At The New Inquiry, Uriah Marc Todoroff interviews Erin Manning and Brian Massumi, “anti-capitalist philosophers” based in Montreal who are using blockchain technology to develop a decentralized, internet-based network of economic and social exchange. Influenced by the work of Félix Guattari, Manning and Massumi aim to create a network that is “parasitic” on neoliberal capitalism while nonetheless operating by a different logic. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
MASSUMI.— Going back to the question of value, we want to create an economy around the platform that does not follow any of the usual economic principles. There will be no individual ownership or shares. There will be no units of account, no currency or tokens used internally. The model of activity will not be transactional. Individual interest will not be used as an incentivizer. What there will be is a complex space of relation for people to create intensities of experience together, in emergent excess over what they could have created working separately, or in traditional teams. It’s meant to be self-organizing, with no separate administrative structure or hierarchy, and even no formal decision-making rules. It’s anarchistic in that sense, but through mobilizing a surplus of organizing potential, rather than lacking organization. You could also call it communistic, in the sense that there is no individual value holding. Everything is common.
Image of Félix Guattari via rebeldemule.org.