Ontologies of multitude, capital and the digital future: Notes on the margins

Abstract

This article is an extended preamble to the thematic section of the journal devoted to contemporary debates among post-Marxist theorists regarding the transformation of capitalism in the digital age. In tracing the continuity between classical Marxist ideas and contemporary approaches to the analysis of the interdependence of political regimes, economic processes and new technologies, the author pays special attention to the contextual clarifcation of those issues that are discussed in detail in the articles featured into this section.These include: What does the idea about the “liberation of labor” mean in the post-Fordist economy (or, “what's wrong” with the program of full automation of labor within the scenario of the Fourth Industrial Revolution)? How and why has the notion of “multitude” become a useful category of social analysis in post-Marxist theory? Last but not least, under the conditions of the capitalist status quo, can new technologies provide new opportunities not only for those who turn knowledge into yet another kind of commodity, but also for those who, either in theory or in practice, link the prospect of the liberation of knowledge with the “communist hypothesis”.