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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accelerationism | 7/9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:56:05.593251+00:00 | kb-cron |
Left-wing accelerationism (or left-accelerationism) is espoused by figures such as Nick Srnicek, Alex Williams, Ray Brassier, Reza Negarestani, and Peter Wolfendale. Fluss and Frim characterize it as seeking "to accelerate past capitalism by democratizing productive technologies". Left-accelerationism draws upon the work of Mark Fisher, particularly his hauntology, with Trafford and Wolfendale stating "It was Mark Fisher who initially proposed to take back the term [accelerationism] as a name for an active political project, developing themes from his work with the CCRU in an explicitly egalitarian and anti-capitalist direction." Noys characterizes Fisher as seeking to grasp unrealized cultural possibilities of the past to construct a better future against a stagnant neoliberal culture, while Gamez considers his hauntology to be a critique of Land in finding capitalism to be unable to deliver a promised future, leaving only unrealized imaginaries. Fisher, writing on his blog k-punk, had become increasingly disillusioned with capitalism as an accelerationist, citing working in the public sector in Blairite Britain, being a teacher and trade union activist, and an encounter with Žižek, whom he considered to be using similar concepts to the CCRU but from a leftist perspective. At the same time, he became frustrated with traditional left wing politics, believing they were ignoring technology that they could exploit. Noys notes Fisher's essay "Terminator vs Avatar" as an example of his "cultural accelerationism". Here, Fisher claimed that while Marxists criticized Libidinal Economy for asserting that workers enjoyed the upending of primitive social orders, nobody truly wants to return to those. Therefore, rather than reverting to pre-capitalism, society must move through and beyond capitalism. Fisher praised Land's attacks on the academic left, describing the academic left as "careerist sandbaggers" and "a ruthless protection of petit bourgeois interests dressed up as politics." He also critiqued Land's interpretation of Deleuze and Guattari, stating that while superior in many ways, "his deviation from their understanding of capitalism is fatal" in assuming no reterritorialization, resulting in not foreseeing that capitalism provides "a simulation of innovation and newness that cloaks inertia and stasis." Citing Fredric Jameson's interpretation of The Communist Manifesto as "see[ing] capitalism as the most productive moment of history and the most destructive at the same time", he argued for accelerationism (in terms of the 1970s French thinkers) as an anti-capitalist strategy, criticizing the left's moral critique of capitalism and their "tendencies towards Canutism" as only helping the narrative that capitalism is the only viable system. In another article on accelerationism, Fisher stated "the revolutionary path is the one that allies with deterritorialising forces of modernisation against the reactionary energies of reterritorialisation", arguing that while there is no outside from capitalism, very little necessarily belongs to capitalism; potentials restricted under capitalism could be actualized under different conditions.
Srnicek befriended Fisher, sharing similar views, and the 2008 financial crisis, along with dissatisfaction with the left's "ineffectual" response of the Occupy protests, led to Srnicek co-writing "#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics" with Williams in 2013. They posited that capitalism was the most advanced economic system of its time, but has since stagnated and is now constraining technology, with neoliberalism only worsening its crises. At the same time, they considered the modern left to be "unable to devise a new political ideological vision" as they are too focused on localism and direct action and cannot adapt to make meaningful change. They advocated using existing capitalist infrastructure as "a springboard to launch towards post-capitalism", taking advantage of capitalist technological and scientific advances to experiment with things like economic modeling in the style of Project Cybersyn. They also advocated for "collectively controlled legitimate vertical authority in addition to distributed horizontal forms of sociality" and attaining resources and funding for political infrastructure, contrasting standard leftist political action which they deem ineffective. Moving past the constraints of capitalism would result in a resumption of technological progress, not only creating a more rational society but also "recovering the dreams which transfixed many from the middle of the Nineteenth Century until the dawn of the neoliberal era, of the quest of Homo Sapiens towards expansion beyond the limitations of the earth and our immediate bodily forms." They expanded further in Inventing the Future, which, while dropping the term "accelerationism", pushed for automation, reduction and distribution of working hours, universal basic income and diminishment of work ethic. Steven Shaviro compared Srnicek and Williams' proposal to Jameson's argument that Walmart's use of technology for product distribution may be used for communism. Shaviro also argued that left-accelerationism must be an aesthetic program before a political one, as failing to explore the possibilities of technology via fiction could result in the exacerbation of existing capitalist relations rather than Srnicek and Williams' desired repurposing of technology for socialist ends. Fisher praised the manifesto, characterizing the "folk politics" that Srinicek and Williams criticized as neo-anarchist and lacking previous left-wing ambition. Tiziana Terranova's "Red Stack Attack!", compiled in #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, references the manifesto in analyzing Benjamin H. Bratton's model of the stack, proposing the "Red Stack" as "a new nomos for the post-capitalist common." Land rebuked their ideas in a 2017 interview with The Guardian, stating "the notion that self-propelling technology is separable from capitalism is a deep theoretical error."