An Autonomist Marcuse?

Abstract

This essay examines key Marcusean themes through the lens of Italian (post-)autonomist thinker Franco “Bifo” Berardi. Bifo criticizes Marcuse’s argument that repressed “authentic” human qualities need to be “liberated” to bring about universal human happiness, because what Bifo calls “semiocapitalism”—global capitalism in the age of digital networks, financialization, and computerization—effectively “subsumes” desires and libidinal energies vis-à-vis the production, circulation, and consumption of “info-commodities.” Yet Bifo also glosses over Marcuse’s anticipations of certain post-autonomist ideas, such as Marcuse’s use of Marx’s Grundrisse (an iconic text for the autonomist and post-autonomist traditions) and his evocation of the “general intellect” in One-Dimensional Man, as well as the theorization of the subsumption of desire via what Marcuse termed “repressive desublimation.” Bifo’s criticisms, as well as unanticipated congruences between Marcuse and autonomist thought, none of which have been addressed in the extant literature, thus constitute this essay’s central focus.