TOWARDS AN IMMANENT CRITIQUE OF THE ATTENTION ECONOMY Labour, Time, and Power in Post-Fordist Capitalism Claudio Celis Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy School of English, Communication & Philosophy Cardiff University 2015 SUMMARY This thesis develops an immanent critique of the concept of attention economy from the perspectives of labour, time, and power. The attention economy is a notion forged by authors belonging to the field of political economy in order to explain the growing value of human attention in societies characterised by post-industrial modes of production. In a world in which information and knowledge become central to the valorisation process of capital, human attention becomes a scarce and hence increasingly valuable commodity. At the same time, the attention economy turns human attention into a form of labour and hence into a new mechanism of capitalist exploitation. Using a series of contemporary readings of Marx (Postone; Lazzarato; Negri and Hardt; Deleuze and Guattari), this thesis develops a critique which does not simply apply Marxist categories to the object of the attention economy, but which uses the attention economy as a concrete object of analysis for reflecting upon both the validity and the importance of Marx‟s critique of political economy for a critique of contemporary capitalism. In other words, this research suggests that, although the attention economy has indeed turned human attention into a new form of labour, it is only through a systematic reinterpretation of Marx‟s categories that this claim can be fully grasped. This reinterpretation comprises two general aspects. Firstly, this thesis argues that the way in which the attention economy produces and exploits value puts into crisis the traditional category of labour based on an industrial mode of production and which relies solely on abstract labour time as its general equivalent. This calls for an analysis of the labour-value relation from the standpoint of the endogenous transformation of capitalism. Secondly, this thesis suggests that the attention economy operates as a concrete power mechanism which reterritorializes the unleashed productive powers in order to reproduce capital‟s command over human activity. This requires addressing the specific transformations of the diagram of power from disciplinary societies to what Deleuze has defined as societies of control. i TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................ iv ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 1 1. THE CONCEPT OF ATTENTION ECONOMY ..................................................................................... 2 2. THE COGNITIVE CAPITALISM HYPOTHESIS................................................................................... 5 3. TOWARDS AN IMMANENT CRITIQUE .............................................................................................. 9 4. CHAPTER OUTLINE ............................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER ONE THE WORK OF PAYING ATTENTION ........................................................................................................ 16 1. THE ATTENTION ECONOMY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR ...................................... 17 2. WATCHING AS WORKING ................................................................................................................. 21 3. A REINTERPRETATION OF MARX‟S CONCEPT OF LABOUR ..................................................... 27 CHAPTER TWO VALORISING INFORMATION, VALORISING ATTENTION ................................................................. 36 1. THE NOTION OF VALORISING INFORMATION ............................................................................. 41 1.1. THE TECHNICAL AND ORGANIC COMPOSITION OF CAPITAL ........................................ 43 1.2. KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION IN THE VALORISATION PROCESS .......................... 48 2. IMMATERIAL LABOUR AND THE INFORMATIONAL CONTENT OF THE COMMODITY ...... 54 2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF TOYOTISM ................................................................................................. 56 2.2. THE ATTENTION ECONOMY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE VALORISATION PROCESS ................................................................................................................................................... 59 3. THE DECONSTRUCTION OF MARX‟S LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE ....................................... 61 3.1. THE CRISIS OF MEASURABILITY ............................................................................................ 62 3.2. LABOUR, EXPLOITATION AND POWER ................................................................................ 69 ii CHAPTER THREE HYPER-ATTENTION AND THE INDUSTRIALISATION OF TEMPORALITY .................................... 73 1. THE NOTION OF CINEMATIC TIME ................................................................................................. 77 1.1. CINEMA AS A TECHNICAL TEMPORAL OBJECT ................................................................. 79 1.2. FROM DEEP TO HYPER ATTENTION ...................................................................................... 84 2. INDUSTRIALISATION OF SCHEMATISM ........................................................................................ 86 2.1. THE THREE PASSIVE SYNTHESES OF IMAGINATION ........................................................ 88 2.2. STIEGLER‟S REINTERPRETATION OF THE TEMPORALITY OF IMAGINATION ............ 93 3. CINEMATIC TIME AND THE ATTENTION ECONOMY ................................................................. 96 CHAPTER FOUR HUMAN ATTENTION AS MACHINIC SURPLUS LABOUR .................................................................. 102 1. A SOCIAL THEORY OF FLOWS ....................................................................................................... 104 2. LABOUR, VALUE, AND TECHNOLOGY IN ANTI-OEDIPUS........................................................ 109 2.1. THE TENDENCY OF THE RATE OF PROFIT TO FALL ........................................................ 110 2.2. SURPLUS VALUE OF CODE, SURPLUS VALUE OF FLUX ................................................. 112 2.3. MACHINIC SURPLUS VALUE ................................................................................................. 115 3. DESIRING-MACHINES AND THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF SYNTHESES ................................. 119 3.1. LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE USES OF SYNTHESES................................................ 122 3.2. THE THREE PASSIVE SYNTHESES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS ............................................ 124 3.3. PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION, AND CONSUMPTION ....................................................... 126 4. TOWARDS AN IMMANENT CRITIQUE OF THE ATTENTION ECONOMY ............................... 131 CHAPTER FIVE FROM THE PANOPTICON TO THE ATTENTION ECONOMY ............................................................ 137 1. ATTENTION AND POWER: FROM DISCIPLINARY TO CONTROL SOCIETIES ....................... 139 1.1. THE MASS AND THE INDIVIDUAL ........................................................................................ 143 1.2. THE PANOPTICON, THE GAZE, AND THE INDIVIDUAL ................................................... 144 1.3. JONATHAN CRARY‟S GENEALOGY OF MODERN ATTENTION ...................................... 147 2. ATTENTION ECONOMY AND CONTROL SOCIETIES ................................................................. 150 2.1. THE LOGIC OF SECURITY ....................................................................................................... 150 2.2. THE ATTENTION ECONOMY AS AN APPARATUS OF SECURITY .................................. 154 2.3. THE LOGIC OF CONTROL AND THE ATTENTION ECONOMY ......................................... 157 3. MACHINIC ENSLAVEMENT AND SOCIAL SUBJECTION ........................................................... 165 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................. 172 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................. 180 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Peter Sedgwick, for his detailed and patient readings, his guidance, corrections and suggestions, and his always friendly character. Without his commitment, this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of Dr. Marcelo Svirsky, Prof. Chris Weedon, and Dr. Aidan Tynan, all of whom fulfilled different supervisory roles throughout my PhD. I am grateful for their support, their feedback, and their advice. I also appreciate the contribution of fellow PhD students, in particular that of Caleb Sivyer, Marija Grech, and Jernej Markelj. I would like to thank the staff and technicians in the School of English, Communications & Philosophy and the Arts and Social Sciences Library for all their help. I would like to express special gratitude to Rhian Rattray for her kindness and willingness to help with