Camatte’s ‘domestication of humanity’ is the theoretical core of the Corpocene concept.

Evidence

The broad internalization of the logic of capital as the foundations for subjectivity and sociality has led to what the Marxist theorist Jacques Camatte terms “the domestication of humanity,” the process that “comes about when capital constitutes itself as a human community.” It “starts out with the fragmentation and destruction of human beings, and the final outcome is that capital is anthropomorphized.” Capital today, Camatte tells us, has escaped; it has become autonomous, beyond control of the bourgeoisie—that is, the capitalists who try to master it—exercising domination over all human life. Capital typically appears as a set of contingent but reified social relations—meaning, while capitalism seems to characterize most of social life, there are many moments that seem to be beyond capitalism, at least partially. But today, Camatte suggests, these moments seem to be more difficult to find, as capital appears as social, communal existence as such. Or, we suggest, we can see this “escape” of capital in influencer culture when capital appears as people. For Camatte, capital today grounds the very possibilities of being social, and to imagine another world requires rethinking, even abandoning, much of what we imagine to be fundamental social relations. In influencer culture, we can see shimmers of the autonomy of capital, of its existence as that which substitutes for and remakes community. The Corpocene, the ultimate concept this book will propose, describes this moment, in which the object we identify with is capital itself—diversified, distributed, and conglomerated. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 51

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Corpocene via Camatte: capital that has escaped, become autonomous, anthropomorphized as people.
• XREF: The ‘capital appears as people’ inversion connects to the reader’s existing puzzle: corporate personhood granting companies the rights of people now mirrored by people taking the form of companies.
• DEEPTHINKING: Camatte’s claim that capital has ‘escaped’ beyond the control of the bourgeoisie and remakes community itself is a dense, paradigm-shifting analysis worth prolonged sitting with.