Critique of the Given and its Other: Surplus Value and Underground Economies

[In the process of forming my reading lists for the qualifying exam, I’ve been led to multiple reflections and, as is to be expected, multiple drafts. I have since moved away from geopolitical economy, becoming more conscious of and interested in, for lack of a better word, the overwhelming power of the established order, what

Society With Non-State Power

  [The Tupinambas; Image from wikimedia] In his provocative Society Against the State, Pierre Clastres draws from his ethnographic work to provide a theory of a society that, rather than developing into the state, operates directly against it. By ‘operating against’ I mean, following Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s reading of Clastres in A Thousand

Dreams of the Ominous Prospect (of Becoming-Lone-Wolf)

[Lone Wolf by Alfred von Kowalski-Wierusz] I guess one can say that there’s a strong, independent streak in me. I hate the schedule that social life forces me to take. I work on my own time, judge my output based on my own standards. I (try to) do the things I want (despite the overwhelming

How is (Wo)Man Turned into an Animal (Under Capitalism)?

[The Prison-Industrial Complex, a work of "revolutionary art" from the Maoist International Movement] Under capitalism, the laborer, because s/he does not own any means of production other than him/herself, sells his/her labor to the capitalist, for which s/he is paid a certain wage. This is the economic production (of the goods we use everyday) that