A Method to the Madness: The Revolutionary Marxist Method of Deleuze and Guattari
Abstract
In this article, Andrew Culp looks to how Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari flip Marxism on its head. He makes the case by drawing on Marx’s own distinction between the dialectical mode of presentation and research-based mode of inquiry that went into writing Capital, which leads him to consult the prefaces and afterwords to Capitalin addition to Marxist feminists who discuss the book’s sensational style. Culp then argues that Deleuze and Guattari’s most significant contribution to Marxism is a methodological one, as found in their critical and clinical anthropology, which outlines the universal history of capitalism (diagrammed by Culp in an included chart). The result, he maintains, frees images of radical change from dialectics, liberal democracy, markets, or production as engines of revolution. In their place, he locates a new critique of political economics based on the destruction of economics itself by way of a revolution of the outside.
References
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Althusser, Louis (2010). For Marx. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: Verso.
Bernstein, Eduard (1909). Evolutionary Socialism. Trans. Edith Harvey. New York: B.W. Hubsch.
Braidotti, Rosi (2009). “On Putting the Active Back into Activism.” New Formations 68: 42–57.
Cleaver, Harry (2000). Reading Capital Politically. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Culp, Andrew (2016). Dark Deleuze. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Cvetkovich, Ann (1992). Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
DeLanda, Manuel (1997). A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York: Zone Books.
DeLanda, Manuel (1998).“Markets and Antimarkets in the World Economy.” Alamut. http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/de_landa/antiMarkets.html
Deleuze, Gilles (1994). Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles (2003). Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Trans. Daniel W Smith. New York: Continuum.
Deleuze, Gilles (2004). “Five Propositions on Psychoanalysis.” In Desert Islands and Other Texts: 1953–1974, 274–80. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1994). What is Philosophy?. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Antonio Negri (1995). “Control and Becoming.” In Negotiations: 1972–1990, trans Martin Joughin, 169–76. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles and Claire Parnet (2007). Dialogues II. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New York: Columbia University Press.
Derrida, Jacques, and François Ewald (1995). “A Certain ‘Madness’ Must Watch Over Thinking.” Educational Theory 45:3: 273–91.
Engels, Friedrich (2010) The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: in the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan [1884]. Trans Alick West. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin–family/index.htm.
Federici, Silvia (2004). Caliban and the Witch. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Fortunati, Leopoldina (1996). Arcane of Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labor and Capital. Trans. Hilary Creek. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Freud, Sigmund (1959). Group Psychology and The Analysis of the Ego. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Inc.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (1996). The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2006). A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Guattari, Félix (2009). “The Best Capitalist Drug.” In Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972–1977, ed. Sylvère Lotringer, trans David L. Sweet, Jarred Becker, and Taylor Adkins, 141–53. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Jameson, Fredric (1984). “Periodizing the 60s.” Social Text 9/10: 178–209.
Harvey, David (2015). Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. London: Profile Books.
Holland, Eugene W. (1999). Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti–Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis. New York: Routledge.
Kautsky, Karl (1910). The Class Struggle. Trans. William. E. Bohn. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co.
Kornbluh, Anna (2010). “On Marx’s Victorian Novel.” Mediations 25:1: 15–37.
Lacan, Jacques (1987). “Impromptu at Vincennes.” Trans. Jeffrey Mehlman. October 40: 116–27.
Lapoujade, David (2017). Aberrant Movements: The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Trans. Joshua David Jordan. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Lorenz, Edward N. (1965). “A Study of the Predictability of a 28–variable Atmospheric Model.” Tellus 17: 321–33.
Marx, Karl (1990a). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1 [1867]. Trans. Ben Fowkes. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1990b). “Preface to the First Edition” [1867]. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1, trans. Ben Fowkes, 89–93. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1990c). “Preface to the French Edition” [1872]. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1, trans. Ben Fowkes, 104. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1990d). “Postface to the Second Edition” [1873]. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1, trans. Ben Fowkes, 94–103. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1998). “Theses on Feuerbach” [1845]. In The German Ideology, 570–74. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels (1998). The German Ideology [1845]. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels (2012). The Manifesto of the Communist Party: A Modern Edition [1848]. Trans. Samuel Moore and Friederich Engels. London: Verso Books.
Minsky, Hyman (1991). “The Transition to a Market Economy: Financial Options,” Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No 66.
Negri, Antonio (1991). Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse. Trans. Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan, and Maurizio Viano, ed. Jim Fleming. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Nietzsche, Fredrich (1979). “Philosopher as Cultural Physician.” In Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870s, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale, 67–76. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanity Books.
Nunes, Rodrigo (2015). “Pack of Leaders: Thinking Organization and Spontaneity with Deleuze and Guattari.” In Occupy: A People Yet to Come, ed. Andrew Conio, 97–124. London: Open Humanities Press.
Pykett, Lyn (2011). The Nineteenth–Century Sensation Novel. Tavistock, Devon: Northcote and the British Council.
Schmitt, Carl (2006). The Nomos of the Earth in the International law of Jus Publican Europaeum. Trans. GL Ulmen. New York: Telos Press.
Smith, Adam (2000). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations [1776]. New York: The Modern Library. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith–adam/works/wealth–of–nations/.
Žižek, Slavoj (2007). “A Leninist Gesture Today: Against the Populist Temptation.” In Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth, eds Sebastian Budgeon, Stathis Kouvelakis, Slavoj Žižek, 74–98. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Zourabichvili, Fraçois (2012). Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event Together With The Vocabulary of Deleuze. Trans. Kieran Aarons, eds. Daniel W. Smith and Gregg Lambert, 1–18. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Althusser, Louis (2010). For Marx. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: Verso.
Bernstein, Eduard (1909). Evolutionary Socialism. Trans. Edith Harvey. New York: B.W. Hubsch.
Braidotti, Rosi (2009). “On Putting the Active Back into Activism.” New Formations 68: 42–57.
Cleaver, Harry (2000). Reading Capital Politically. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Culp, Andrew (2016). Dark Deleuze. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Cvetkovich, Ann (1992). Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
DeLanda, Manuel (1997). A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York: Zone Books.
DeLanda, Manuel (1998).“Markets and Antimarkets in the World Economy.” Alamut. http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/de_landa/antiMarkets.html
Deleuze, Gilles (1994). Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles (2003). Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Trans. Daniel W Smith. New York: Continuum.
Deleuze, Gilles (2004). “Five Propositions on Psychoanalysis.” In Desert Islands and Other Texts: 1953–1974, 274–80. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1994). What is Philosophy?. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Antonio Negri (1995). “Control and Becoming.” In Negotiations: 1972–1990, trans Martin Joughin, 169–76. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles and Claire Parnet (2007). Dialogues II. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New York: Columbia University Press.
Derrida, Jacques, and François Ewald (1995). “A Certain ‘Madness’ Must Watch Over Thinking.” Educational Theory 45:3: 273–91.
Engels, Friedrich (2010) The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: in the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan [1884]. Trans Alick West. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin–family/index.htm.
Federici, Silvia (2004). Caliban and the Witch. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Fortunati, Leopoldina (1996). Arcane of Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labor and Capital. Trans. Hilary Creek. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Freud, Sigmund (1959). Group Psychology and The Analysis of the Ego. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Inc.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (1996). The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2006). A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Guattari, Félix (2009). “The Best Capitalist Drug.” In Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972–1977, ed. Sylvère Lotringer, trans David L. Sweet, Jarred Becker, and Taylor Adkins, 141–53. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Jameson, Fredric (1984). “Periodizing the 60s.” Social Text 9/10: 178–209.
Harvey, David (2015). Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. London: Profile Books.
Holland, Eugene W. (1999). Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti–Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis. New York: Routledge.
Kautsky, Karl (1910). The Class Struggle. Trans. William. E. Bohn. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co.
Kornbluh, Anna (2010). “On Marx’s Victorian Novel.” Mediations 25:1: 15–37.
Lacan, Jacques (1987). “Impromptu at Vincennes.” Trans. Jeffrey Mehlman. October 40: 116–27.
Lapoujade, David (2017). Aberrant Movements: The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Trans. Joshua David Jordan. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Lorenz, Edward N. (1965). “A Study of the Predictability of a 28–variable Atmospheric Model.” Tellus 17: 321–33.
Marx, Karl (1990a). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1 [1867]. Trans. Ben Fowkes. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1990b). “Preface to the First Edition” [1867]. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1, trans. Ben Fowkes, 89–93. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1990c). “Preface to the French Edition” [1872]. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1, trans. Ben Fowkes, 104. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1990d). “Postface to the Second Edition” [1873]. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1, trans. Ben Fowkes, 94–103. New York: Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (1998). “Theses on Feuerbach” [1845]. In The German Ideology, 570–74. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels (1998). The German Ideology [1845]. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels (2012). The Manifesto of the Communist Party: A Modern Edition [1848]. Trans. Samuel Moore and Friederich Engels. London: Verso Books.
Minsky, Hyman (1991). “The Transition to a Market Economy: Financial Options,” Jerome Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No 66.
Negri, Antonio (1991). Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse. Trans. Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan, and Maurizio Viano, ed. Jim Fleming. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Nietzsche, Fredrich (1979). “Philosopher as Cultural Physician.” In Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870s, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale, 67–76. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanity Books.
Nunes, Rodrigo (2015). “Pack of Leaders: Thinking Organization and Spontaneity with Deleuze and Guattari.” In Occupy: A People Yet to Come, ed. Andrew Conio, 97–124. London: Open Humanities Press.
Pykett, Lyn (2011). The Nineteenth–Century Sensation Novel. Tavistock, Devon: Northcote and the British Council.
Schmitt, Carl (2006). The Nomos of the Earth in the International law of Jus Publican Europaeum. Trans. GL Ulmen. New York: Telos Press.
Smith, Adam (2000). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations [1776]. New York: The Modern Library. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith–adam/works/wealth–of–nations/.
Žižek, Slavoj (2007). “A Leninist Gesture Today: Against the Populist Temptation.” In Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth, eds Sebastian Budgeon, Stathis Kouvelakis, Slavoj Žižek, 74–98. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Zourabichvili, Fraçois (2012). Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event Together With The Vocabulary of Deleuze. Trans. Kieran Aarons, eds. Daniel W. Smith and Gregg Lambert, 1–18. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Published
2019-07-13
How to Cite
Culp, A. (2019). A Method to the Madness: The Revolutionary Marxist Method of Deleuze and Guattari. Stasis, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.33280/2310-3817-2019-7-1-158-184
Section
Articles
Copyright (c) 2019 European University at Saint-Petersburg
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