Capitalism: A Very Special Delirium an interview with Gilles Deleuze and Felix

Guattari in: "Chaosophy", ed Sylvere !othrin"er, Autonomedia#Semiotexte $%%&

with permission 'y the pu'lishers
ACTUEL: When you describe capitalism, you say: "There isn't the slightest operation,
the slightest industrial or financial mechanism that does not reeal the dementia of the
capitalist machine and the pathological character of its rationality !not at all a false
rationality, but a true rationality of "this" pathology, of "this madness", for the machine
does #or$, be sure of it%& There is no danger of this machine going mad, it has been mad
from the beginning and that's #here its rationality comes from& 'oes this mean that after
this "abnormal" society, or outside of it, there can be a "normal" society(
)*LLE+ 'ELEU,E: We do not use the terms "normal" or "abnormal"& All societies are
rational and irrational at the same time& They are perforce rational in their mechanisms,
their cogs and #heels, their connecting systems, and een by the place they assign to the
irrational& -et all this presuposes codes or a.ioms #hich are not the products of chance,
but #hich are not intrinsically rational either& *t's li$e theology: eerything about it is
rational if you accept sin, immaculate conception, incarnation& /eason is al#ays a region
cut out of the irrational 00 not sheltered from the irrational at all, but a region traeresed
by the irrational and defined only by a certain type of relation bet#een irrational factors&
Underneath all reason lies delirium, drift& Eerything is rational in capitalism, e.cept
capital or capitalism itself& The stoc$ mar$et is certainly rational1 one can understand it,
study it, the capitalists $no# ho# to use it, and yet it is completely delirious, it's mad& *t is
in this sense that #e say: the rational is al#ays the rationality of an irrational& +omething
that hasn't been ade2uately discussed about 3ar.'s "Capital" is the e.tent to #hich he is
fascinated by capitalists mechanisms, precisely because the system is demented, yet
#or$s ery #ell at the same time& +o #hat is rational in a society( *t is 00 the interests
being defined in the frame#or$ of this society 00 the #ay people pursue those interests,
their realisation& 4ut do#n belo#, there are desires, inestments of desire that cannot be
confused #ith the inestments of interest, and on #hich interests depend in their
determination and distribution: an enormous flu., all $inds of libidinal0unconscious flo#s
that ma$e up the delirium of this society& The true story is the history of desire& A
capitalist, or today's technocrat, does not desire in the same #ay as a slae merchant or
official of the ancient Chinese empire #ould& That people in a society desire repression,
both for others and "for themseles", that there are al#ays people #ho #ant to bug others
and #ho hae the opportunity to do so, the "right" to do so, it is this that reeals the
problem of a deep lin$ bet#een libidinal desire and the social domain& A "disinterested"
loe for the oppressie machine: 5iet6sche said some beautiful things about this
permanent triumph of slaes, on ho# the embittered, the depressed and the #ea$, impose
their mode of life upon us all&
7: +o #hat is specific to capitalism in all this(
)': Are delirium and interest, or rather desire and reason, distributed in a completely
ne#, particularly "abnormal" #ay in capitalism( * beliee so& Capital, or money, is at
such a leel of insanity that psychiatry has but one clinical e2uialent: the terminal stage&
*t is too complicated to describe here, but one detail should be mentioned& *n other
societies, there is e.ploitation, there are also scandals and secrets, but that is part of the
"code", there are een e.plicitly secret codes& With capitalism, it is ery different: nothing
is secret, at least in principle and according to the code !this is #hy capitalism is
"democratic" and can "publici6e" itself, een in a 8uridical sense%& And yet nothing is
admissable& Legality itself is inadmissable& 4y contrast to other societies, it is a regime
born of the public "and" the admissable& A ery special delirium inherent to the regime of
money& Ta$e #hat are called scandals today: ne#spapers tal$ a lot about them, some
people pretend to defend themseles, others go on the attac$, yet it #ould be hard to find
anything illegal in terms of the capitalist regime& The prime minister's ta. returns, real
estate deals, pressure groups, and more generally the economical and financial
mechanisms of capital 00 in sum, eerything is legal, e.cept for little blunders, #hat is
more, eerything is public, yet nothing is admissable& *f the left #as "reasonable," it
#ould content itself #ith ulgari6ing economic and financial mechanisms& There's no
need to publici6e #hat is priate, 8ust ma$e sure that #hat is already public is beeing
admitted publicly& 9ne #ould find oneself in a state of dementia #ithout e2uialent in the
hospitals& *nstead, one tal$s of "ideology"& 4ut ideology has no importance #hatsoeer:
#hat matters is not ideology, not een the "economico0ideological" distinction or
opposition, but the "organisation of po#er"& 4ecause organi6ation of po#er00 that is, the
manner in #hich desire is already in the economic, in #hich libido inests the economic
00 haunts the e.onomic and nourishes political forms of repression&
7: +o is ideology a trompe l'oeil(
)': 5ot at all& To say "ideology is a trompe l'oeil, " that's still the traditional thesis& 9ne
puts the infrastructure on one side00 the economic, the serious00 and on the other, the
superstructure, of #hich ideology is a part, thus re8ecting the phenomena of desire in
ideology& *t's a perfect #ay to ignore ho# desire #or$s #ithin the infrastructure, ho# it
inests in it, ho# it ta$es part in it, ho#, in this respect, it organi6es po#er and the
repressie system& We do not say: ideology is a trompe l'oeil !or a concept that refers to
certain illusions% We say: there is no ideology, it is an illusion& That's #hy it suits
orthodo. 3ar.ism and the Communist :arty so #ell& 3ar.ism has put so much emphasis
on the theme of ideology to better conceal #hat #as happening in the U++/: a ne#
organi6ation of repressie po#er& There is no ideology, there are only organi6ations of
po#er once it is admitted that the organi6ation of po#er is the unity of desire and the
economic infrastructure& Ta$e t#o e.amples& Education: in 3ay ;<=> the leftists lost a lot
of time insisting that professors engage in public self0criticism as agents of bourgeois
ideology& *T's stupid, and simply fuels the masochistic impulses of academics& The
struggle against the competitie e.amination #as abandoned for the benefit of the
controersy, or the great anti0ideological public confession& *n the meantime, the more
conseratie professors had no difficulty reorgani6ing their po#er& The problem of
education is not an ideological problem, but a problem of the organi6ation of po#er: it is
the specificity of educational po#er that ma$es it appear to be an ideology, but it's pure
illusion& :o#er in the primary schools, that means something, it affects all children&
+econd e.ample: Christianity& The church is perfectly pleased to be treated as an
ideology& This can be argued1 it feeds ecumenism& 4ut Christianity has neer been an
ideology1 it's a ery specific organi6ation of po#er that has assumed dierse forms since
the /oman Empire and the 3iddle Ages, and #hich #as able to inent the idea of
international po#er& *t's far more important than ideology&
?EL*@ )UATTA/*: *t's the same thing in traditional political structures& 9ne finds the
old tric$ being played eery#here again and again: a big ideological debate in the general
assembly and 2uestions of organi6ation resered for special commissions& These
2uestions appear secondary, determinded by political options& While on the contrary, the
real problems are those of organi6ation, neer specified or rationali6ed, but pro8ected
after#ards in ideological terms& There the real diisions sho# up: a treatment of desire
and po#er, of inestments, of group 9edipus, of group "superegos", of pererse
phenomena, etc& And then political oppositions are bilt up: the indiidual ta$es such a
position against another one, because in the scheme of organi6ation of po#er, he has
already chosen and hates his adersary&
7: -our analysis is conincing in the case of the +oiet Union and of capitalism& 4ut in
the particulars( *f all ideological oppositions mas$, by definition, the conflicts of desire,
ho# #ould you analy6e, for e.ample, the diergences of three Trots$yite groupuscules(
9f #hat conflict of desire can this be the result( 'espite the political 2uarrels, each group
seems to fulfill the same function is0a0is its militants: a reassuring hierarchy, the
reconstitution of a small social milieu, a final e.planation of the #orld&&&& * dont't see the
difference&
?): 4ecause any resemblance to e.isting groups is merely fortuitous, one can #ell
imagine one of these groups defining itself first by its fidelity to hardened positions of the
communist left after the creation of the Third *nternational& *t's a #hole a.iomatics, do#n
to the phonological leel 00 the #ay of articulating certain #ords, the gesture that
accompanies them 00 and then the structures of organi6ation, the conception of #hat sort
of relationships to maintain #ith the allies, the centrists, the adersaries&&&& This may
correspond to a certain figure of 9edipali6ation, a reassuring, intangible unierse li$e that
of the obsessie #ho loses his sense of security if one shifts the position of a single,
familar ob8ect& *t's a 2uestion of reaching, through this $ind of identification #ith
recurrent figures and images, a certain type of efficiency that characteri6ed +talinism00
e.cept for its ideology, prescisely& *n other respects, one $eeps the general frame#or$ of
the method, but adapts oneself to it ery carefully: "The enemy is the same, comrades,
but the conditions hae changed&" Then one has a more open groupuscule& *t's a
compromise: one has crossed out the first image, #hilst maintaining it, and in8ected other
notions& 9ne multiplies meetings and training sessions, but also the e.ternal
interentions& ?or the desiring #ill, there is 000 as ,a6ie says00 a certain #ay of bugging
students and militants, among others&
*n the final analysis, all these groupuscules say basically the same thing& 4ut they are
radically opposed in their "style": the definition of the leader, of propaganda, a
conception of discipline, loyality, modesty, and the asceticism of the militant& Ao# does
one account for these polarities #ithout rummaging in the economy of desire of the social
machine( B?rom anarchists to 3aoists the spread is ery #ide, politically as much as
analytically& Without een considering the mass of people, outside the limited range of
the groupuscules, #ho do not 2uite $no# ho# to distinguish bet#een the leftist elan, the
appeal of union action, reolt, hesitation of indifference&&&
9ne must e.plain the role of these machines&& these goupuscules and their #or$ of
stac$ing and sifting00in cr"shing desire& *t's a dilemma: to be bro$en by the social system
of to be integrated in the pre0established structure of these little churches& *n a #ay, 3ay
;<=> #as an astonishing reelation& The desiring po#er became so accelerated that it
bro$e up the groupuscules& These later pulled themseles together1 they participated in
the reordering business #ith the other repressie forces, the C)T CCommunist #or$er's
unionD, the :C, the C/+ Criot policeD& * don't say this to be proocatie& 9f course, the
militants courageously fought the police& 4ut if one leaes the sphere of struggle to
consider the function of desire, one must recogni6e that certain groupuscules approached
the youth in a spirit of repression: to contain liberated desire in order to re0channel it&
7: What is lierated desire( * certainly see ho# this can be translated at the leel of an
indiidual or small group: an artistic creation, or brea$ing #indo#s, bnurning things, or
een simply an orgy or letting things go to hell through la6iness or egetating& 4ut then
#hat( What could a collectiely liberated desire be at the leel of a social group( And
#hat does this signify in relation to t"the totality of society", if you do not re8ect this term
as 3ichel ?oucault does&
?): We hae ta$en desire in one of its most critical, most acute stages: that of the
schi6ophrenic00and the schi6o that can produce something #ithin or beyond the scope of
the confined schi6o, battered do#n #ith drugs and social repression& *t appears to us that
certain schi6ophrenics directly e.press a free deciphering of desire& 4ut no# does one
conceie a collectie form of the economy of desire( Certainly not at the local leel& *
#ould hae a lot of difficulty imagining a small, liberated community maintaining itself
against the flo#s of a repressie society, li$e the addition of indiiduals emancipated one
by one& *f, on the contrary, desire constitutes the ery te.ture of society in its entirety,
including in its mechanisms of reproduction, a moement of liberation can "crystalli6e"
in the #hole of society& *n 3ay ;<=>, from the first spar$s to local clashes, the sha$e0up
#as brutally transmitted to the #hole of society, including some groups that had nothing
remotely to do #ith the reolutionary moement00doctors, la#yers, grocers& -et it #as
ested interests that carried the day, but only after a month of burning& We are moing
to#ard e.plosions of this type, yet more profound&
7: 3ight there hae already been a igorous and durable liberation of desire in hostpry,
apart from brief periods& a celebration, cartnage, #ar, opr reolutionary upheaals( 9r do
you really beliee in an end of history& after millenia of alienation, social eolution #ill
suddenly turn around in a final reolution that #ill liberate desire foreer(
?): 5either the one nor the other& 5either a final end to history, nor proisional e.cess&
All ciili6ations, all periods hae $no#n ends of history00this is not necessarily
conincing and not necessarily liberating& As for e.ce#ss, or moments of celebration, this
is no more reassuring& There are militant reolutionaries #ho feel a sense of
responsibility and say: -es e.cess "at the first stage of reolution," serious things&&& 9r
desire is not liberated in simple moments of celebration& +ee the discussion bet#een
Eictor and ?oucault in the issue of "Les Temps 3odernes" on the 3aoists& Eictor
consents to e.cess, but at the "first stage"& As for the rest, as for the real thing, Eicotr calls
for a ne# apparatus of state, ne# norms, a popular 8ustice #ith a tribunal, a legal process
e.ternal to the masses, a third party capable of resoling contradictions among the
masses& 9ne al#ays finds the old schema: the detachment of a pseude0aant0garde
capable of bringing about syntheses, of forming a party as an embryo of state apparatus,
of dra#ing out a #ell brought up, #ell educated #or$ing class1 and the rest is a residue, a
lumpen0proletariat one should al#ays mistrust !the same old condemnation of desire%&
4ut these distinctions themseles are another #ay of trapping desire for the adantage of
a bureaucratic caste& ?oucault reacts by denounding the third party, saying that if there is
popular 8ustice, it does not issue from a tribunal& Ae sho#s ery #ell that the distinction
"aant0garde0lumpen0proletariat" is first of all a distinction introduced by the bourgeoise
to the masses, and therefore seres to crush the phenomena of desire, to "marginali6e"
desire& The #hole 2uestion is that of state apparatus& *t #ould be strange to rely on a party
or state apparatus for the liberation of desire& To #ant better 8ustice is li$e #anting better
8udges, better cops, better bosses, a cleaner ?rance, etc& And then #e are told: ho# #ould
you unify isolated struggles #ithout a party( Ao# do you ma$e the machine #or$
#ithout a state apparatus( *t is eident that a reolution re2uires a #ar machine, out this
is not a state apparatus, it is also certain that it re2uires an instance of analysis, an
analysis of the desires of the masses, yet this is not an apparatus e.ternal to the synthesis&
Liberated desire means that desire escapes the impasse of priate fantasy: it is not a
2uestion of adapting it, sociali6ing it, disciplining it, but of plugging it in in such a #ay
that its process not be interrupted in the social body, and that its e.pression be collectie&
What counts is not hte authoritarian unification, but rather a sort of infinite spreading:
desire in the schools, the factories, the neighborhoods, the nursery schools, the prisons,
etc& *t is not a 2uestion of directing, of tatali6ing, but of plugging into the same plan of
oscillation& As long as one alternates bet#een the impotent spontaneity of anarchy and the
bureaucratic and hierarchic coding of a party organi6ation, there is no liberation of desire&
7: *n the beginning, #as capitalism able to assume the social desires(
)': 9f course, capitalism #as and remains a formidable desiring machine& The monary
flu., the means of production, of manpo#er, of ne# mar$ets, all that is the flo# of desire&
*t's enough to consider the sum of contingencies at the origin of capitalism to see to #hat
degree it has been a crossroads of desires, and that its infrastructure, een its economy,
#as inseparable from the phenomnea of desire& And fascism too00one must say that it has
"assumed the social desires", including the desires of repression and death& :eople got
hard0ons for Aitler, for the beautiful fascist machine& 4ut if your 2uestion means: #as
capitalism reolutionary in its beginnings, has the industrial reolution eer coincided
#ith a social reolution( 5o, * don't thing so& Capitalism has been tied from its birth to a
saage repressieness1 it had it's organi6ation of po#er and its state apparatus from the
start& 'id capitalism imply a dissolution of the preious social codes and po#ers(
Certainly& 4ut it had alread established its #heels of po#er, including its po#er of state,
in the fissures of preious regimes& *t is al#ays li$e that: things are not so progressie1
een before a social formation is established, its instruments of e.ploitation and
repression are already there, still turning in the accuum, but ready to #or$ at full
capacity& The first capitalists are li$e #aiting birds of prey& They #ait for their meeting
#ith the #or$er, the one #ho drops through the crac$s of the preceding system& *t is een,
in eery sense, #hat one calls primitie accumulation&
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