Berardi’s The Soul at Work offers the reader a concise, well-articulated reformulation of the status of alienation in contemporary capitalist culture. At least in so-called Western cultures, the nature of labor has shifted somewhat dramatically over the last century. We have increasingly traded assembly lines for desks, factories for offices, etc. These structural changes, coupled by the shifting political culture of the end of the 20^th century (e.g. the rise of Libertarianism, p. 186) demand a fresh analysis of the nature of alienation.  

The greatest strength of this book is that it manages to update the concept of alienation for contemporary capitalism without being a merely derivative project. Berardi notes that modern capitalist economies are best described as semiocapitalisms (21), or capitalisms that function by producing merely signs or representations. Changes in technology have meant that fewer and fewer individuals spend time physically producing objects that are practical (58). Drawing from Baudrillard, Berardi notes that instead modern capitalism merely produces (and reproduces) simulations.

This shift in the nature of labor necessitates a shift in our thinking about alienation. The divisions between those who control the means of production and those who provide labor remain, but because labor in a semiocapitalist society is increasingly mental labor (as opposed to physical labor), the alienation of labor must itself be reinterpreted. For Marx, alienation meant in part creating a physical object which was controlled by another; or being physically alienated from the product of labor. In a semiocapitalist society however it is one’s ideas, desires, and beliefs, manifest in labor, which are controlled by capitalist economy.

The upshot of this approach to alienation is immense, though one gets the feeling that Berardi only begins to explore its consequences. Berardi notes that one important result is that the alienation of semiocapitalism undermines the possibility of resistance (139). It is no longer external forces (e.g. threat of physical violence) that maintain the oppression of semiocapitalism: we have internally imprisoned ourselves by the imposition of capitalism on human desire (135-136, a tack not unlike Foucault, 1973). As an overly simplistic example, an advertiser’s desire to see her work in print (i.e. appropriated by another) leads her to seek her own alienation. This suggests that the possibility of critique depends upon a radical revision in subjectivity. Berardi makes some suggestion for the role of the aesthetic in promoting consciousness of this alienation (134), but the harder work of developing the method of employing this aesthetic remains to be done.

Of course, some Marxist theorists have already been aware of this need for a critique of contemporary consciousness and have suggested important alternatives. Berardi follows Deleuze and Guattari in adopting a therapeutic approach, though we might also follow Lefebvre (1943/2009) and suggest that a critique of semiocapitalism might also depend on returning to an analysis of the reality of alienation in the everyday lives of those oppressed. If the “soul” oppresses itself under semiocapitalism, it does so only by investing all meaning in the symbolic reality of simulations. Marxist-scientific critique remains, therefore, one way of returning this oppressed symbolic consciousness to the reality of its oppression (see also e.g. Martín-Baró, 1994).

Berardi also notes the ways in which semiocapitalism pathologizes (and medicates) reactions against alienation (207). The increased rates of depression and availability of anti-depressants, Berardi suggests, are an indication of humanity’s resistance to a system of symbolic production that exploits subjectivity. As a result, no medicalization of depression can ever hope to successfully treat the root cause of depression, which lies in the alienated existence of postmodernity. The problem here is striking: treatments for depression cost money and only further demand that people labor under semiocapitalism to afford their medications and therapy. It is a race to the bottom in which exploitation and treatment perpetuate each other indefinitely. Berardi suggests a therapeutic shift towards schizoanalysis, following Deleuze (214-219), which suggests that therapeutics must be an ongoing project of restoring autonomy in the face of capitalism’s control over desire. 

One noteworthy omission from this text is the absence of any consideration of semiocapitalism’s relationship to other capitalisms. While Berardi illustrates the process of alienation in semiocapitalism, these analyses must be tempered by a recognition that cognitive labor is not the norm. While globalization may change this over time, we should recognize that semiocapitalism itself depends upon the more concrete alienation of the physical laborers who provide food (e.g. de Botton, 2009), etc. For semiocapitalism to be parasitic upon the “souls” of human laborers, it must also be parasitic upon the bodies of others to perpetuate the physical existence that underlies the alienation of the soul.   

It may seem peculiar that Berardi chooses to speak of the “soul” as alienated, but this choice is important. Contemporary capitalism is not exploiting bodies in the way that the Industrial Revolution did, nor is it exploiting minds (or subjects) in their totality. Berardi shows that the exploitation of semiocapitalism is directly targeted towards the most central and valued aspects of human subjectivity. As a result, this book is important not only for Marxist scholars, but also for those in mental health fields or simply those who are concerned about the status of labor in an increasingly technological economy.

 

References

Berardi, F. (2009). The Soul at Work: From alienation to autonomy. Los Angeles: Semiotexte.

Foucault, M. (1977/1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House

Lefebvre, H. (1943/2009). Critique of everyday life. Trans. John Moore. London: Verso.

Martín-Baró, I. (1994). Writings for a liberation psychology. Ed. A. Aron and S. Corne. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

 

© 2011 Lucas Keefer

 

Lucas Keefer is currently a graduate student studying philosophy and psychology at Georgia State University. His primary interests include social psychology, phenomenology, and philosophy of mind. He can be reached at lucas.keefer@gmail.com