Cognitive Capitalism and Contemporary Politics: A World Historical Perspective

The recent upsurge of class struggle seemingly confirms the cognitive capitalism hypothesis and, particularly, the political predictions of Hardt and Negri. Using world-systems analysis as a heuristic device to facilitate comparison of Egypt's Arab Spring Revolt and Occupy Wall Street reveals complexities that belie these conclusions. The "cognitariat" and "multitude" are not uncomplicated revolutionary actors but fragmented and politically ambiguous forces. Revolutionary subjectivity is not a structural fact to be read off material conditions but remains a political project to be realized through collective struggle. Meanwhile, the ideological and practical appropriation of antiauthoritarian and antistatist impulses by neoliberal forces poses the question of the passive revolution, wherein the hegemonic center blunts and overtakes revolutionary movements by incorporating some of their elements. Cognitive capitalism does not appreciate these complexities, and this undermined the full development of the contemporary cycle of struggles.