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Hypercapitalism

A Political Economy of Informational Idealism

University of Queensland

In this article I identify specific historical trajectories that are directly contingent upon the deployment and use of new media, but that are actually hidden by a focus on the purely technological. They are: the increasingly abstract and alienated nature of economic value; the subsumption of all labour — material and intellectual — under systemic capital; and the convergence of formerly distinct spheres of analysis — the spheres of production, circulation and consumption. This article examines the implications of the knowledge economy from an historical materialist perspective. I synthesize the systemic views of Marx (1846 [1972], 1875 [1972], 1970, 1973, 1976, 1978, 1981), Adorno (1951 [1974], 1964 [1973], 1991), Horkheimer and Adorno (1947 [1998]), Jarvis (1998) and Bourdieu (1991, 1998) to argue for a language-focused approach to new media research and suggest aspects of Marxist thought which might be useful in researching emergent socio-technical domains. I also identify specific categories in the Marxist tradition which may no longer be analytically useful for researching the effects of new media.

Key Words: Adorno • hypercapitalism • knowledge economy • Marx

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