Unflat Ontology: Essay on the Poverty of Democratic Materialism

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to the problem of flat ontology in philosophy and its relation to the practice in economy. The author argues that flat economy is based on a marginal utility theory of value and presents hierarchical value chains with concentration of power-capital as if they were flat and all the actors involved were equal. This is the work of democratic materialism, with its idea of radical equality of human and non-human interactions. This perspective, according to the author, should be opposed by the reconstruction of power-capital relations in unflat ontologies of the value-creation process.