Theory

By Kerstin Stakemeier & Marina Vishmidt.

Mute Books, May 2016.

Progress in autonomy cannot be – nor historically has it ever been – measured in quantitative units. Rather, the need for autonomy is repositioned in relation to society’s political, economic, and cultural developments on an ongoing basis. ISBN paperback: 978-1-906496-99-9

Srnicek & Williams’ Inventing the Future proposes a forces-of-production-based programme leading to guaranteed basic income. But do the wageless workers of an already automated and accelerated world really need this new revolutionary ABC? De-Arrest Editorial Services checks out the wares of competing brands of rocket men, left and right, and urges wholesale product recall

How can ‘solidarity’ be possible in and against the objective conditions that divide us? K. Aarons distinguishes the afropessimist position from the politics of symbolic valorisation or integration, and argues that it is not simply at odds with, but is in fact hostile to identity and privilege politics – whether Black or non-Black. It is the thought and practice of self-abolition that can hope to overcome the present anti-Black structure of humanity.