ur'slife. However, the Crips appropriate numerous aspects of nomad war machines, such as
dehierarchizedpower structures,fluid levels of interaction within the organization, and interchangeable
parts or positions that mutate according to need: '[ ...] banging falls short of the level of organization
formally
founded
being
is
institution
the
there
that
on
of
structured,
so
was
premise
no
say,
an
of,
compartmentalization.No individual has a specific duty assignedto him, where his efficiency can be
monitored by a superior. Therefore, the serious banger often finds himself handling several "jobs" in
the course of his career. For years I found my position in the set to be manifold. At any given time I
was the minister of information, which included suchresponsibilities aswriting on walls, declaring who
we were and who we wanted to kiU [ ...] minister of defense,which entailed organizing and overseeing
general troop movement and maintaining a highly visible, militarily able contingency of soldiers who,
at a moment's notice, could be relied upon for rapid deployment anywhere in the city; teacher of war
tactics, which, I guess,would fall under the heading of instructor, and combat soldier and on-the-job
trainer' (Shakur, M, p.78). The above reported excerpt has already been discussedin the previous
chapter.
Chapter V: Palimpsest:Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
165
p.207). With numerous sets combatting with each other for hierarchical domination
in the institutionalized environment, Shakur begins to question the foundation of
tribalism and the 'wider reality' of New Afrika. Moreover, Monster's graphic
descriptionsof South Central Los Angeles under constant surveillance from the State
apparatus,coupled with the threat of feuding warring factions shooting a 'homie'
(comrade), places Shakur's role as a Crip member into question. The position of
preserving the- 'hood through -retaliatory attacks to writing encrypted messageson
South Central walls, comes under critical examination when Shakur realizes he does
not even own a brick in the United States, and yet, since the age of eleven, has
defended a territory which is not really his own. On the one hand, the nomad is a
trajectory that does not possessany territory through enclosing or striating space,yet
still demarcatesa zone of actuality through a landscape,a smooth spacethat is the
removed perimeter from the apparatusof recoding. 'It is in this sensethat nomads
have no points, paths, or lands, even though they do by all appearances'(Deleuze
Guattari, ATP, p.381). And, on the other hand, the stratum once again
reterritorializes-inscribes-the nomadic trajectory decoding from the belts. It is the
deterritorialization of institutions on the cusp of madnessthat the strata can once again
intensity
into
back
homogeneity.
despot
As
the
the
the
molecular
with
recapture
from
deterritorialization
folds
back
itself
that
to
unprecedented
an
on
socius results
form another strata. And, with Shakur, we find him in back in prison, a recoding of
the body of a black man, a gang member,a Crip and a killer. The institutional holding
cell is the apparatusby which his identity is reconfigured, an etching or a memory
is
deterritorialization
It
the
this
within
strata: criminal.
movement of
and
reterritorialization betweenthe different thresholdsof the strata,that a movementfrom
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
166
being prisoner to becoming-monsteris conjugated. Shakur's movement of decoding
and recoding from gang member to prisoner back to gang member, constitutes a
double movementthat is constructedand dismantledto form a singularity. The series,
becoming-monster, is as much a gang member as a prisoner, that proliferates a
machinethe strata cannotrecode.The production of zonesthat Monster assemblesand
disassemblesare molecular intensities escapingfrom the componentsof confinement.
Sirwe'coding, signifies difference by-flattening out quantitative"entities --through-a
universalization in advance,the super-stratumthat demarcateseach cellular position
in relation to each subjectivity cannot code immanently localized assemblages.Thus
to designateintensities is to localize singularities, micro fissures that deterritorialize
the molar organization. Thus the metamorphosisto becoming wavers betweentactics
is
being
by
Monster
the
of maintaining a region and not
captured
super-stratum.
such
a formula:
Prison was like a stepping stone to manhood, with everything
depending on going and coming back. Going meant nothing if you
never came back. The going was obligatory, but coming back was
it
host
didn't
just
Going
a
of
mean prison, circumscribed
voluntary.
obligatory deeds.Go shoot somebody,go take a car, go break into that
house, go rob that store, go spray-paint that wall, or go up to that
school. The glory camenot in going but in coming back. To come back
showed a willingness to "stay down." It fostered an image of the set as
legitimate, and each individual who could go and come back brought
look,
(Shakur,
M,
talk,
way
of
writing
something new-walk,
pp.163-164).
While confined to the Youth Training School, Shakur's allegianceto the New
Afrikan IndependenceMovement becomesvisible, but is not fully developedtill his
involvement in the ConsolidatedCrip Organization (C.C.O.). " The importance of the
"Me C.C.0 was eventually dismantled when the leaders realize their assemblage,Clandestine
Revolutionary Internationalist Party Soldiers (CRIPS), is static, as opposed to futuristic (Shak-ur,M,
p.352). For further details regarding Shak-ur'scommitment to these movements, see the following
Chapter V: Palimpsest: Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
167
biographical excerpt lies in Shakur's coining of the term, 'Machine in Motion, to
designatethe molecular, anti-systemic rhizome." The assemblageis an impermanent,
temporal intensity that extinguishesitself when connectedto other multiplicities:
this is what it is all about-the discovery of assemblagesof immanence and their
dismantling. To dismantle a machinic assemblageis to create and effectively take a
line of escape[ ]' (Deleuze& Guattari, ATP, p.59). The machine is a singularity that
...
maps allmitforitarian possibilities by bringing into question the role of the -dominant;
suppressivemolar organization.The 'Machine in Motion' initiates all that is stratified
into an active collectivity of enunciation, a cadence,to a point where the emergence
of becoming is produced. There is no difference betweenthe map that is collectively
composedthrough the assemblageand the territory upon which it inscribes itself. It
is a question of locality that brings into question the Unity of the majority. The
'Machine in Motion' sketchesa geopolitical, molecular intensity that is a catalyst for
deterritorialization. It is an intensity that ruptures that strata to seek a line of flight,
an interacting zone immersedin a geopolitical immediacy. Deterritorialization is never
defined by its speed,but through its nature to 'jump from one singularity to another
following a nonclecompos
able, nonsegmentaryline [ ...]' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
is
becoming
Thus,
56).
never coordinatedby a tracing of the strata, but through the
p.
drawing of heterogeneouslines of flight, a howling that invades the linkages to
homogeneous
to
that
would
otherwise
attest
a
stasis.
subjectivity
With Shakur's immersion into the 'Machine in Motion', what role does his
chaptersin Shakur, M. '48 Hours', 'Reconnected' and 'Nation Time'.
"'Machine in Motion' is the Universal Crip Cadencecited by the inmates and led by Shak-ur.I am
encompassing 'Machine in Motion' to designate the supple molecularity by which a process to
immanence is generated.See chapter, '48 Hours', for the messagecontained in the Universal Crip
Cadencethat pertains to the transformation from tribalism to unity (Shakur, M, pp.306-309).
168
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
proper name have in the equation to multiplicity? Kody Scott, Monster Kody, and
Sanyika Shakur ceaseto denotea subjectivity, but insteaddiagram a writing-machine,
a program that has a local, variable functionality within the strata; a pragmatics
destratifying the universalization of identity structures. These are the effects of
intensities raging againstthe organs of the body. There is no difference between the
proper name and becoming-monstrosity, for both envelope and deterritorialize the
coding mechanismsof stratification.,The-organismare stratifications-of identity/unity
that cause binary oppositions to saturate multiplicities into rigidified wholes. The
bifurcation excites the molar operation of identity by seeking the point of becomingimperceptible. A writing-machine that encompassesthe 'impossibility of not writing'
is the construction of assemblagesinventing lines of flight from within the major
language (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, pp. 16-17fo. The collective enunciation of minor
literature severs the suture of the overcoding subjectivity that is stratified into a
homogeneouswhole, a Unity. A writing-machine seeking molecular connectionsby
which a line of flight can be compassed,is an assemblagethat has numbering number
as its component, drifting through the molar topography of the strata. Proper names
in
discontinuous
be
designated
then
or
effects;
other
assemblages,
as singularities,
can
it
intensive
If
both
numbering number mark a singularity.
proper names and
words,
is possible to designatea singularity, then the strata is coding an infinite amount of
intensity:
12
something always escapes'. By subordinating an autobiography to
is,
initially,
linear
due
to the socius
there
the
topography
a
chronicle
of
subject,
a
`Uiis relates to chapter 9, '1933: Micropolitics and Segmentarity', where Deleuze and Guattari
addressthe sectors of 'impotence' that defte power centres. This, of course, locates antisystemic
movementsof resistance,or micropolitics, as a massthat thwarts the perpetuation of the super-stratum
(ATP, p.217).
Chapter V: Palimpsest:Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
169
layering uniformed mechanisms of recoding. The machinic, subterraneanflows of
deterritorialization are perpetually reconfiguring the dynamics of the system, thereby
pushing the subjectivity behind the narrative into a collectivity. This doubling, namely,
a life chiseled on a palimpsest and the mutant lines of intensity that perpetually
decode the strata, is a becoming writing-machine. The communication between the
different strata intertwine at proximate levels of bifurcation. Deleuze and Guattari term
this,mediation the K-function; -to'de8ignatenot--onlythe singularity that destratifiesthe
strata, but also the recodings that infiltrate the heterogeneousmass.
K, the K. -function, designates the line of flight or deterritorialization
that carries away all of the assemblages but also undergoes all kinds of
reterritorializations and redundancies-redundancies of childhood,
village-life, love, bureaucracy, etc. (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, pp. 8889). 13
Situating Shakur's Monster within an assemblage,or a becoming writingmachine,is complex and perplexing. The cocking of a handgunto shoot an enemy and
inscribing a life, an autobiography,onto a palimpsestis a problematic function on the
samecircuit that fracturesthe stratification of identity: both relay a multiplicity within
a pack that localize movement; both deterritorialize transcendentsystemsof Law and
language, respectively; both initiate movements to the periphery, a minoritarian
assemblage;and both are destratified zones in which communication reaches an
immanent threshold.14The schizophrenic dispersion of identity through the cocking
13
And: 'The letter K no longer designatesa narrator or a characterbut an assemblagethat becomes
all the more machine-like, an agentthat becomesall the more collective becausean individual is locked
into it in his or her solitude [ ]' (Deleuze & Guattari, K, p. 18).
...
"The smearedwalls in South Central Los Angeles, upon which Shak-urmarks his affiliation to the
CriPs, also function as a palimpsest.The walls that house the graffiti are in a fluid transactionof being
codedwith particular markings of a gang, to only be decodedby anotherset, and iinafly, to be recoded
by, yc4 anothergang. The processof identiýring with territoriality is perpetually in a state of flux. The
walls provide a compassof directionality that usual streetsigns fail to indicate. The molar cartography
of South Central is diffused into a tactile space of interaction, a molecular mapping. 'The Miller
Axi0matics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
170
of a hammer, locateseachbody within an immanent exchange,a mapping of decoded
subjectivity. 'I rememberraising my weaponand him looking back-for a split second
it was as if we communicatedon another level and I overstood who he was-then I
pulled the trigger and laid him down' (Shakur, M, p. 11). The circulation through
which communication decodesto its molecular component, is the destratification of
geological plates of identity, whereby a smooth space initiates a realigning of
tenitory. 15,Furthennore, -Shakur's account of movements that -are,not -situated -within
homogeneous, cellular units, but derive their degree of intensity through local
variations, place each molecular gradient to an immanent mutation. The molecular is
a swarm of collective behaviour; a multiplicity whereby the machinic processexploits
stratified thresholds of strata. 'Like a temperature or a speed', the equation of
singularities modifies thresholds of systems.The numbering number is not a random
element, but a collective ensemble,a molecularity.
IV
Gangsterswere from clear acrosstown. 120th Street. It's possible that they didn't know where they
C,
were. Or it could be that they did know but had little respect for our 'hood, since they had never had
open confrontationswith us. I'd tend to believe the latter. This is why it's necessaryto read the writing
on the walls. Fuck street signs. Walls will tell you where you are' (Shakur, M, p. 169).
"Smooth space is an area of immediate contact, a field of heterogeneousparticles traversing the
super-strataand attracting multiplicities that will pushthe systemto transform into diversecollectivities.
I am thinking, specifically, of the concluding pagesto Alphonso Lingis' '111cSociety of Dismembered
Body Parts' (SDBP, pp.301-302),where the eloquenttreatmentof late capital's voyage to schizophrenia
is unsurpassed.As Lingis poetically states, the apocalyptic vision of dispersed body parts will not
reinscribe upon the earth, as in the primitive societies; rather, the schizophrenia that Delcuze and
Guattari conceive, is the 'dismemberment of body parts' that shatter notions of identity in order to
rcconfigure assemblages,a monstrosity. The transcendentidentity is fractured, or laid out, as immanent
movementsof disparateand localized intensitiesconvergeon thresholdsof deterritorialization. The hand
that cocks a gun is a body part (or intensity) being distributed 'across the social field'. 'The social body
is being laid bare, laid out, laid, excited metamorphosedwhen hands clasp in greeting and in
understandingand in commitment and in sensuality and also in parting [ ...] Where the car on cruise
control racesthe Los Angeles freeways,the hands free to dial the cellular phone, cut the fines of coke,
or cock-a handgun' (ibid, p.301). Cocking the hammer ascertainsa directional movement within the
confines of the topography of South Central: 'Guns were our tools of communication [ ...] Instantaneous
communication' (Shak-ur,M, p.228). For Shakur,South Central Los Angeles is the zone through which
mutant lines of flight molecularize a cartography of becoming.
Chapter V: Palimpsest:Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
171
It is certainly not by using a minor language as a dialect, by
regionalising or ghettoizing, that one becomesrevolutionary; rather, by
using a number of minority elements,by connecting,conjugating them,
one invents a specific, unforeseen,autonomousbecoming (Deleuze &
Guattari, ATP, p. 106).
Considering the machinic heterogeneity that constructs a writing-machine, through
which Shakur assembleshis line of flight, we are struck towards the end of Monster
by the molecular escape folding back on itself This is not to imply Shakur's
confinement-in Pelican Bay is a,molecular reterritorialization; but;-Tather,his tabling
of racial separation.Before venturing into this stratification, it is important to focus
on the doctrine of racial differentiation that Shakur provides. This occurs in numerous
places, particularly so with his emphasison America's genealogical suppressionof
minoritarian race(s). 'The contributing factors are many, and no singular person or
group has the absolute solution. From what I've studied and seen it would seemthat
this country's 130-year-old experiment of multiculturalism has failed. Perhapsit was
never designed to work [ ...] My personal belief is that separation is the solution'
(Shakur,M, pp.381-382). This is problematic, for the differentiation of colour, derived
from a homogeneousproduction of numberednumber, measuresand divides through
a melanous partitioning of race. It is a folding back of a decoded intensity, a
minoritarian assemblage,into a regimentedwhole that is another stratification on the
16The
layers
'supremacy'.
that
the
constitute
molar's position of
preexisting myriad
K-function falls prey not only to redundanciesof childhood regressionsof familism,
but recodingsof a sedentaryspacemore devastatingthan anything envisioned before:
16
For instance,the cartographicalseparation,or 'spatial apartheid', that has manifesteditself in Los
Angeles, presentsa stratified zoning of race through economics.Since the urban uprisings of the 1960s,
the white flight into the suburban ffinges of Los Angeles has placed most Black Americans in an
economicmoratorium, as most employment opportunitieshave moved out of the core city into the safe,
surrounding havens of Los Angeles (see Davis, 'WKLAi', pp.14-20).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
172
a construction of identity that suppresses becoming. Thus the K-ftinction is
architecturally modeled within a homogeneousrealm, through which the molar
organization provides a definition for becoming. A division of the race that Shakur
desiresto evoke within the socius, is founded on the notion of the oppressionof one
and the supremacy of the other, and by imposing what it implies to be a minor,
Shakur is folding back onto the samenotion of identity that the oppressoremploys to
globalize and perpetuatethe -stratification of machinic-,assemblages:Thus-Shakur's
recoding of the becoming-minor takesplace on the sameplane, or palimpsest,that the
super-stratumimplementsto stratify minoritarian becomings.As Deleuze and Guattari
suggestin Capitalism and Schizophrenia,race is not predicated on purity, but exists
only through being oppressed:'[ ...] there is no race but inferior, minoritarian; there
is no dominant race; a race is defined not by its purity but rather by the impurity
conferredupon it by a systemof domination' (Deleuze& Guattari, ATP, p.379). More
importantly, race cannot be rediscoveredthrough 'mythical' voyages that tend to be
aligned with microfascisms,a theatre of representationproviding a nostalgic narrative
of identity. For instance, returning to the process of becoming-imperceptible, the
function of proper namesis not to stratify within a representationof race, but a zone
that convergeswith other minoritarian assemblages,regardlessof molar attributes,that
share the same production of becoming. Deleuze and Guattari term this interactive
phylum 'a class of effects', which locatesa movement that encompassesall totalities
"
the
within
machinic process. Shakur is misguided when he emphasizesthe purpose
17
1 am referring to Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of racial constructs, as in the following: '[ ]
...
identifying races, cultures, and gods with fields of intensity on the body without organs, identifying
personageswith states that fill these fields, and with effects that IuIgurate within and traverse these
fields [ ] there is no ego that identifies with races,peoples,and personsin a theater of representation,
...
but proper names that identity races, peoples, and persons with regions, thresholds, or effects in a
production of intensive quantities' (Deleuze & Guattari, AO, p.86).
Chapter V: Palimpsest:Toward a Minor Literature in Monstrosity
173
separation will have in this new configuration of identity: a characterization that
retains a static definition of what a class of effects will produce, is none other than
"
dominant
language.
The depiction of the
transcendent
the
a
molarization within
minority, as a peripheral rhizome, lies in its 'connection' to other ruptures that
produce elements the strata cannot recode. The significance of Monster: The
Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member is the machinic,line of flight that connects
to -Imperceptible'localities; that would otherwise be' recoded,by the-sfipet-str4tuni
through globalized identification, such as a criminal in the prison system, the
explication of racism and segregation.The supplemolecularity of the writing-machine
is to delimit the cartographyof representation,to accessthe molar stratified layers that
unify suppressionand racism, to bifurcate models of the dominant language and to
create a trajectory of escape on a smooth space of interaction. '[ ...) The more a
language has or acquires the characteristics of a major language, the more it is
affected by continuous variations that transposeit into a "minor" language' (Deleuze
& Guattari, A TP, p. 102). The criticism that can be levelled at Shakur in his recoding
that separatesrace, is not to reject the collective assemblageof enunciation he has
generatedwithin the confines of Pelican Bay. Shakur's strength in becoming-monster
lies in the reevaluation of the planes of strata that bind and suppressminoritarian
becomings. To dismantle the apparatusof capture that thwarts such multiplicities
18Shak-ur'smacro-politics of separating race is not realistically attainable within the current climate
in the United States. Moreover, since this chapter focuses on the micro-political assemblage that is
generated from Shak-ur's autobiography, it is not possible to assessthe viability of racial macro-politics.
As Deleuze and Gualtari suggest: 'Ile response of the States, or of the axiomatic, may obviously be
to accord the minorities regional or federal or statutory autonomy, in short, to add axioms. But this is
not the problem: this operation consists only in translating the minorities into denumerable sets or
subsets, which would enter as elements into the majority, which could be counted among the majority'
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.470).
The strata are phenomena of thickening on the Body of the earth, simultaneously
molecular and molar: accumulations,coagulations,sedimentations,foldings. They are
Belts, Pincers, or Articulations.
Deleuze and Guattari
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
176
[ ] Capitalism has a very particular character: its lines of escapeare
...
not just difficulties that arise, they are the conditions of its own
operation. It is constituted by a generalized decoding of all flux,
fluctuations of wealth, fluctuations of work, fluctuations of language,
fluctuations of art, etc. It did not create code, it has set up a sort of
accountability, an axiomatic of decoded fluxes as the basis of its
economy.It ligatures the points of escapeand leapsforward. It expands
its own boundariesendlessly and finds itself having to seal new leaks
at every limit [...] It puts itself in alarming situations with respectto its
own production, its social life, its demographics,its borders with the
Third World, its internal regions, etc. Its gaps are everywhere [ ] But
...
it is certainly the prohlem of the marginalized. to plug all these lines
of escape-into a'revolutionaiy- plateau (Deleuze, 'CAP', - pp.66-67; emphasisadded).
'Class consciousness'and the 'American rhizome' are two distinct processesthat
occur in Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of the capitalist world-economy. By
discussingthesetwo processes,we can concludeour study of the minoritarian and the
identifying
with a particular socio-econornicclass.(An identification with
problems of
a socio-economic class is an instance of the majority (marxism) critiquing the
stratification of the capitalist world-economy). We examine this critique by the
majority in relation to America and Deleuze and Guattari's work, in particular the
'American rhizome' that is located in the West. The West has an important role in
Deleuze and Guattari's writings on literature and the destratification of the apparatus
of capture.
The smooth space of communication between the phyla of heterogeneous
particles is the circuit of desire. The flows that escapefrom the apparatusof capture
'
found
Guattari
This is not
issues.
the
that
tags
are
within
nomadic exchange
as minor
"I do not believe in universal literature or philosophy but rather in the virtues of minor languages.
So the question becomesrather simple, either a minor language connectsto minor issues,producing
particular results, or it remains isolated, vegetates,turns back on itself and producesnothing' (Guattari,
Chaosophy,pp.37-38).
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
177
to suggest that minorities, or minoritarian becomings (movements), do not have
definable molar attributes that produce elementsof capturewithin their heterogeneity.
Rather, their significance stems from their ability
to
'trigger'
levels of
deterritorialization that would otherwise not be generated:'Minorities, of course, are
objectively definable states,statesof language,ethnicity, or sex with their own ghetto
territorialities, but they must also be thought of as seeds,crystals of becoming whose
value is to trigger uncontrollable movementsand deterritorializations-of the mean or
majority' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p. 106). Deleuze and Guattari argue that
minorities and minoritarian becomingshave molecular reterritorializations, producing
molar systems that the strata can then recode through apparatusesof capture. The
significance of minoritarian becomings,however, lies in their geopolitical immediacy
that connectsthem to social movementsthroughout the socius.Without such a process
to machinic becoming, we would not have the revolutionaty potential to
deterritorialize the strata that imprison desire.
Capitalism is stratification: a levelling of axioms and models of realization;
but
It doesnot effect the "conjugation" of the deterritorialized and decoded
flows without those flows forging farther ahead;without their escaping
both the axiomatic that conjugates them and the models that
reterritorialize them; without their tending to enter into "connections"
that delineatea new Land; without their constituting a war machine
[a] revolutionary movement (ibid, pp.472-473).
However temporary the nomadic exchangemay be, it is, nevertheless,a minoritarian
becoming. By not specifically concentratingon the exploitation that is inflicted on the
'worker'-resulting from de-industrialized Los Angeles (particularly in South Central
Los Angeles)-this study diagrams movements that realign the peripheral (Third
World) 'worker' into new zones of exchange.These zones of exchangehave been
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
178
discussedby diagramming antisysternicmovementsof resistancethat map geopolitical
becomingsand minor literatures onto the surface of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the
medium by which the cartography of desire is examined. The Third Worlds that are
internally placed in the Centre zone chart contemporary,material interactions that are
has
its
Late
to
antisysternic.
capitalism
perpetuallyredraw boundariesto accommodate
the influx of Third Worlds into the core of its Centre. By deterritorializing peripheral
sectors that -are *stratified - by the Centre, *antisystemic movements- of resistance
challenge the present homogeneous configuration of late capitalism, locating
heterogeneous elements that subvert the apparatus of capture, and designating
minoritarian assemblagesto micropolitics.
The inability to construct axiomatics that will imprison flows from escaping
through the cracks of the stratified world-economy, we find the Centre having to
continuously reterritorialize on its own Third Worlds, to assurethat the apparatusof
captureis not absolutely deterritorialized, to sustaina level of power over minoritarian
becomings,to implement limits to thwart the flows of desire, and to reconfigure the
dynamics of late capitalism.' Models of realization are implemented to continue the
stratification process of binding desiring-production to the strata. Late capitalism
by
flows
in
functions
deterritorializing
that
turn, are
of
surplus-production,
always
Deleuze
Guattari's
with
and
analysis of the
a
complementarity.
reterritorialized
apparatus of capture states that, it is not a question of whether minorities, or
'As Braudel states, it is only through the coordination of peripheral zones do we get a Centre
controlling the capitalist world-economy. 'There can only be a world-economy when the mesh of the
network is sufficiently fine, and when exchangeis regular and voluminous enough to give rise to a
central zone' (Braudel, cited in Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.468). However, with late capitalism the
Centre is in a precariousposition, since the Earth has to be continuously remapped,not only with other
regions or territories, but also internally. Ile Centre is always re-axiomatizing its surplus-productivity
to sustain a level of control. See chapter I for a detailed examination of the Centre's role in late
capitalism.
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
179
minoritarian assemblages,can viably create Stateswithin the capitalist system: '[ ]
since in the long run they promote compositions that do not pass by way of the
capitalist economy any more than they do the State-form' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
p.470). These compositions are antisysternic movements of resistance.
Even though minorities are placed in peripheral Third Worlds in the capitalist
world-economy, Deleuze and Guattari argue that the revolutionary potential of
ibinoritarian-ass'emblagesis the'antisystemic movement that -destratifies-particular
constructs that level class consciousness(code) to their becoming: '[ ...] if they are
revolutionary, it is becausethey carry within them a deepermovementthat challenges
the worldwide axiomatic' (ibid, p.472). To identify with a majoritarian system that
levels class consciousnessas the medium by which to critique capitalism, only leads
to anotherreterritorialization on the already existing codesof the myriad layers of the
imPlemented
identifies
The
the
the
with
more
majority
molarity,
more codesare
strata.
to sustain the high-level control of the strata. In other words, to identify with
particular homogeneousbelts is an operation that is still within the confines of the
strata. As Deleuze and Guattari explain:
'The power of the minority, of particularity, finds its figure or its
universal consciousness in the proletariat. But as long as the working
class defines itself by an acquired status, or even by a theoretically
(variable
it
"capital,
"
State,
as
a
part
of
capital
appears only
conquered
leave
does
the plan(e) ofcapilar (Deleuze & Guattari,
not
capital), and
ATP, 472).3
p.
By arguing that capture precedes oppression in the development of the capitalist
'This is not to suggest that the minority does not have a 'universal figure', but that figure is
precisely a molecular trajectory that does not posit a universalization in advance: 'There is a universal
figure of minoritarian consciousnessas the becoming of everybody, and that becoming is creation. One
doesnot attain it by acquiring the majority. The figure to which we are referring is continuousvariation,
as an amplitude that continually overstepsthe representativethreshold of the majoritarian standard,by
excessor default' (ibid, p. 106).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
180
world-economy, Deleuze and Guattari resist identifying minorities, or minoritarian
assemblages,with a class consciousnessthat sees itself oppressed,an instance of
coding . To do so leads us back into the strata, and a movement to the periphery of
the capitalist world-economy is not achieved. For instance, marxism critiques the
capitalist world-economy by levelling exploitation and oppressionas the basic element
of stratification. As Deleuze and Guattari suggest, such a critique reterritorializes
marxismýinto a majority, -producing a -universal consciousnessin the proletariat.
'Majority implies a constant,of expressionor content, serving as a standardmeasure
by which to evaluate it' (ibid, p. 105). In appropriating molar categories, such as
oppressionand exploitation, the machinic potentiality of the minoritarian folds back
itself
The end result of the folding back processis a class consciousnessthat posits
on
oppression as the underlying system of stratification. By recoding antisystemic
movements in accordanceto oppression, the majority's critique is still within the
axiomatized structure that the capitalist world-economy utilizes to leap forward. This
is an instanceof capture by the strata, a reterritorialization. Categoriesof oppression
in
the capitalist world-economy are molar recodingsonto the belts the
exploitation
and
strata utilize to perpetuatethemselves. The 'figure' that identifies with oppression
finds itself caught between the double-pincer, unable to coordinate a movement of
resistance.The models of realization that producea macro-political identification with
class oppression(or universal consciousnessin the proletariat), capture revolutionary
desire by reterritorializing it back onto the matrix that has already been set-up by the
capitalist world-economy. As Deleuze and Guattari recommend,it is more a question
of minoritarian directions that are to be travelled, a construction of a geopolitical
immediacy to the social stratum, as opposed to class structures that are to be
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
181
"
domain
the
the
understood within
of
strata. By drawing lines of flight that
deterritorialize the layers of capture, we can map the strata that sediment desire into
homogeneoussystems: 'A determination different from that of the constant will
therefore be considered minoritarian, by nature and regardless of number, in other
words, a subsystemor an outsystem' (ibid, p. 105). Or, antisysternic movements of
resistance. Deleuze and Guattari specify that the majoritarian cas a constant and
homogeneoussystem' (ibid) poses difficulties, as in the following -excerpt:--------One could even imagine, in blood and crisis, a more radical reversal
that would make the white world the periphery of a yellow world; there
would doubtless be an entirely different axiomatic. But what we are
talking about is something else,somethingeven that would not resolve:
women, nonmen, as a minority, as a nondenumerable flow or set,
would receive no adequateexpressionby becoming elements of the
majority, in other words, by becoming a denumerablefinite set. What
is proper to the minority is to asserta power of the nondenumerable,
even if that minority is composed of a single member. That is the
formula for multiplicities (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.470).'
Is there a connection between what Deleuze and.Guattari tag as minoritarian
and what they diagram to be America? Can the discussion concerning the
identification with a constant, such as class consciousness,be located in the United
States?Finally, what function is America serving in Deleuze and Guattari's analysis
of becoming? The concept of the rhizome is the medium by which to answer these
questions concerning America and Deleuze and Guattari's writings. The 'American
"The line no longer forms a contour, and insteadpassesbetweenthings, betweenpoints. It belongs
to a smooth space.It draws a plane that has no more dimensionsthan that which crossesit; therefore
the multiplicity it constitutesis no longer subordinatedto the One, but takes on a consistency of its
own. Theseare multiplicities of massesor packs, not of classes;anomalousand nomadic multiplicities,
not normal or legal ones [ ...]' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.505).
'Deleuze and Guattari continue their formulation of becoming by stating that: 'The issue is not at
all anarchyversusorganization,nor even centralismversusdecentralization,but a calculusor conception
of the problems of nondenumerablesets, against the axiomatic of denumerablesets. Such a calculus
may have its own compositions, organizations, even centralizations; nevertheless,it proceedsnot via
the Statesor the axiomatic processbut via a pure becoming of minorities' (ibid, p.471).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
182
rhizome' is the assemblagethat producesa trajectory of escapefrom the confines of
the strata. (For instance, we have discussed particular aspects of the 'American
rhizome' in order to arguefor the geopolitical immediacy that is found in the function
of the minoritarian in South Central Los Angeles). Deleuze and Guattari specifically
point to American literature to argue for the 'special case' that produces the
'American rhizome. By appropriating their mapping of American literature to our
discussion of macro-political -class-consciousness,we can conclude our examination
of minoritafian becomings.
Deleuzeand Guattari explicitly statethat America is the zone where everything
comestogether: '[ ...] everything important that hashappenedor is happeningtakesthe
route of the American rhizome [ ...]' (Deleuze & Guattari, A TP, p. 19). And: 'The flow
of capital produces an immense channel, a quantification of power with immediate
"quanta," where eachperson profits from the passageof the money flow in his or her
way: [...] in America everything comestogether, tree and channel, root and rhizome'
(ibid, p.20). They suggestthat the lines of escapethat are generatedby the 'American
found
in
literature,
heterogeneous
American
the
producing
are
elements
rhizome'
flows in all 'geographical directions'. In assembling a map, these geographical
directions assistDeleuze and Guattari in their examination of America, and they also
in
is
is
America
Europe.
This
to
that
the
not
suggest
arborescence
rhizomatic
elucidate
and Europe is stratified, since both encompass elements of stratification and
destratification: 'There are knots of arborescencein rhizomes,and rhizomatic offshoots
in roots' (ibid).
Deleuze and Guattari's 'Introduction: Rhizome', in A Thousand Plateaus,
explores America's 'map' in the West. They discuss the arborescent roots and
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
183
rhizomes that continuously reconfigure the landscapein America. In particular, they
are concemed with writers that either recode or decode the geological strata of
America. As they suggest, the American landscape's relationship to the strata is
intensified by the lines of escapethat leak out of the geological plates. The landscape
produces dynamic flows that cross thresholds of stratification, creating immanent
compositions(eventhough the flows may reterritorialize), 'shifting' layersthat capture
intensity., and formulating a meshwork interactivity that allows for- heterogeneous
elementsto flow on the body without organs.In order to gain a better understanding
into
levels
divide
America
blocks by
interaction,
Guattari
Deleuze
these
of
of
and
mapping the directions that certain writers have charted through their work. The
writers that they discuss have a unique place in Capitalism and Schizophi-enia.we
have the East, a territory that recodes,or retums, to the Old World (Eliot); we have
the South that overcodeson the slavery system (Faulkner); we have the North with
its decoding capitalists (Dreiser); and we have the West, the zone that intersectswith
line
flight
(Kerouac):
'[
]
layers
West
the
the
the
the
of
plays
role
of
a
of
strata
all
...
combining travel, hallucination, madness, the Indians, perceptive and mental
frontiers,
the rhizome
the
of
shifting
experimentation,
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP,
levels
destratification
in
The
18,
520).
that
of
stratification
and
are
occurring
p.
note
these American blocks depend upon the relationship each of these zones has to
Europe: 'And directions in America are different: the searchfor arborescenceand the
is
its
[
]
in
West
East.
But
Old
World
the
there
the
to
the
rhizornatic
occur
return
...
frontiers'
(ibid,
limit,
its
displaced
and
p. 19).
shifting
ever-receding
The West is tagged as a rhizornatic territory, a landscapethat is decoded by
has
becoming.
'frontier'
The
West
the
always
a privileged
of
molecular assemblages:
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
184
place in Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of America. To understandtheir privileging
of the West, we need to examine Deleuze and Guattari's relationship to Europe. The
geographical distancethat separatesthe West from Europe plays an essentialpart in
Deleuze and Guattari's writings of not only the West, but also of Europe. The West
is particularly rhizornatic becauseits links to the 'Old World' are not as stratified as
they are in the East. Moreover, they suggest that: 'Every great American author
createsa cartography, even in his or her style; in contrast to what is done in Europe,
each makes a map that is directly connectedto the real social movements crossing
America' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, note 18, p.520). The following questions need
to be asked regarding America and Europe: why does America's line of flight have
such an important role in Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the rhizome? In other
in
landscape,
if
layers
American
there
the
that
of
words,
are such
stratification
continuously reterritorialize desiring-production into homogeneouswholes, then why
do they differ so much from the stratification found in Europe? Why privilege one
over the other? Perhapsthe following is an answer:
At the same time, we are on the wrong track with all these
geographical distributions. An impasse.So much the better. If it is a
question of showing that rhizomes also have their own, even more
rigid, despotism and hierarchy, then fine and good: for there is no
dualism, no ontological dualism betweenhere and there, no axiological
dualism betweengood and bad, no blend or American synthesis(ibid,
p.20).
And yet, earlier in the reported passage,they state that American books assemble
6
different lines of flight than their Europeancounterparts. The distinct processthat is
occurring in Deleuze and Guattari's perspective on America and their critique of
"American books are different from Europeanbooks, even when the American sets off in pursuit
of trees. The conception of the book is different' (ibid, p. 19).
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
185
Europe, is found in their analysis of marxist discourse that produces a universal
consciousnessas the medium by which we can destratify the present homogeneous
configuration of capitalism. Deleuze and Guattari argue that by levelling a 'constant
of expression' through 'class consciousness',as an apparatusto critique the capitalist
world-economy, we are not mapping the machinic potentialities that heterogeneously
7
converge with other elements within the machinic phylum. These convergences
supersede-calegones-ofoppression and-exploitation. To isolate flows-within-a pre-w defined foundation of class consciousness is a reterritorialization of desiringproduction into molar systems of thought. The machinic heterogeneity that deaxiomatizes the stratification of the capitalist world-economy finds itself recoded by
another layer. The internal Third Worlds are no longer able to converge with
antisystemic movements of resistance, since they have already been defined by
acquiring a 'status' within the planes of capitalism. Thus, the processof continuous
'becoming of everybody' is recodedby the apparatusof capture.
it is by leaving
the plan(e) of capital, and never ceasingto leave it, that a massbecomesincreasingly
denumerable
(Deleuze
dominant
destroys
the
the
sets'
equilibrium
of
revolutionary and
& Guattari, ATP, p.472). By 'leaving' the homogeneous stratification of the
majoritarian, micropolitics converge with minoritarian and geopolitical movements.
Models of realization are the meansby which the majoritarian can produce an
identification with an acquired status. For Deleuze and Guattari, such models of
'The 'guidance device' of the phylum head not only locates and designates the various
heterogeneousassemblageswithin the constellation of stratification, but also draws the lines that
detcrritorialize the Earth in relation to the nomad. Ile temporality of the machinic phylum produces
the effect of stratification of intensive flows-, even though these flows vary immanently they resist
actualization into cellular oTdersof temporality. They either prevent their capturethrough lines of flight
body
by
the
the
the
maintaining
on
of
without organs as
strata
precipice
continuous mutation,
or
intensive desire. By positing a class consciousnessin order to critique capitalism, we find that
. ritarian assemblagesare once again rccoded by the majority.
Axiornatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
186
realization have saturated micropolitics in Europe. They contrast these models of
realization that have reterritorialized desire in Europe to the machinic becomingsthat
bifurcate homogeneous systems in the West. (For example, their discussion of
American books to European books). Their privileging of the West levels a critique
of the limitations of European discourse that places an identification within class
structures, producing pre-defined systems by which to critique capitalism. The
significance-of Capitalism andSchizophrenia lies precisely in its combat againstthese
models of interaction that are present in Europeandiscourse.Granted, capitalism is a
by
implementing
limits
its
to
that
growth
continuously sets
world-wide axiomatic
models of realization to thwart flows of desiring-production from leaking out of the
discourses
Guattari
Deleuze
However,
that
specify
minoritarian
and
strata.
(micropolitics) should not construct another layer of stratum on the already existing
layers of stratathat constitutethe world-wide axiomatic. Marxism is criticized for such
becomings.
deterritorializing
layering
minorities
and
minoritarian
a
of stratum onto
Capture is the basic element of the strata, and until the strata can be mapped as a
process of capture, we will not be able to formulate geopolitical movements that
decode the capitalist world-economy. To create a class consciousnessby which all
is
be
defined
an endeavourthat will only perpetuatethe
processes
can
minoritarian
define
The
the apparatus of capture are the
that
cracks
of
capture.
present system
deterritorializing elements that minoritarian assemblagescan utilize to challenge
homogeneoussystemsof thought. Marxism goesthe other way round by constructing
an identification within the capitalist world-economy, as opposed to mapping the
imprisonment
for
to
the
that
sedimented
resist
geopolitical movements
allow
cracks
but
be
The
to
the
only
of
sedimentation
need
mapped,
geological plates
within
system.
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
187
through the crevices do we discover what these homogeneousplates imprison.'
The West, for Deleuze and Guattari, is the 'map' where minoritarian
trajectories are diagrammed within the matrix of the capitalist world-economy.' In
other words, the West connectsitself to minor elementsthat push themselvesonto the
apex of the apparatusof capture. It is only through deterritorializing a major language
(as in minor literature), or decoding constantsthat bind us to the strata, do we push
through to the limits that, are -instituted by -the apparatus of capture. By, dividing
America into blocks, we can appropriateDeleuze and Guattari's distinction between:
'[
] the majoritarian
as a constant and homogeneous system; minorities
as
subsystems;and the minoritarian as a potential, creative and created, becoming'
(Deleuze& Guattari, A TP, pp.105-106).This takes place by each sectors' relationship
to the Old World, and by designatingthe West as the zone of reversal, the 'American
rhizome' finds its '[ ...] Orient in the West, as if it were precisely in America that the
Earth came full circle; its West is the edge of the East' (ibid, p. 19). This reversal of
direction is the convergenceof social movements and minoritarian becomings that
traversethe body without organs.It is not a question of identifying with certain states,
"From the viewpoint of micropolitics, a society is defined by its lines of flight, which are
molecular. There is always something that flows or flees, that escapesthe binary organizations, the
resonanceapparatus,and the overcoding machine [ ..] molecular escapesand movements would be
nothing if they did not return to the molar organizations to reshuffle their segments,their binary
distributions of sexes,classesand parties (Delcuze & Guattari, ATP, pp.216-217)
power centersare
dermed much more by what escapesthem or by their impotence than by their zone of power' (ibid,
p.217).
ýln an interview from 1985, Guattari explains the function of the 'American rhizome' in relation
to becoming: 'America is entirely deterritorialized. "Deterritorialization" meansthat instead of having
obstaclesor having land, things, curves, there are lines, trains, planes, everything crossing, everything
sliding, demographic flows sliding everywhere, and on top of that, there are extraordinary
reterritorializations. Henry Miller in Brooklyn, Faulkner [ ...] as an archaic writer of American life [.. ]
Isn't it rather a mythical reterritorialization about deterritorialized America? [ ] How does one make
...
oneself a body without organs, how does one make oneself a little territory, a life, a warmth, a
childhood, in this American mess, in this whole mishmash spread out all overT (Guattari).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
188
or homogeneoussystems, but of subtracting molar configurations and producing a
variation within the immanence that is generated: 'Subtract and place in variation,
remove and place in variation: a single operation' (ibid, p. 104). By reversing
geographical directions through the 'American rhizome', these elementsof variation
and substractionallow Deleuze and Guattari to map the continuous fluxes in the West.
Thus, the West is privileged in Capitalism and Schizophreniadue to the possibilities
it'gdnerateswithin its own deterritorialization of directions. Being
the pivot point
and mechanismof reversal' (ibid, p. 19), the West is continuously remapping its own
designatedlimits and creating endlessfrontiers for minoritarian becomings,a process
of endless 'creation'. Moreover, the West's relationship to Europe, according to
Deleuze and Guattari, allows for the decoding of the Old World's recodings that
implement boundariesthrough constantsof expression.
The major and the minor mode are two different treatments of
language, one of which consists in extracting constants from it, the
other in placing it in continuous variation (ibid, p. 106).
Without considering the machinic elements that create new heterogeneous
possibilities, constants of expression level their own stratification onto minoritarian
becomings.For instance,class consciousnessdoes not allow for other configurations
within the capitalist economy, other than defining itself by an acquired status. These
processeshave specific consequencesto Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of the strata
that designatea Universalization in advance,in particular the majoritarian levelling
oppressionas the basis of the capitalist world-economy. The issue for minorities, as
well as minoritarian becomings,is that'[ ...] of smashingcapitalism [ ...] of constituting
a war machine capableof countering the world war machine by other means' (Deleuze
& Guattari, ATP, p.472). It is a question of designating peripheral zones that are
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
189
capturedby the Centre. It is also a question of 'tearing' molecular flows from power
Centresthat stratify desire. Whether this pragmatic approachconsists of the writingmachine or the mapping of the peripheralization of the Third World, the 'tearing' is
the machinic process that deterritorializes the exteriority of thought."
The
'revolutionary path' charts the elements of desire that traverse the body without
organs. What is important to Deleuze and Guattari is the 'indexing of geographical
diteiftioný' that constitute a movementto the peripheiy. Even though such movements
may reterritorialize on themselves,it is still generatingan assemblagethat decodesthe
homogeneous apparatus of the strata. The 'directions' assemble antisystemic
movementsof resistance,a map of desire.
In conclusion, Deleuze and Guattari's affinity towards America, in particular
the West, is found in the zone that resists identifying itself with arborescentroots.
Their resistanceto constructing an identity that places oppression as the underlying
system of stratification, is found in their analysis of the West. Based on their critique,
the identification with a universal consciousnessin the proletariat never quite crosses
the Atlantic to reterritorialize naked labour in America. By '[ ] proceed[ing] both by
...
internal exterminationsand liquidations [ ] and by successivewaves of immigration
...
from the outside' (Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.20), the 'American rhizome' is
populated with massesthat cannot be adequately appropriated within a universal
'01am thinking of the questionsposedby Deleuze and Guattari in their book on Kalka, where they
stressthe importance of minor language,and its struggle to 'tear' away from the organsof power that
institute modes of subjective formations through libidinal investment: 'How many people today live in
a languagethat is not their own? Or no longer, or not yet, even know their own and know poorly the
major languagethat they are forced to serve?This is the problem of immigrants, and especially of their
children, the problem of minorities, the problem of a minor literature, but also a problem for all of us:
how to tear a minor literature away from its own language,allowing it to challenge the language and
making it follow a sober revolutionary path? How to become a nomad and an immigrant and a gypsy
in relation to one's own languageT (K, p. 19).
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
190
consciousness.Masses distribute desire through the circulation of flows that are
continuously on the cusp of the twin process of deterritorialization and
reterTitorialization. The importance of antisystemic movements of resistance lies
identify
in
do
their
that
molecular compositions
not specifically
with socioprecisely
in
is
It
the
world-economy.
classes
capitalist
essentialto uncover the strata
economic
that bind desiring-production to particular layers in the economy, as opposed to
specifying a,class (proletariat) that is being oppressed.To allocate-the latter,:-namely
destratify
the capitalist system, only
the
that
component
will
class consciousness,as
leadsus back into the systemicmanipulation of the strata.It is precisely in finding the
crackswithin the homogeneoussystemthat will allow the minoritarian the possibility
of challenging its present axiom configuration in the world-economy. 'We are
referring [ ...] to the coexistenceand inseparability of that which the systemconjugates,
and that which never ceasesto escapeit following lines of flight that are themselves
is
Guattari,
ATP,
(Deleuze
&
473).
It
only through the medium of the
p.
connectable'
minor do we get the full apparatusof capture that is utilized to ward off opposition
from within. It is not a power acquisition that the minor is seeking out by infiltrating
the State's formation. It is rather a questionof destratifying the assemblagescoded by
the State and creating a new line of becoming: '[ ...]a pure becoming of minorities'
(ibid, p.471
."
A social field is always animated by all kinds of movements of
decoding and deterritorialization affecting "Masses" and operating at
different speedsand paces. Theseare not contradictions hut escapes
(Deleuze & Guattari, ATP, p.220; emphasisadded).
These movementsintersect at various points throughout the channels demarcatedby
"'George Jack-sonwrote from prison: "It may be that I am fleeing, but throughout my flight, I am
searching for a weapon"' (Deleuze & Pamet, DIA, p.36).
Concluding Remarks: 'Class Consciousness'and the 'American Rhizome'
191
the myriad layers of capitalism.
America presentsus with a perspectiveon the world that cannot be entirely
designates
by
European
that
thought
an acquired 'status' through a universal
gauged
consciousness.As this study has elucidated, America is negotiating its internal
by
its
demographics
to accommodateThird Worlds. Thus, there
relations
remapping
(and
deterritorialization
of
are continuousmovements
reterritorialization) that open up
14yers'of lhe'Mrat4 to minoritafian. becdmings.' This is not to suggest that America does
by
back
into
but
the possibilities to
the
reterritorialize
recoding
masses
strata,
not
challengethe homogeneoustiers are always present.Deleuze and Guattari's emphasis
on America stems from the minoritarian possibilities that are always looming,
especially in the West. (Shakur's becoming-monsfrosity is such an example). The
in
be
the
the
minority
capitalist
world-economy
cannot
peripheralization of
appropriated within a matrix of class consciousnessthat defines desire through a
constant.Geopolitics is the medium by which we can map the deterritorializing flows
that traverse the body without organs,resisting the axiornatized apparatusof capture,
producing minoritarian becomingsthrough micropolitics, and creating heterogeneous
interactionsthat would otherwise be stratified within the matrix of the capitalist worldeconomy.
Philosophy is a geophilosophy in precisely the same way that history
is a geohisforyfi-om Braudel's point of view.
Machines are always singular keys that open or close an assemNage,
a lerritoty.
Tables
193
Table I
Deterritorialization
Immanence
(Partial)
Molecular
Connective
(libido/flow)
Production
Assemblage
Territorial Production
Disjunctive
(numen/code)
Distribution
Distinction
Despotism
Conjunctive
(voluptas/
intensity)
Consumption
Identification
Capitalism
Note:
Transcendence/Territorialization
(Global)
Molarization
Territorialization and deterritorialization do not presuppose a machine. Anything can be
deterritorialized and reterritorialized, as long as it is able to exhibit a preferential localization.
The processof coding and decoding does presupposea machine: only a machine can code or
0
decode. Coding and decoding presuppose a territory because the machine foresees a
delimitation of a field. Territory is the limit for the system of stratification.
The body without organs is the nexus of exchangefor coding. The Earth is the body without
organs that codes and is plugged into all types and formations.
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
194
Table H
Share of World Economic Regions and Countries in World Output
GDP at international Billions
prices and equivalenceof USS
of purchasing power in 1980
1986
1967
1973
jýhin4.
1,167.;
3.8
4.0
UK
France
Italy
530.1
517.3
136.8
4.8
3.8
1.1
4.3
3.8
1.1
3.7
3.7
1
3.5
3.4
0.9
Japan
1,160.6 5.8
7.2
7.4
7.7
Soviet Union
1,475.0 11
10.8
10.3
9.8
Structure in %
1980
1986
7ý.S.
Classification of World Regions and Countries According to Their Performance in Manufacturing
Exports in 1967-86
1973/67
1980/73
1986/80
-0.6
0.5
4.2
UK
France
Italy
-17.8
2.5
2.0
-8.7
-3.0
4.9
-13.1
-4.4
4.4
Japan
15.6
9.0
10.4
Canada
-5.4
-4.3
-3.4
Source:
CEPH, CHELEM data baseon international trade, 1989.
Paris-basedCentred'Etudes Prospectiveset d'Infonnations Internationules.And the organization's data bank, Comples
Harmoniscs sur Ics Echangesct i'cconornic Mondiale (Lafay & Herzog, CIF).
(in 1/1000 parts of world trade)
China
Axiomatics: The Apparatus of Capitalism
196
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