Micro-politics: Anti-Oedipus and the wall of ultra-liberalism

Abstract

Context

Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus series has shaped several generations of radical left political thought, promoting an accelerationist understanding of revolutionizing capitalism. Despite the lasting influence of the concepts developed in this work, the changing dynamics of capitalist social life, particularly increasing social and institutional fragmentation, have called the core itinerary of these concepts and their application to political struggle into serious question.

Objective

This paper critically examines the theoretical presuppositions that drove the Anti-Oedipus series, with particular focus on the first volume, and asks whether the repertoire of concepts developed in this work remain relevant to the contemporary left.

Method

After an investigation that focuses on the movement away from a Marxist-centered praxis and understanding of capitalism in Anti-Oedipus, an analysis of the conception of the “Oedipal form” is presented and critiqued with reference to a wide range of post-Lacanian political thinkers.

Results

Anti-Oedipus has made a tremendous influence on the theoretical understanding of today's anti-capitalist left. Its concepts have been adopted in two main ways on the contemporary left: a radical abolitionist politics of opacity and a new form of left-accelerationist utopian socialism.

Interpretations

These two tendencies of political thought are critically analyzed and diagnosed as inadequate to facing the political and social challenges of our time, but they remain nonetheless important intellectual tendencies for understanding the ideological makeup of today's left.