Paolo Virno and Karl Marx

Monday January 13, 2020 6-8 pm

Harold Washington Library

6th Floor North Study Room

For this session we will read Marx’s “Fragment on Machines” from the “Grundrisse” and Paolo Virno’s “General Intellect” related to the fragment, intellectuality, contemporary capitalism, and democracy. Join us.

“As part of the Historical Materialism research stream on immaterial labour, cognitive capitalism and the general intellect, begun in issue 15.1, this articles explores the importance of the expression ‘general intellect’, proposed by Marx in the Grundrisse, for an analysis of linguistic and intellectual work in contemporary capitalism. It links the notion of general intellect to the crisis of the law of value, the political significance of mass intellectuality, and the definition of democracy in a world where knowledge is a productive force in its own right.” – Abstract by Virno

Texts:
Virno’s General Intellect: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11f1eFvWNEPuZBa8LL7xP7xzhBlX7VpAZ/view?usp=sharing

Marx’s Fragment on Machines: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OYrunFDkiyLqHWDzHVX-_b9_0vEYsEzQ/view?usp=sharing