Practical implications-Mapping the categories is useful pedagogically, and makes other political interventions possible, for example interventions between groups and social movements whose practice-based ontologies differ vastly. Approaches cluster in six distinct sets, each with different paradigmatic assumptions. Findings-The growing social role of robots portends unknown, and maybe radical, changes, but there is no single human perspective from which this shift is conceived. Axis two contains the parameters utopian/optimist tactical/processual and dystopian/pessimist, depending on the construed potential for using new technologies for empowering ends. Assemblage theorists draw on posthumanism and poststructuralism, maintaining that humans always exist within assemblages which also contain non-human forces. Humanists draw on the idea of a human essence of creative labour-power, and treat machines as alienated and exploitative form of this essence. Axis one contains the parameters humanist-assemblage.
Design/methodology/approach-The paper proposes a two-way axis to map theories into to a six-category typology. The aim is to provide a map to navigate complex debates on the potential for technology to be used for emancipatory purposes and to plot the grounds for tactical engagements. The focus is on debates surrounding emerging industrial technologies which contribute to making the relationship between humans and machines more symbiotic and entangled, such as robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. Drawing on the writings of a surprising range of classic and contemporary theorists, Wark offers an illuminating overview of the contemporary condition and the emerging class forces that control-and contest-it.Purpose-This paper maps utopian theories of technological change. So how do we find a way out? Capital Is Dead offers not only the theoretical tools to analyze this new world, but ways to change it. The new ruling class uses the powers of information to route around any obstacle labor and social movements put up. While techno-utopian apologists still celebrate these innovations as an improvement on capitalism, for workers-and the planet-it's worse. Even Walmart and Nike can now dominate the entire production chain through the ownership of not much more than brands, patents, copyrights, and logistical systems. And it's not just tech companies like Amazon and Google. Through the ownership and control of information, this emergent class dominates not only labour but capital as traditionally understood as well. In this radical and visionary new book, McKenzie Wark argues that information has empowered a new kind of ruling class. It's not capitalism, it's not neoliberalism - what if it's something worse?
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