Axiomatics Redux: between IWC and molecular revolutions
Guest Editors A.T. Kingsmith & Julie Van der Wielen
for Papers
Introduction
“Le Capitalisme Mondial Intégré et la Révolution Moléculaire” is the report of a lecture by Félix Guattari, pronounced in 1980 at a seminar of the CINEL (Centre d’Initiatives pour des Nouveaux Espaces de Libertés, a group of activists composed of intellectuals, artists, workers, politicians, etc.). As Suely Rolnik notes (in Guattari 1981: 225), the group was mainly preoccupied by the violent repression of dissident movements in Europe, notably in Bologna in the late seventies. Ironically, because of its activities, the CINEL was targeted by the police and the judiciary, which even characterized the group as the French branch of a global terrorist network, several of its members being imprisoned or threatened with expulsion. Today, 45 years later, citizens are still suffering brutal repression in several places in the world, and the increasing authoritarianism and militarization of certain countries resonates with some of Guattari’s predictions, for example that the means of repression of the East and West will become more and more similar, and that strange characters would appear on the political scene.
In this text, Guattari expounds the main traits of the contemporary capitalist system and outlines the conditions for resistance and revolution. He already used the term ‘Integrated World Capitalism’ [IWC] in the sixties, as an alternative to ‘globalization’, which seemed too abstract and general to him. In this lecture he systematically expounds its characteristics for the first time, together with his ideas surrounding what would be necessary for struggles of emancipation to oppose it.
This text was first published in Portuguese (1981: 211–226) and Italian (1982: 74–93), then in Spanish (1989 and 2020: 43–68), but it has not yet been translated into English. Furthermore, its reception in France is limited to an abridged version that is now available on various websites, but which was initially published posthumously in 1995 in Le Nouveau Politis, la revue. Given the current sociopolitical situation and the accelerating transformations taking place in the CMI today, particularly due to the constant emergence of new technologies, media, and digital platforms, it seems timely to (re)publish the original text along with as many translations as possible and make them widely accessible.
Félix Guattari’s diagnosis of IWC reads today less as a period-specific analysis and more as a chillingly precise pre-scription for our present. He observed a capitalism that had “already settled all surfaces on the planet” (Guattari, 1995: 91), no longer expansive and colonial but turned inwards, intensifying, becoming an axiomatic. This is not a fixed program but a fluid, reactive set of rules — pragmatic, not dogmatic. It does not collapse in crisis; it mutates, adding a new axiom (a bailout, a financial derivative) or subtracting an old one (a stable job, a social contract). It is an engine that feeds on its own failures – a creature in constant metamorphosis, capable of integrating even that which opposes it.
Forty years on, the map is not only full but hyper-saturated, its lines pulsing with algorithmic traffic and real-time data flows. IWC invests and mobilizes imaginaries, fantasms and desire, and produces not only goods and services, but also consumers that are infantilized and pacified by the media. Guattari’s three movements of IWC have achieved a terrifying precision: the movement of geographic extension that closes in on itself, while inventing a new kind of growth in the intensive markets for affect, attention, and (genetic) code; the deterritorialization that liquefies the factory, the union, the town, making power simultaneously everywhere in the (digital) infrastructure and nowhere in a confrontable form; and the general system of segmentarity, a fractal, active division that sorts human life between the planetary overclass and the multitudes assigned to their zones — the gated community, the platform precariat, the climate refugee camp.
Yet, within this grim cartography, Guattari located the seeds of its potential undoing: the molecular revolution. This is the revolution not of parties and manifestos, but of desire, subjectivity, and the everyday — the queer collective, the hacker space, the mutual aid network, the refusal of the script. The central, ambivalent problem he posed remains ours: How do we link these molecular revolts with the necessary molar struggles to forge a “revolutionary war machine” capable of confronting IWC? The danger is real and historical — as Guattari warned, a molecular opening of desire can flow toward fascism as easily as toward liberation. The failure of the Old Left, often deaf to this chaotic, desiring energy, is a lesson inscribed in recent decades of political re-absorption.
This 19th issue of La Deleuziana seeks to reactivate Guattari’s text as both a symptomatology and an arsenal for forging new weapons. We aim to diagnose the novel pathologies of 21st-century IWC — the production of algorithmic subjectivities, the psychopolitics of platform governance, the necropolitics of sacrifice zones — and to creatively map the emergent lines of flight and resistance. How does the IWC axiomatic function today, in the age of machine learning, generative artificial intelligence, climate breakdown, and planetary computation? What forms does the molecular revolution take against it? And crucially, what new weapons — theoretical, aesthetic, organizational — can we devise, respecting Guattari’s principles of singularity, federation, and diagrammatic (not programmatic) practice?
We invite contributions that engage in this double operation: a rigorous symptomatology of the present through the lens of IWC, and an experimental, constructive search for the tools of a contemporary schizoanalysis.
Lines of work
Contributions are invited that engage deeply with Guattari’s IWC thesis and its contemporary ramifications. We encourage both theoretical interventions and analyses grounded in specific fields, aligned with the journal’s thematic sections. Possible avenues include, but are not limited to:
1. Necessities/Concepts
- What exactly does Guattari mean by ‘axiomatic’? Just like it is the case for the molecular, the axiomatic is a term Guarrari associates both to IWC and to possible new modes of resistance and revolution. Can the role of axioms in mathematics shed some light here? In geometry, an axiomatic method has been applied since Euclid. At the end of the 19th century, the study and construction of non-Euclidean geometries revealed the abstract and to some extent arbitrary nature of axiomatics and showed the relativity or locality of the notion of truth in mathematics. Can and should a similar operation be performed in relation to the capitalist axiomatic?
- For Guattari, the molecular characterizes both IWC and fascism on the one hand, and revolution and resistance to these on the other. So, what does the term ‘molecular’ refer to, and how should we understand its relation to the molar? In what way(s) does the molecular crystallise into the molar and, conversely, how does the molar let out or dissolve into molecular fluxes? Can we shed light on these concepts through eventual prefigurations, for example in Maturana and Varela, Leibniz, Tarde, or Canetti? Can this help us conceive of a dispositive or mode of organization that connects the molecular with molar social struggles?
- More generally, we welcome contributions on prefigurations of the concepts that Guattari uses in ‘IWC and Molecular Revolution’.
- Guattari describes the economy as a semiotic process and calls capital a semiotic category. Inspired by Guattari, Berardi (2009) talks about a ‘semiocapitalism’, which he characterizes as a fusion of media, of information and content, and capital or, in other terms, an economy of semiotic artefacts.). Similarly, Lazzarato (2014) argues that capitalism operates as a ‘semiotic machine,’ functioning through asignifying signs (like algorithms and financial models) that directly produce subjectivities and social relations via ‘machinic enslavement.’ Can we also ascribe a semiotic character to these other economic processes and objects, which do not have anything to do with media and information – especially considering the idea of different regimes of signs? What would this add to theories of capitalism or other economic theories?
- Guattari talks about a ‘resumption of the cybernetic model’. What does he mean by this? What notion or school of cybernetics is he referring to, and how does this relate to his concept of IWC and/or of machinic enslavement?
- Can we connect the molecular revolution (which Guattari opposes to representation, programmes, etc.) to Guattari’s semiotics, which emphasize asignifying processes and signs rather than signification (notably Guattari 2011 [1979] and 1995), and to the affective turn one can witness in the media and political debates, where the emphasis is not on argumentation and clear terminology but on buzzwords, vague allusions (see Mannoni 2024, who associates this with extreme right ideologies, and recognizes this tendency also in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which he translated to French)? Can these connections help us conceive of better strategies for the left? Should the left also follow this trend, in order to be more influential, instead of holding onto old models?
- Like any author, Guattari seems to have changed his use of terms and his emphasis over the years. This is the case regarding his solo works, and of course also in his collaboration with Deleuze. For example, the notions of transversality and of the machine (which in this text is described as a semiotic device) seem to change slightly from Psychoanalysis and Transversality to A Thousand Plateaus, and to respond to different problems. We welcome contributions that address conceptual changes and continuities, both within Guattari himself and in relation to his works with Deleuze, in order to shed light on the concepts that are present in ‘IWC and Molecular Revolution’.
2. Symptomatologies: Closed World(s), Molecular Revolts and the Ambivalence of Desire
- Diagnosing the ‘axiomatic’ and ‘machinic enslavement’ in platform capitalism, algorithmic governance, and financialization.
- The production of subjectivity under digital IWC: dividuals, data-doubles, and affective labour.
- IWC and the three ecologies: the mental, social, and environmental convergences of the polycrisis.
- Geopolitical segmentarity revisited: hyper-capitalist enclaves, sacrifice zones, and new imperial formations.
- The libidinal economy of conspiracy theories, algorithmic fascism, and the far-right as a molecular capture.
- Failures and co-optations: critiques of “woke capitalism,” NGO-ization, and the recuperation of movements.
- Why is Guattari so interested in the notion of the palimpsest? How can it help with our cartographies of the present moment?
3. Forging New Weapons: Principles of a Contemporary War Machine
- Diagrams vs. Programs: Exploring Guattari’s concept of the diagram as an “autopoietic machine” that escapes pre-determined orders and signifying semiotics, and its use as a weapon for “pragmatic cartography” against IWC
- What would it mean to organize resistance axiomatically and why would this be effective or not? What does this add to other conceptions of capital, war, and revolution or resistance, for example by Alliez and Lazzarato (2018), and by Hardt and Negri (2000)?
- Machinic enslavement means we are cogs in the machine of IWC: what does this mean exactly; does this mean we can sabotage this machine, and how?
- Federation vs. Centralization: Experiments in network politics, temporary coalitions, and rhizomatic organization.
- Artistic weapons and asignifying ruptures: The role of art, music, and sonic fiction in destabilizing the axiomatic
- Technological weapons: The promise and peril of crypto, AI, and mesh networks for revolutionary machines.
- Cartographies of contemporary molecular revolutions: from hacktivism and digital commons to queer ecologies and indigenous land defenses.
- Schizoanalytic practices for the 21st century: constructing existentiaŀ territories against the capitalist axiomatic
4. Regions: Translations and Territorializations
- Reflecting on the act of translating Guattari’s text itself — as a political and philosophical intervention across languages and contexts (English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, …).
- Situating IWC in specific regional, social, or political contexts beyond its original framing.
- Guattari associates with IWC, both a tendency towards homogenization and segmentarization. He also mentions a resulting tendency towards installing democracies ‘here’ and dictatorships ‘elsewhere’. Are these contradictory, or how do these relate to each other? Can these associations shed light on the current geo-political situation? What about the increasing tendency to authoritarianism in the West?
This issue aims to be more than a commentary; it is conceived as a collective machine for thinking and acting within and against IWC. We look forward to your contributions.
Sources
Alliez, É. & Lazzarato, M. (2018). Wars and Capital. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Berardi, F. (2009). Precarious rhapsody: Semiocapitalism and the pathologies of the post-alpha generation. Brooklyn: Minor Compositions.
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1973). Capitalisme et schizophrénie 1. L’Anti-Œdipe. Paris: Minuit
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1980). Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2. Mille Plateaux. Paris: Minuit
Genosko, G. (2012). “Introduction: Félix Guattari in the Age of Semiocapitalism” in Deleuze Studies 6.2, p.149-169.
Guattari, F. (1979). L’inconscient machinique: Essais de schizo-analyse. Fontenay-sous-Bois: Recherches.
Guattari, F. (1981). Revolução Molecular: Pulsações políticas do desejo. São Paulo: Brasiliense.
Guattari, F. (1982). Il capitale mondiale integrato. Bologne: Cappelli.
Guattari, F. (1984). Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics. Londres: Penguin.
Guattari, F. (1989). “El capitalismo mundial integrado y la revolución molecular” in Archipiélago: Cuadernos de crítica de la cultura 1, p.84-92.
Guattari, F. (1992). Chaosmose. Paris: Galilée.
Guattari, F. (1995). “Le Capitalisme Mondial Intégré et la révolution moléculaire” in Le Nouveau Politis, la Revue 10, p.91-97.
Guattari, F. (2011). Lignes de fuite. Pour un autre monde de possibles. La Tour-d’Aigues: de l’Aube.
Guattari, F. (2020). “El capitalismo mundial integrado y la revolución molecular” in Las luchas del deseo. Capitalismo, territorio, ecología. Escritos para un encuentro 1990 – 1991. Santiago: Pólvora, p. 43-68.
Hardt, M. & Negri, T. (2000) Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lazzarato, M. (2014). Signs and machines: Capitalism and the production of subjectivity. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Mannoni, O. (2024). Coulée brune, Paris: Héloïse D’ormesson.
Timeline
- Call for Papers published: March 15, 2026
- Submission deadline: July 1, 2026
- Peer review process: July – September 2026
- Revisions due: November 1, 2026
- Final proofs and publication: December 1, 2026
Guidelines
Send the full text (20000 – 50000 characters, spaces included) to [email protected].
Accepted languages: English, Italiano, Français, Español, Português.
Please read our publication rules, evaluation policy and Code of Ethics.
Please do not submit articles without following the editorial rules: they will not be considered. In case of doubts, please contact La Deleuziana.
Calls for Papers
