Marx’s general intellect can empower capital’s appropriation of social life, not only liberate workers.

Evidence

Autonomists draw on Marx’s early notebooks and single out his comments there about the role that human beings’ general productive and creative capacity (the “general intellect”) can play in the development of capitalism (for a more popular version of this argument, see Mason, Postcapitalism, 164–67). Autonomists propose that, as humans become increasingly part of the social factory, particularly online, they become able to turn their creativity against capitalism. But Marx’s words even in the Grundrisse were more ambiguous: “The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it” (Grundrisse, 706, emphasis added). If by “the general intellect” we mean the organizational and creative power within capitalism (think of Google’s leadership), then Marx’s comment allows for a radically different conclusion from that which the Autonomists draw: “the general intellect” might be the means for capitalism to appropriate social life. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 794

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the data colonialism debate’s core claim that the autonomy of user creativity is itself absorbed into platform value extraction — a rival framing to the attention/surveillance school. — connects to: Marx’s organic composition of capital extends to the organic composition of individuals — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2313; Workers internalize capitalist values and accept precarity as deserved — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 63; Capital is a social relation conferring extractive power, not just machinery — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 792 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the exact Grundrisse passage and Postone’s re-reading of Marx on commodification of social life — a fuller account would strengthen the case against Autonomist optimism.

Broader Connections

• Marx’s organic composition of capital extends to the organic composition of individuals #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2313
• Marx identified industrial workers as the class certain to destroy capitalism. #complicates (0.80)
• Workers internalize capitalist values and accept precarity as deserved #corroborates (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 63
• Capital is a social relation conferring extractive power, not just machinery #expands (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 792
• Late capitalist life forces individuals to identify with the power that oppresses them #corroborates (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 116